GEN110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Circumcision Controversies, Consciousness Raising, Foreskin
8 May 2018
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Lecture Week 1
• The #metoo movement
• Does thinking that people shouldn’t be sexually assaulted make them a feminist?
• Attitudes about gender and consent have changed over time- until after the 1990s it wasn’t
acceptable for women to enthusiastically say yes
• In 2017 the NY Times employed a special editor to cover gender issues
• Dedicated specialist to oversee the growth of reporting gender issues
• Gender is a defining theme of our age
• #metoo and #timesup
• Significant wave of feminist awareness
• Harvey Weinstein
• Journalists are making examples of prominent people oppressing women
• Consciousness raising in the 1970s, and now
o E.g. the #metoo movement
o Safety in numbers
• Gender and racial diversity in the workplace leads to greater productivity (equals greater
profits)
• Society changes for profit more often than ethics
• Topics and framework
• Development of gender studies since the 1970s
• Built over many years through the interaction between social movements, society, culture and
scholarship
• Rihanna video: Bitch Better Have my Money
o Different interpretations people can bring to a text (e.g. Rihanna video)
o BBHMM vs Bad Blood (criticism vs no criticism)
o Taylor Swift can do female violence but Rihanna can’t???
o Feminism- is there a sisterhood?
o White women have contributed to and participated in a system that they get benefit
from at the expense of women of colour (hierarchy)
o Barbados- slavery existed. People did work and were not paid for it
o Uses contemporary language to reference the history
• Amy Schumer birth control video
o Autonomy, reproductive rights
• Intactivism
• Circumcision clip
o Became common in order to prevent masturbation
o “it’s cleaner” not true
o Foreskin is important in sex
o 19th century is really important in terms of modern ideas about gender roles, sexual
roles, sexual orientation, etc.
o Religious practice is okay!
• Tomato or barbecue sauce
o Gay and lesbian civil rights fight since the 1970s
• Proud to be clip
o Not just looking at binary gender but the whole spectrum
o It’s actually an ad for YouTube
• Is gender made or born?
• My answer vs the readings
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find more resources at oneclass.com
