PHIL 2610 - Test 2

Question 1

What was the Combahee River Collective involved in?

Answer 1

The collective was involved in a process of:
1. Doing political work within the group and in coalition
2. “Defining and Clarifying” their politics

Note:
Political action leads to reflection, which leads back to political action.

Question 2

What is the general fruit of the collective’s political action and reflection?

Answer 2

“we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking.”

Question 3

Explain the genesis of black feminism flowchart?

Answer 3

Experiences:
- Racism and Elitism within the Second-wave Women’s Movement
- Sexism within movements for black liberation and within the white male left

lead to…
- Consciousness-raising, life-sharing leads to a realization of common experiences
- Awareness of economic situation (internal disagreements)
- Lesbian identity of some of the members (internal disagreements)

and ultimately..
- Antiracist, antisexist, anti-heterosexist, and anti-classist theory and politics

Question 4

Foundational beliefs of black feminism

Answer 4

• Black women’s need for personal autonomy
• The necessity to be recognized as humans
• A realization that black women must work for their own liberation
• Solidarity both with women and black men – no ‘separatism’ for separatism negates the facts of race and class
• Socialism, but not socialism alone: the socialist revolution must also be a feminist and antiracist revolution (in accordance with the interlocking nature of oppressions)

Question 5

The personal is political

Answer 5

moving beyond white women’s revelations
to delve into the “cultural and experiential nature of our oppression”. Analyzing and critically sharing the personal leads to important social and political insight

Question 6

Bird cage metaphor & intersectionality

Answer 6

• wires of the bird cage are intersections
• clear that you are encaged since there are many restrictions

Question 7

Obstacles to Black Feminist Theory and Practice

Answer 7

Obstacles to black feminist organizing are partly due to the interlocking nature of the oppressions it faces:
- A whole range of oppressions means that the black women of the collective have very few privileges: no racial, sexist, heterosexist, or class privilege
- But the interlocking oppressions also take a psychological toll on black women, as well as a feeling of isolation

Question 8

How is feminism threatening?

Answer 8

• Threatening to black men because it undermines power relationships within black households and ‘divides’ the black movement
• Threatening to black women because they cannot risk struggling against both racism and sexism, given the material conditions they often find themselves in.

Question 9

Audre Lorde: The Master’s Tools Will Never
Dismantle the Master’s House (1979)

Answer 9

• master = racist patriarchy
• masters tools = defining, homogenizing methods
  of analysis, that ignore the specific experience black women have of difference and interlocking oppressions.
• accompanied by: evasion of responsibility and keeping the oppressed occupied (educating white women)

Question 10

Kimberle Crenshaw: “Mapping the Margins:
Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence
Against Women of Color” (1991)

Answer 10

When the practices expound identity as women
or person of color as an either/or proposition,
they relegate the identity of women of color to a
location that resists telling.

Notes:
- lack of intersectional approach leaves black women w/o their claims being heard
- institutions do not have lanugage to treat or interact with people in a proper manner - outdated laws or loopholes

Question 11

What are the three types of intersectionality?

Answer 11

1. Structural intersectionality
   - structures of law are set up so that women at the intersection face more difficult cases than those not at the intersection
   - trauma of divorce & deportation, or lack of supports and no safety net unlike white middle class women
2. Political intersectionality
   - experiences of black men determine antiracist strategies (threatening to reinforce racial stereotypes within communities)
   - experiences of white women determine feminist strategies (experience of violence by minority women is
   ignored, except to the extent it gains white
   support for domestic violence programs in the
   white community)
3. Representation intersectionality
   - production of images of women of color and the contestations over those images tend to ignore the intersectional interests of women of color
   - ie: analysis of 2 Live Crew and in the name of black culture has portrayal of their women as very degrading

Question 12

Regarding political intersectionality, explain case studies regarding rape.

Answer 12

• Antirape legislation and rulings often reinforce the good woman/bad woman dichotomy. They do not challenge underlying assumptions of the ‘promiscuous’ Black woman
• Antiracist critiques of antirape law tend to focus on the demonization of Black male sexuality. The rape of Black women by white men is couched in terms of an assault on black manhood
• Black women who are raped by Black men are often vilified within their own communities and subject to victim blaming, even by other Black women.
• Crenshaw sees this as a reflex which seeks to conceal women’s vulnerability

Notes:
- rape used to degrade and dehumanize men of the culture (women seen as trophy, property a sign of the future of the culture so if she is raped, it is a threat against community)
- humiliation through inability to protect women
- rape cases brought up by black women often dismissed, suggesting layers of discrimination affecting Judges based on stereotypes

Question 13

Reflection on ‘being from a different planet’ - do you agree that understanding the opposite sex is sometimes similar?

Answer 13

• dependant on social norms
• labor differences in men and women
• children not socialized to see difference until later on (girl-boyfriend dynamics change as you get older)
• women read the room better than men via better developed social emotional skills and or empathy
• mansplaining

Question 14

Are there fundamental differences in thinking between women and men? If so where do these differences come from?

Answer 14

• yes, via nurture or socialization
• w/o socialization you cannot raise children w/o effect of culture (children assuming gender roles even if raised w/o gender being topical concern in household)
• giving choice to children rather than conforming to present notions
• w/o caregiver they experience identity crisis

Question 15

(biological) gender essentialism or biological determinism about gender

Answer 15

If you think that gender differences are (largely) determined directly by biologically different natures or essences

Question 16

Gayle Rubin (1975)

Answer 16

was one of the first feminists to employ the notion as a template for understanding the way biology is socially and normatively interpreted. But many similar ideas are already present in de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.

Question 17

Sex/gender distinction by Hay

Answer 17

• Sex has to do with your reproductive organs; it’s
  what we as a species share in common with all other animals that come in a male and female variety. (Most obviously: penises and vaginas.)
• Gender has to do with how we socially complex humans respond to these biological realities.
• This is sometimes captures in the slogan ‘Gender is the Social Interpretation of Sex.’ And our culture has some
  very definite ideas about what this social interpretation is supposed to consist of.

Question 18

Hegels contriversial statement about women

Answer 18

Men correspond to animals, while women correspond to plants … When women hold the helm of government, the state is at once in jeopardy, because women regulate their actions not by the standards of universality but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions

Question 19

Carol Gilligan: In a Different Voice (1982)

Answer 19

• Gilligan maintains ‘difference’ and defends its value
• Her ideas inspired many feminists to develop various,
  ‘feminine’ approaches to ethics, politics, and
  epistemology

Note:
- feminine in sense that emotions, empathy and caring abilities are just as important as rational thinking and characterized male traits

Question 20

Lawrence Kohlberg presents a theory of moral development based on empirical studies (1981). Explain it.

Answer 20

The model is a six-stage model in three phases: pre-conventional (child), conventional (pre-teenage), and post-conventional (adulthood)

Kohlberg tested only males. When including females, later studies found that they tended not to ‘progress’ as far as males. Suggests that women are less morally mature.

Question 21

Kohlbergs assumptions.

Answer 21

• Men provide the ‘template’ for human development in
  general (androcentric assumption)
• One can make generalizations from a small sample
  (statistical bias)
• A rather simplistic view of moral discernment (Kohlberg
  was influence by Kantian Ethics in which acting ‘from duty’ was the highest form of moral attainment).

Question 22

Nancy Chodorow: A Developmental Theory of
Gender Difference

Answer 22

• Gilligan initially claims that ‘Care Thinking’ just happens to be more prevalent among women (perhaps due to socialization)
• But she often implies that ‘Care Thinking’ is a characteristic result of female development, invoking the work of the psychoanalyst Nancy Chodorow
• Chodorow In a (very small) nutshell: The need for ‘separation’ from the female primary caregiver produces in males a more ‘distanced’, ‘objectivizing’ approach to the world

Question 23

Impacts of Gillans ideas on philosophy

Answer 23

• to ask about the role of emotions in ethics and politics
• to query the traditional ideal of the autonomous,
  independent individual
• to investigate the role of ‘being situated’, and of context in ways of knowing reality

Question 24

What are three concerns with Gillans ideas.

Answer 24

1. The ways of thinking Gilligan claims to identify are not as distinct as she and her followers thought
   - Care and Justice are not necessarily mutually exclusive (recall Amy’s response to the Heinz dilemma. She seems to be quite adamant that one should never steal)
   - Rights and obligations go hand-in-hand; Principles can only be applied by looking at context
   - “Close connections” can be detrimental to ethical behavior
2. Finding a way of thinking to be common among women is not necessarily a reason to endorse that way of thinking
   - Women’s thinking may be distorted by socialization and subordination (It may, for example, be the result of ‘false consciousness’ or ‘adaptive preferences’)
   - it may be simply the attitude of the powerless (if not innate, it should be changed)
3. Gilligan’s claims serve (however unintentionally) to
   perpetuate damaging stereotypes of women

Question 25

Empirical Research on Gender Differences

Answer 25

• Whether one adopts a ‘care ethic’ or a ‘justice ethic’ seems to depend more on level of education
• Both men and women will adopt a ‘care ethic’ when presented with moral issues involving personal relationships. However, when asked to give examples of moral dilemmas, women do tend to focus on human
  relationships more than men (But why do they do this?)

Question 26

Lugones and Spelman (more on intersectionality)

Answer 26

• A ‘woman’s voice’ has often been the white, middle-class, straight woman of Western society. It is her voice that emerged first in the academy, in journalism, in the professions. It was her voice that set the ‘feminist agenda’. The ‘other voices’ of women are slienced.
• We and you do not talk the same language. When we talk to you we use your language: the language of your experience and of your theories. We try to use it to communicate our world of experience. But since your language and your theories are inadequate in expressing our experiences, we only succeed in communicating our experience of exclusion
• if white/Anglo women are to understand our voices, they must understand our communities and us in
  them. Again, this is not to suggest that you set out to make friends with our communities, though you may become friends with some of the members, nor is it to suggest that you should try to befriend us for the
  purpose of making theory with us. The latter would be a perversion of friendship. Rather, from within friendship you may be moved by friendship to undergo the very difficult task of understanding the text of our cultures by understanding our lives in our communities. This learning calls for circumspection, for questioning of yourselves and your roles in your own culture.

Question 27

Are there necessary conditions for counting
someone as a woman in Western Society?

Answer 27

• yes/no, its a concept pushed historically over time onto a specific body
• women as culumuative concept isn’t limited to emption or ability (caretaking, having a period or having a child)
• ability to present as concept to western society (more feminine presenting = regarded as women more)
• desire to have female sex organs
• preform feminine sterotypes
• oppression or subordination

Question 28

Judith Butler: Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution (1988)

Answer 28

• Gender is not a stable identity
• Gender is instituted through a stylized repetition of acts (gendered self does not exist outside of its actions)
• gender is a type of style that one can adopt and if more people break this repetition of style it can break down
• gendered self is not a pre-existent subject who precedes their own acts: the gendered subject is constituted by those acts
• Butler takes up the idea of body as a historically situated set of possibilities. Those possibilities are constrained by the historical situation (Merleau-Ponty and de Beauvoir)
• bodies not as stable objects in time, but as active
  centers or concentrations of possibilities for action. The
  doings, dramatizations, and reproductions that are body
  do, dramatize, and reproduce the historical situation, the
  constrained possibilities available as gender.
• feminist point
  of view, one might try to reconceive the gendered
  body as the legacy of sedimented acts rather than a
  predetermined or foreclosed structure, essence or
  fact, whether natural, cultural, or linguistic

Question 29

“The Personal is the Political” - Butler

Answer 29

• Butler interprets this feminist ‘motto’ with her own
  philosophical concepts. Personal acts are always
  constrained by the acts of others. Performing your
  ‘personal’ gender is always already the gender of others
  and also limited by the socio-political relations of the
  historical situation.
• One cannot exist socially (be socially ‘visible’ as a
  gendered body) outside of the historical constraints
• the specific ways you dress, speak or remain silent,
  resist sexism, eat, run and walk are your intentional actions
• they are only a ‘woman’s’ actions (respectively ‘man’s’
  actions) inasmuch as they comply with the socio-cultural constraints imposed by your historical situation.

Question 30

Gender = act

Answer 30

• Gender is a series of acts that have been previously
  “rehearsed” (like a theatrical script). Gender is acting
  “in concert”

Question 31

Distinction between Expression and
Performativeness

Answer 31

1. Acts do not ‘express’ a pre-existing gender identity
2. Acts perform – and thereby constitute – gender
   (gender does not exist without its performances)

Question 32

Butler’s Critique of Some Feminist Approaches

Answer 32

Many feminist approaches talk of ‘women’s perspectives’ and ‘women’s issues’. Butler does not deny that much has been gained in doing so but warns against the reification of gender categories. The category ‘woman’ itself must be laid bare as a performative construction which affects even the psychology of particular embodiment

Question 33

Sex vs gender

Answer 33

• Sex: Physiological characteristics of reproductive
  capacities (possessing a vagina, or a penis, for
  example)
• Gender (or Gender Roles): the social expectations and
  norms concerning behavior that come with a given sex

Question 34

Gender Behind a “Veil of Ignorance” - John Rawls

Answer 34

The political philosopher John Rawls argued that the
basic structure of society is the one that rational parties
can all agree to without knowing beforehand what
social position they occupy. This original position of all
the deliberating parties is called the Veil of Ignorance

Question 35

Equality of Fair Opportunity

Answer 35

not just that positions within society be legally open to all (formal justice), but that all have equal access to positions within society, irrespective of their social position (substantive justice)

Question 36

Would you decide for or against sex-linked roles
within the family and within the workplace?

Answer 36

• complex, protective measures needed for disadvantaged situations
• is separation of sex still relevant in religion?
• choice of gendered workplace Roels? waxers, doctors and gynaecologists
• are we conditioned to feel uncomfortable to be checked by men in these roles?
• would sex-linked roles being removed, disrupt the hierarchy completely? Dom/sub?
• would men be held to same standard as women? would we share more insecurities?

Question 37

Gender Eliminativism - Susan Moller Okin (using Rawlsian approach)

Answer 37

a demand of justice is that gender roles in the
family and in the workplace ought to be eliminated.

Question 38

Against Eliminating Gender Roles: The two “Arguments from Nature”

Answer 38

1. Women have a natural desire to care for children
   Reply: It is difficult to say whether these desires are
   natural. They might equally plausibly be the result of
   socialization
2. Women are more skilled at caring for children

Question 39

What did Moir and Moir claim about women and men?

Answer 39

• Women are, apparently, better at dull and repetitive tasks
• Men get bored more easily. His biology has equipped him with sensation-seeking qualities that build empires and take him to the moon, but also make him shy away from dull tasks … Domestic chores are simply not exciting enough a challenge to turn on his frontal cortex

Question 40

But if it is so ‘natural’ for women to be carers and child-bearers, why have societies used so much effort – through societal norms or legal systems, for example – to ‘enforce’ these roles?

Answer 40

• It seems that – in the case of so-called ‘natural’ gender roles – we do not trust ‘nature’ to take its course.
• Even if gender roles were natural, arguing from them to a claim about inevitability or to a normative claim that this is how family life should be organized is a logical mistake, a fallacy
  …ex: is opposing war and campaigning to prevent it
  pointless? It seems that even if something is ‘natural’ in this sense, it is not inevitable. And so it is not pointless to oppose it.

Question 41

Biggest take away from natural debates

Answer 41

• ‘Natural’ in the sense of ‘regular past occurrence’ does not necessarily have moral implications about what ought to be done
• Ie: Just because it is said that some are caretakers it does not mean they ought to be

More notes:
- Similarly, throughout human history, women have been
violated and abused. Someone might claim that this is just a result of ‘natural’ human tendencies of men to dominate women.
- Yet, the type of ‘natural tendency’ we are talking about
does not logically impose the conclusion that we ought to tolerate (or, worse, encourage!) such behavior.

Question 42

Carol Hay on the Is/Ought Distinction

Answer 42

even if we could finally solve this nature/nurture business once and for all, it still won’t tell us what we should do about gender. This is because descriptive facts about the way things are, by themselves, can’t give
normative prescriptions about what we should do

Question 43

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy - Primatology and Gender
Roles

Answer 43

• discovered that evolutionary theory contained certain prejudicial assumptions or ‘myths’ (such as the myth of the “coy female”)
• She argued that, among primates and humans, females are generally better at caring for children. But males exhibit equal nurturing impulses as long as they spend time among infants and newborns.
• the skills our female ancestors needed to ‘care’ for off-spring are quite different from the supposedly ‘natural’ skills a woman might need today in caring for a child. For example, our female ancestors may have had to fend off wild animals (holding children/food, etc).

Question 44

Bias

Answer 44

A belief or interest an investigator possesses
prior to beginning research

Question 45

Elizabeth Lloyd’s Case Study: Female orgasm

Answer 45

• Elizabeth Lloyd took a critical look at evolutionary
  explanations of female orgasm

Problems and notes:
1. The problem for much research in this area was formulated as follows:
- Female humans have orgasms, other female primates to not. Biases that lead to this assumption:
- ‘Sexual activity’ is limited to reproductive activity (orgasms that female primates have with same-sex partners were discarded as ‘greeting behavior, ‘reassurance behavior’, ‘food exchange behavior’, etc.)
- Non-heterosexual sex is regarded as irrelevant or insignificant

–> A bias is thus at work in the formulation of the problem to be solved.

2. Notice, however, that besides regarding same-sex genital behavior among female primates as insignificant or irrelevant, bias is also influencing the selection of data and the collection of data (only
   reproductive, heterosexual primate behavior is studied)
3. And classifying genito-genital rubbing between female primates not as a sexual activity, but as ‘food-exchange behavior’, for example, reveals a bias in the interpretation of data

Question 46

Are there any advantages that bias can provide in scientific research?

Answer 46

• assume different perspective to reflect on results (unconventional approach leading to good or unexpected results)
• having ethical bias can be good! (moral bias preventing harmful research)
• reduces misinformation by providing more relevance (researchers from different background provide more ideas, less overlap)

Question 47

epistemic privilege

Answer 47

Epistemic privilege refers to the advantage or authority that someone has in knowing or understanding something compared to others. It means that certain individuals or groups may have access to knowledge or understanding that is not readily available to everyone else. This can be due to factors like expertise, experience, or access to information. In simpler terms, it’s like having a special insight or knowledge about something that others might not have.

Question 48

Standpoint theory

Answer 48

• takes its origin in Marx’s idea that the working class
  better understand social and political relations than the capital-owning class
• the capitalist standpoint society appears to be made up of individuals each pursuing self-interest, from the standpoint of proletarian wage labor it can be seen that what is really going on is the systematic exploitation of one class by another. Only one of these groups is in a position to see social reality for what it is.
• ‘epistemic privilege’ that comes with being oppressed does not automatically translate into better insight into social relations.
• the working-class— as Marx maintained— has to purify itself of capitalist ideology and internalized thought-patterns.
• to reach the working-class standpoint, one must expend effort.

Question 49

Being an Outsider and Powerless

Answer 49

• Marx and materialist feminist thinkers based the epistemic privilege of the oppressed on unjust labor relations and processes of production (for example, the labor of bearing and nurturing children)
• But one can generalize the idea of epistemic privilege..Women are outsiders in much of scientific research. But their experience brings better insights to the social sciences (for example, that ‘labor’ is more than just waged labor) and the natural sciences (for example, that women do not collapse immobile after having orgasms).
• women are also powerless in many contexts, and it is plausible that the powerless are less likely to be interested in concealing the true nature of social relations.
• oppressed are able to see more clearly the ruled as well as the rulers and the relation between them. Thus, the standpoint of the oppressed includes and is able to explain the standpoint of the ruling class

Question 50

Problem w/ standpoint theory through feminist lens.

Answer 50

• there are many women with very different experiences of being an outsider and of powerlessness. For example, a black lesbian may in many respects have less power than a white, straight woman. They may thus have greater epistemic privilege in understanding how sexism
  interacts with racism and heteronormativity, for
  example.

Question 51

Sandra Harding: ‘Starting thought from …’

Answer 51

• Harding solves the problem of many standpoints, claiming that – with the requisite effort – one can reach the standpoint of any oppressed group. So, for example, men can adopt a feminist standpoint, white women can adopt the standpoint of black women, etc.
• It is sufficient to ‘start thinking’ from the perspective of the lives of the oppressed group. Is this possible?

Question 52

Patricia Hill Collins vs Miranda Fricker ideas

Answer 52

Patricia Hill Collins
- adopts the position that the various perspectives of
various oppressed groups are valuable but partial. When this is acknowledged, we are more willing to listen and accept the insights and views of other groups.

Miranda Fricker
- claims that there is enough that is common in women’s experience for us to speak of a feminist standpoint, notwithstanding the fact that some other experiences or
perspectives will be unique to certain groups of women.

Crucial here is the idea that diversity matters.

Question 53

What are some problematic anti-trans legislation?

Answer 53

• So-called “Bathroom bills”
• Sports segregation in schools
• Access to gender-affirming health care

Question 54

A perusal of sites such as Gender Identity Watch (currently suspended by Wordpress) indicates that anti-transwoman sentiment is often fueled by two
claims. What are they?

Answer 54

1. A naturalistic, essentialist approach to sex. Sex – as a physical state – is stable, invariant.
2. Women are those who have survived/undergone or undergo oppression on the basis of female sex.

So, there is 1) female sex or reproductive function and 2) a notion of woman as a subordinated class. Gender identity is often not a ‘thing’ for these feminists.

Question 55

Heyes considers the trans-exclusionary works of two feminist authors Janice Raymond and Bernice Hausman. Heyes concludes what?

Answer 55

Both commentators draw on the classification of transsexuality as a mental “disorder” to make their case; by persistently foreclosing all possibilities for political resistance to a disease model, they construct trans people as lacking both agency and critical perspective.”

Question 56

Contemporary feminist philosophy is rarely explicitly trans-exclusionary (for an exception, see the work of Kathleen Stock or Holly Lawford-Smith). However, contemporary feminist theory/philosophy faces questions regarding what 3 main points?

Answer 56

1. The relationship between gender and sex (reproductive function)
2. The notion of woman as a subordinate class
3. Who (or what) determines gender: gender as objective and determined by nature or society; or gender as self-determined.

Question 57

What are two facets of the anatomy/oppression argument?

Answer 57

1. Gender identity as an Expression of Personal Autonomy
   - Pronoun preference and name choice is seen as part of the right of gender self-determination.
2. Gender as Oppressive
   - (Radical) Feminist theory has often regarded the category woman as a subordinate, oppressed class of people.

Tension: How can one autonomously desire to be oppressed? Would such a desire not indicate a lack of autonomy?

Question 58

What are two facets of the subjective/objective argument?

Answer 58

1. Gender self-determination.
   - In Trans, nonbinary and gender non-conforming groups or communities, gender is considered an identity (often of a psychological nature). Individuals determine what gender they are.
2. Gender as Social Position
   - In much of the social sciences and feminist philosophy, gender is seen as a social status or position that is objective.

Question 59

I am women - Talia & other author arguments?

Answer 59

1. The claim “I am a woman” is akin to an ethical claim with first person authority, a statement of who I really am existentially, and should be respected on the basis of respect for human persons. It should decoupled from physiology (Talia Mae Bettcher).
2. The claim “I am a woman” is to be judged contextually and depends on ethical and political considerations (Jennifer Saul, Esa Diaz-Leon). It is important for trans people to be affirmed and integrated into society. Otherwise – as has been the case – trans people,
   particularly trans women of color, face marginalization and violence.

Question 60

Talia Mae Bettcher - “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion.”

Answer 60

disclose “who one is” and come out as a pretender or
masquerader, or refuse to disclose (be a deceiver) and run the risk of forced disclosure, the effect of which is exposure as a liar.

Key idea:
- The foundation of the evil-deceiver/make-believer accusation lies the conviction that gender presentation is genital representation