Q28: Summarise the historical development of gender studies and refer to works which best exemplify feminist perspective of reading and interpreting theatre, film and visual arts.

Question 1

What is gender studies?

Answer 1

• an academic area of study that critically examines how gender shapes our identities, social interactions and the world
• an interdisciplinary area of study which focuses on the complex interactions of gender with identity markers such as rae, ethnicity, sexuality, nation, and religion

Question 2

What issues do gender studies and queer theory explore?

Answer 2

• sexuality
• power
• mariginalized populations (women and other)
  IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Question 3

What theoretical framework influenced gender studies?

Answer 3

• fragmented, de-centered knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault)
• language (the breakdown of sign-signifier)
• psychoanalysis (Lacan)

Question 4

What caused the rise of gender studies?

Answer 4

The basis of gender studies emerged during the 70s when women in academia protested against the way which academic knowledge production made women invisible and ignored gendered power relations in society.

Question 5

What is intersectionality in gender studies?

Answer 5

• a framework which focuses on the ways in which gender interrelates with other social categorizations

Question 6

What is the difference between sex and gender?

Answer 6

sex = biological characteristics that categorize someone as either female or male
gender = the socially constructed ideas and practices what it is to be male or female

Question 7

What is the meaning of gender equality?

Answer 7

• equal enjoyment of by women and men of socially valued goods, opportunities, resources, and rewards
• it does not mean that men and women are the same but that their opportunities and life chances are equal

Question 8

What is the difference between feminism and gender studies?

Answer 8

gender studies = a field of knowledge and study
feminism = both a political movement and a field of knowledge and study
- there would have been no gender studies without feminism as a driving force

Question 9

What is queer theory?

Answer 9

• an element of gender studies

- used to combat normative status of heterosexuality in society and culture

Question 10

What was Guerilla Girls?

Answer 10

• an anonymous feminist artist group formed to fight discrimination against women artists and artists of colour in the art world
• they fought the idea that art/culture was defined by white males (art world was a white male place)

Question 11

What did Guerilla Girls do?

Answer 11

• first posters appeared in 1985 in lower Manhattan
• bold advertising-style graphics with eye-opening facts and figures
• posters detailed discrimination by the city’s art galleries

Question 12

What did Guerrila Girls argue?

Answer 12

That if art is a record of culture, and the art doesn’t look like the culture (discrimination against the minorities’ voices) then art is just the story of power. It’s a history of patriarchy and not who we really are.