Fuck Yeah, Gender Studies!

1. Who are you?
2. What does ({}) mean?
3. Do you watch porn?
4. Why not?
5. Do you have any good recommendations for intro books to gender and women theory/studies/history?
6. Is there a particular book you’d recommend?
7. What’s your opinion on abortion?
8. Why do so many women not vote for women?
9. What do you think about some women who consider themselves anti-feminist and are worried about female politicians?
10. When you date someone do you expect them to pay?
11. What do you think about male objectification?
12. What’s your opinion on depictions of gender in Disney movies?
13. Why do you think that there are so many people who don’t identify as feminists yet support equality between the genders?
14. What do you think about marriage/ marriage equality?
15. Can you tell me more about gender-neutral pronouns?
16. Where can I study Gender Studies? What’s a good school to study Gender Studies in X country?

I’m Emma. You can read more about me here.

I chose to make the picture for this blog roughly representative of the vulva as a symbolic counter to the predominance of the phallus.

It is absolutely not to suggest that the vulva ought to be(come) privileged above other sexual organs—read my pages on vulvodynia and you’ll understand just how much i don’t ascribe to anything like that school of thought—nor to suggest that this blog is primarily for women (as my readers should know, or learn from this blog, not all women have vulva or vaginas, and some men do). I picked it because 1) it looks good in my opinion); and 2) it’s representative of one degree of marginality.
Overall, it’s a judgement call. I could have included a graphic of a penis, too, to appear more inclusive, but the appearance of “a penis” along with “vulva” implies heterosexuality—which is not something i want to foreground with this blog, ex- or implicitly.

P.S. I think the fact that the blog’s image features parentheses highlights (without endorsing, of course) the marginality of vulva: the status of vulva as… afterthought, and the common understanding of the vulva as “material that could be omitted or destroyed without changing the meaning of a sentence”.

P.P.S. I made it pink and blue because why not? I’m not suggesting pink is for girls or blue is for boys—come on, really?!—but i am inviting questions and discussion on ideas surrounding those preconceptions. Among approximately a million other topics and things.
And i am not a misandrist.

No, but i would.

Can’t be bothered; don’t have time; haven’t found any i like; get enough sex right now; etc. etc. etc.

I just compiled a books list!
If you’d like me to highlight some specifics—and of course not all of the books on the list make good introductory texts—then i’d really need you to be more specific. What exactly would you like to be introduced to? If you’d just like a general overview then i guess i’d suggest something like Feminism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions are typically good, in my experience) and/or Gender (Polity Short Introductions). Polity are quite a specialist press so their stuff tends to be pretty on the ball, too.
If you’d like more specific introductory texts—say, on embodiment or reproductive rights or sexology or etc. etc.—then let me know. I suppose i should start a “great introductory texts” subsection of the books list. Suggestions (general and topic-specific) welcome!

I don’t know whether you want fiction or non-fiction or what you’re interested in or anything!
So…shall i do one accessible text from each category? For the non-fiction i will give a brief outline, but for the fiction & comics i don’t want to give anything away—i know how annoying that can be for some.

Comic
Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story by Frederik Peeters (US link) (UK link)

Trans/gender and passing
Fiction: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (US link) (UK link)
Non-fiction: Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man by Norah Vincent (US link) (UK link)

The title says it all, really. A very interesting, thoroughly accessible (and at times annoying—but nevertheless poignant overall) look at gender passing and issues related to identifying as transgender. Sort of like Black Like Me but with binding instead of blackface. In a (mostly) good way.

Sex/uality
Sex, Lies and Pharmaceuticals by Ray Moynihan and Barbara Mintzes (US link) (UK link)

Again, a very accessible text designed for general, popular consumption. This book explores the growing trend within psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry to pathologise female sexualities. It’s very, very good (regular readers may remember that this is one of a few books that i’ve been recommending over and over again).

Embodiment
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson (US link) (UK link)

Sex Work
The Wisdom of Whores: Beureacrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS by Elizabeth Pisani (US link) (UK link)

This is another text i’ve been recommending for forever. Epidemiologist, HIV expert, all-round badass and general smart person Elizabeth Pisani explores the gritty truth about HIV/AIDS and its relation to government fuckery, funding bullshit, sex work, drugs and general public distaste for those on the margins. It’s really phenomenal (even if the current UK paperback edition cover makes it look like a recipe book!).

Film: Boys Don’t Cry (Region 1) (Region 2)
Documentary: Paris is Burning (Region 1) (Region 2)
Miniseries: Angels in America (Region 1) (Region 2)

Novel: Orlando by Virginia Woolf (US link) (UK link)

Postcolonial & ethnic minority feminisms
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lourde (US link) (UK link)

This is an academic text… sort of. The foreword is by an academic, but the actual text itself is just a collection of writing (speeches, essays and poetry (which is quite nice; everyone should read more poetry, i think)) from Audre Lourde about being a black lesbian woman and a feminist. It may not be the seminal text on race, gender or sexuality, but it’s brilliant on all three counts. I highly recommend it.

Western perspectives on feminism
The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980 by Elaine Showalter (US link) (UK link)

This is written by a literary scholar but it’s aimed at a general audience rather than other scholars. It’s very nicely written and looks at the construction and evolution of the notion of hysteria and other “nervous diseases” as female maladies—and how the depiction of women as somehow innately “mad” has shaped culture through the recent past century and a half.

Memoir
The Camera my Mother Gave Me by Susanna Kaysen (US link) (UK link)

This book is the one i would say was, if i had to apply that word to any text here, the most inspiring one. It details Kaysen’s experiences with vulvodynia and was instrumental in my beginning to seek treatment for my own (related) vulval pain issues. Like her otherr (rather more famous) memoir Girl, Interrupted, this one is short but arresting—and very well written. And funny. And self-effacing.

I hope this has been of some use!

I think it’s great. I think it should be made available and accessible (financially, geographically, politically and socially) to all those who want it. I think it should be available to minors without parental consent. And i stand with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Medical Association in believing that the 24-week limit should be maintained.

I think it’s less “women don’t vote for women” (at least on a country-wide scale) than it is “women don’t get chosen as candidates by the political parties they’re members of” (and political party membership is more men than women) and “women are largely discouraged from running for office” and “politics is, as a rule, very hostile towards women”.
But yeah, maybe it’s also a little bit to do with women not voting for the women candidates on their ballot papers. But you seem to be suggesting that there’s something wrong with that. Shouldwomen vote for women? Or should women (and all voters) vote for the candidate they think will do the best job, irrespective of gender?

I think it’s an unfortunate (but predictable) product of sexist society that some women have been inducted into quasi-oppressive roles themselves. Who can say what made that particular woman think the way she does? I certainly can’t. But i know that it must have something to do with the way society has taught her about gender (i.e. misinformation). To spell it out, it’s internalised misogyny. It sucks.

No. With my SO, things are pretty equal and have been since our first date (which was drinks—we alternated rounds). Sometimes we’ll go dutch, other times he’ll pay and other times i’ll pay. We have an understanding that it’ll more or less even out (although i’m the sole beneficiary of our coffee shop loyalty card stamps…).
Money and dating is something that’s really tricky to navigate, i have to say. Although the best way to approach it is to go dutch, this can be a bit of a minefield where there are income discrepancies; if i were earning double what my SO gets and had correspondingly more lavish tastes, i couldn’t reasonably expect him to accompany me to fancy restaurants or plays or whatever and go Dutch every time. It wouldn’t be fair. In those sorts of cases, where it’s something out of the ordinary, i would generally go with it being the asker who treats.

I’m 100% an advocate for going Dutch on first dates in every scenario (i can currently think of). Having one party (and it’s usually the man, let’s face facts) treat can certainly act as you’ve suggested—it can be hard to tell someone’s true feelings about going on a date with you if they know they’re getting a free dinner and drinks out of it. Further, it indebts one party to the other and can thereby lead to expectations. i.e., that the person who was treated owes the person who paid sex/another date/whatever.

It also establishes a general inequity between the parties—if X paid for Y on the first date, X may also expect to have to pay for Y on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th date. Or Y may expect to be paid for. At the least, it can breed resentment where there need otherwise be none, and worse, it reinforces traditional ideas of “buying” or “keeping” woman and of material and financial assets being the markers of “manliness” and so on.

And, okay, if we retain the notion that men pay and women are paid for, who pays for the women if two go on a date together? That sort of thinking doesn’t make room for non-heterosexual relationships, so that’s just one more way that it’s rubbish.

One
Two
Three
Four!
I have covered this before!

Here is a selection of posts in which i’ve discussed Disney, because i don’t feel like repeating myself. In a nutshell: Disney’s depiction of gender totally sucks.

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven (101 dalmatians!!)
eight (101 dalmatians also—it’s almost certainly the least-sexist disney film)
nine (this is something i reblogged from sexismandthecity; worth reading)

I think there are two main reasons, which come from two different perspectives:-
On the one hand, there’s the fact that feminism has not, historically, been an inclusive movement towards gender equality and has, rather, focussed on white gender equality, or “born woman” gender equality. That kind of racist and cissexist exclusion, unfortunately, still goes on in various arenas and spaces that purport to be “feminist”—and it’s given the rest of us a bad name (so much so that there are plenty of people who don’t use it any more).
On the other hand, there are also the more mainstream ‘negative’ stereotypes, backlash cultivated, of feminists as man-hating birkenstock-wearing hairy-armpitted lesbians. A lot of people, despite their convictions, balk at being associated thus.
It’s two sides of the “feminism has been given a bad name” coin. Heads: by itself; tails: by others.

You can read more about my thoughts on marriage here
and here
and again here
oh and here
here too
here
here again
and another
another
one more
and also in links in this post and in this post.

You can find a very comprehensive FAQ on gender neutral pronouns here.

That’s a really tough question. It depends on a lot of factors. What level are you studying at? Are you looking to begin an academic career or are you more interested in activism? what period and themes are you interested in? what discipline is your undergraduate degree? what sort of things are you looking for under “good”: location; facilities; international prestige; tight-knit community; availability of funding; job prospects; rankings; big name stars; etc etc etc… It’s a tough call. And i’m not the best person to ask, anyway, because although i have lived and studied ininternationally, i’m based in the UK at the moment and i’m not an authority on world Gender Studies programmes or international university rankings!

However, this might help (and FYI this information has been available on my Links page for approximately 18 months… clearly i need to make its existence more prominent somehow!):

• UMBC’s list of OVER NINE HUNDRED programmes in women’s, feminist and gender studies worldwide
• Next,The Artemis Guide to Women’s Studies in the U.S.
• Next, a searchable list of Women’s Studies Programmes by the NWSA (National Women’s Studies Association
• Next, Smith College’s list of graduate programmes in Women’s Studies
• Next, a link to programmes in LGB, Trans* and Queer Studies in the US and Canada
• Next, NWSA’s Guide to Graduate work in Women’s and Gender Studies

Any more questions? Ask them here!