I took many of the slides from the powerpoint presentation called Intro to Gender 2000, but I adapted the slideshow for my own use. I also used the template provided by the slideshow. I provide a link to the original at the end of the slideshow.

1. Intro to Women’s and Gender
Studies

2. Who am I?
• The great-
granddaughter of
Nancy Rebecca
Logan Edgerton, born
in mountains of NC in
1877
• Not allowed to attend
UNC-Chapel Hill

3. Who am I?
• The granddaughter of
Hope Elizabeth
Edgerton Wills, born
in 1908.
• Sat in the back of
classes at UNC-
Chapel Hill. Not
allowed to attend.
• Moved to NJ for
nursing school.

4. Who am I?
• The daughter of
Nancy Leonora Wills
Hudock, born 1940.
• Was in the first class
of women admitted to
UNC-Chapel Hill as
freshman
• Wanted to be a
doctor- became a
nurse

5. Who am I?

6. Who am I?
• Amy Hudock, born
1964 in Chapel Hill,
NC
• Attended UNC-
Chapel Hill with no
question about my
gender in a class with
numerous other
women

7. Who am I?
• The mother of Sarah
Elizabeth Hudock
• A future scholar at
UNC-Chapel Hill
• My dream is that she
will face fewer
problems than I did

8. Who am I?
• A concerned
caregiver of an aging
mother
• A concerned mother
of a growing daughter
• Working for change
to make it better for
all of us

9. What is this course?
• Look at class blog for:
– Syllabus
– Course Schedule
– Events
– Discussions
– Information

10. Feminism
Feminism is a philosophy that holds with this
ideal of equality. It is the belief that although
they are different, men and women are equal.
Feminism recognizes that women have been
oppressed and repressed in certain societies
throughout history. It also carries with it the
commitment to change the attitudes and
behaviors of those who do not see men and
women—all people, really—as equals. This
equality should be manifested in economic,
political, and social equality for both sexes.

11. First Wave
• 19th
century abolition
movement gives rise
to thinking about
women’s equality
• Domestic ideology
empowers women
• Attitudes begin to
change
• Seneca Fall Women’s
Rights Convention
produces the
“Declaration of
Sentiments” (1848)
• Right for women to
vote introduced in
Congress in 1878 –
ratified as the 19th
Amendment in 1920

12. Second Wave
• In the middle to late
1960s, courses explaining
and developing feminist
theory began to be taught
on college campuses.
• By 1970, the phrase
“Women’s Studies” was
applied to them.
• By 1980, over twenty
thousand courses were
being taught in that
“discipline.”
• Today there are programs at
all levels of study—
undergraduate minor,
undergraduate major,
master’s degree, doctorate.
It even has its own
association, the National
Women’s Studies
Association, and journal.

13. Third Wave
• Emerged in the mid
1990’s
• Led by Gen Xers,
daughters of 2nd
Wave
• Questioned what 2nd
Wave had not yet
done
• Took feminism more
international, more
multicultural, and
more gender open
• Focus on gender as
performed allowing
more freedom on
gender continuity
spectrum

14. Gender Studies
• Women’s and Gender
Studies programs have
been so successful as part
of an intellectual
movement that there is
now a greater awareness
of the importance of
gender in people’s lives.
• Many school have
Women’s Studies and/or
Gender Studies programs
“Women and men are
more alike than they are
different. Men are not
from Mars; women are
not from Venus—we are
all from planet Earth.”
Michael S. Kimmel

15. History of Ideas
• Study of Women
– Done by Men
– Views Women as
Objects
– Excluded women’s
opinions
– Saw women as
different than , and
usually inferior to,
men
• Women’s Studies
– Done by Women and men
– Views women as subjects
and authorities
– Includes women’s opinions
– Sees women as different
from men but disagrees on
how different, in what ways
they are different, and why
they are different

16. Psychological
• Study of Women
– Sigmund Freud
thought women
believed women were
vengeful, castrating,
penis-envying
creatures who seek
domination by men
• Women’s Studies
– Karen Horney
critiqued Freud’s
conclusions, arguing
that men both fear and
“envy” the womb,
which accounts for
their “need” to
dominate women

17. Terminology
Terms to Learn
Sex Gender
Role Stereotype
Equality Patriarchy
Ideal Feminism
Positionality Misogyny
Ideology

18. Sex
• For our purposes, sex will be used to indicate the
biological categories within which people are
typically placed, or the biological difference
between males and females. Sex is a
physiological concept and is thought to be natural
to a person; it cannot really be changed (at least
not without surgery and hormone treatments, and
even so, one’s DNA will still hold the original
unaltered code). Sex is an ascribed social status.

19. Gender
• Gender is the social significance of the
difference in sex. Gender, according to Professor
Lois Self, the Chair of the Women’s Studies
Department at Northern Illinois University, “is
the difference the [sex] difference makes.”
Gender is a social concept. Masculinity and
femininity are the usual descriptors of gender,
and they refer to a complex set of characteristics
and behaviors that are prescribed for members of
a particular sex category; it is an achieved social
status.

20. Role
A role is the pattern of behaviors prescribed for
and expected from a person that corresponds to
their position in society. A person may, of
course, have multiple positions in society and
multiple role expectations.

21. Stereotype
A stereotype is a composite image of
characteristics and expectations pertaining to
some group. This image is present in the social
consciousness, but it is generally not accurate or
is skewed in one or more ways.

22. Equality
Equality is the condition of being alike in value,
having the same potential for accomplishment,
and having the same inherent worth—in spite of
individual differences. In other words, even
though people are not the same, they can (and
should) be considered and treated as equals.

23. Patriarchy
Most of the societies that we know of have
tended to be patriarchal. They are based upon
an organizing principle that privileges the males
—or the fathers, specifically, from the Latin
patrí? family and archós leader—over the
females. In a patriarchy, power is held by and
transferred through men. This can be through
educational and societal restrictions on women or
by laws that favor men.

24. Ideal
An ideal is a concept concerning a role, a
position, or a physical image that contains only
the most desirable traits or behaviors. It can be a
standard of judgment, a goal, or both. It can
contain ideas that are actually exclusive of each
other, and it is—as a hypothetical concept of
perfection—unobtainable in reality.

25. Positionality
The concept of positionality recognizes that
people’s perspectives, their perceptions of reality,
and their actual realities—their truths—are
dependent upon where they are positioned in
society. In other words, it sees truth and reality
as being relative and multi-faceted.

26. Misogyny and Ideology
Misogyny is the hatred of or hostility toward
women. In a society that subordinates women it is
easy to understand that people within that society
would or could hold such beliefs.
In this class we will analyze cultures in order to
study their ideologies—the “hidden” as well as the
explicit values that societies and people hold—to
see what people have believed about gender and
sex.

27. Looking Ahead: A Few Key Ideas
from Shaw’s Chapter 1
• Different types of feminism
• Some of the myths about feminism
• Role of homophobia in controlling behavior
• Idea of post-feminism
• Relationship of capitalism and advertising with liberation
• Read all the chapter’s opening material, then choose one of
the chapter’s essays to write your response. Post and print
– bring print out to class. You will share your responses in
class.

28. Analysis
Interview an older woman about what life
was like for women when she was young and
how things have changed, or not changed.
Write up your analysis of this. What did you
learn? Post and print. Bring print out to
class.