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“Launius and Hassel sca! old feminist analysis in a way that makes its underlying components highly accessible to novice students. " is textbook provides students with a critical framework, while giving the instructor the # exibility to select companion texts for each of the threshold concepts.”

— Ann Mattis , Assistant Professor of English and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, University of Wisconsin—Sheboygan

“Launius and Hassel are the mediums of metacognitive awareness in the $ eld of Women’s and Gender Studies, distilling threshold concepts so that students can become active agents in critiquing and shaping our gendered world. " is book should be foundational in any Women’s and Gender Studies program.”

— Tara Wood , Assistant Professor of English and instructor in Gender Studies, Rockford University

“! reshold Concepts is my go-to foundational text for both teaching Women’s and Gender Studies classes and facilitating Safe Zone training. " e extensive end of chapter questions and learning roadblocks sections help students process and apply the information. I appreciate that the authors succinctly frame and contextualize complex gender studies topics.”

—Christopher Henry Hinesley, Associate Director, Women’s and Gender Studies, Rochester

Institute of Technology

! reshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies

! reshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies: Ways of Seeing, ! inking, and Knowing is a textbook designed primarily for introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies courses with the intent of providing both skills- and concept- based foundation in the $ eld. " e text is driven by a single key question: “What are the ways of thinking, seeing, and knowing that characterize Women’s and Gender Studies and are valued by its practitioners?” Rather than taking a topical approach, ! reshold Concepts develops the key concepts and ways of thinking that students need in order to develop a deep understanding and to approach material like feminist scholars do, across disciplines. " is book illustrates four of the most critical concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies—the social construction of gender, privilege and oppression, intersectionality, and feminist praxis—and grounds these concepts in multiple illustrations.

" e second edition includes a signi$ cant number of updates, revisions, and expansions: the case studies in all $ ve chapters have been revised and expanded, as have the end of chapter elements, statistics have been updated, and numerous references to signi$ cant news stories and cultural developments of the past three years have been added. Finally, many more “callbacks” to previous chapters have been incorporated throughout the textbook in order to remind students to carry forward and build upon what they have learned about each threshold concept even as they move on to a new one.

Christie Launius directs and teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. She has taught the introductory course for over 20 years at six di! erent institutions. She is also active in the $ eld of working-class studies; she is the book review editor for the Journal of Working-Class Studies and served as president of the association from 2014 to 2015.

Holly Hassel has taught in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program and the English department at the University of Wisconsin Colleges since 2004. Her work on teaching and learning in women’s studies has been published in multiple books and journals. She is editor of the journal Teaching English in the Two-Year College.

Titles of Related Interest

Feminist ! eory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives Carole McCann and Seung-kyung Kim Women Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies, ! ird Edition Edited by Mary Wyer, Mary Barbercheck, Donna Cookmeyer, Hatice Ozturk, and Marta Wayne Transforming Scholarship: Why Women’s and Gender Studies Students Are Changing ! emselves and the World, Second Edition Michele Tracy Berger and Cheryl Radelo! Reproduction and Society: Interdisciplinary Readings Edited by Carole Jo! e and Jennifer Reich Gender Circuits: Bodies and Identities in a Technological Age, Second Edition Eve Shapiro Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries Vivian M. May

! reshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies Ways of Seeing, " inking, and Knowing Second Edition

Christie Launius and Holly Hassel

Second edition published 2018 by Routledge 711 " ird Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Taylor & Francis " e right of Christie Launius and Holly Hassel to be identi$ ed as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identi$ cation and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2015 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Launius, Christie, author. | Hassel, Holly, author. Title: " reshold concepts in women’s and gender studies : ways of seeing,

thinking, and knowing / Christie Launius, Holly Hassel. Description: Second edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,

2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identi$ ers: LCCN 2017043817 | ISBN 9781138304321 (hardback) |

ISBN 9781138304352 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780203730218 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Women’s studies. | Feminism. | Sex role. Classi$ cation: LCC HQ1180 .L38 2018 | DDC 305.42—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043817 ISBN: 978-1-138-30432-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-30435-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-73021-8 (ebk) Typeset in Adobe Caslon and Copperplate by Apex CoVantage, LLC Visit the eResources: www.routledge.com/9781138304352

VII

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xvii

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

Chapter 2 The Social Construction of Gender 29

" is chapter focuses on distinctions between sex and gender, exploring how gender is socially constructed, and to what ends, as well as how social constructions of gender are shaped by issues of race, class, age, ability, and sexual identity.

Chapter 3 Privilege and Oppression 89

Systems of privilege and oppression profoundly shape individual lives. " is chapter explains how these systems play out via ideology and societal institutions, and are internalized by individuals.

Chapter 4 Intersectionality 141

Intersectionality is at the heart of feminist analysis. " is chapter explores how di! erent groups bene$ t from or are disadvantaged by institutional structures, as well as how overlapping categories of identity profoundly shape our experiences within institutions.

Contents

VIII CONTENTS

Chapter 5 Feminist Praxis 191

" is chapter unpacks how Women’s and Gender Studies prioritizes social change and discusses strategies for bringing about that change.

Glossary 233 Index 241

IX

! reshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies: Ways of Seeing, ! inking, and Knowing is a textbook designed primarily for use in the introduc- tory course in the $ eld of Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) with the intent of providing both skills- and concept-based foundation in the $ eld. " e text is driven by a single key question: “What are the ways of thinking, seeing, and knowing that characterize our $ eld and are valued by its practitioners?” " rough extensive review of the published litera- ture, conversations with Women’s and Gender Studies faculty across the University of Wisconsin System, and our own systematic research and assessment of student learning needs, we identi$ ed four of the most critical threshold concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies:

• the social construction of gender • privilege and oppression • intersectionality • feminist praxis

" is textbook aims to introduce students to how these four concepts provide a feminist lens across the disciplines and outside the classroom. " e term “threshold concept” is de$ ned by Meyer and Land as a core disciplinary concept that is both troublesome and transformative. As they go on to explain, “A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or

Preface

X PREFACE

interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress.” A threshold concept is integrative, and when students cross the threshold and grasp a concept, “the hidden interrelatedness” of other concepts within that discipline becomes apparent (Cousin 4).

What Makes ! is Book Unique " e majority of WGS textbooks tend to be organized around the institutions that foster and reinforce gender hierarchies while also acknowledging the intersections of gender with race, class, and sexual- ity. Typical examples of these institutions include women and work, the family, media and culture, religion and spirituality, health and medi- cine, etc. Some focus exclusively on the U.S., while others integrate, to greater or lesser degrees, a global focus. Most also conclude with a chapter on activism. " is approach privileges coverage of content over the disciplinary ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing. " ese textbooks certainly introduce and employ these four threshold concepts, but often as a one-shot de$ nition, with the assumption that students will come to understand the concepts’ centrality through encountering them repeat- edly in the context of topical units, without their centrality being made explicit. What ! reshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies: Ways of Seeing, ! inking, and Knowing does is not “cover” material but rather “uncover” the key threshold concepts and ways of thinking that stu- dents need in order to develop a deep understanding and to approach the material like feminist scholars do, across the disciplines. " e advan- tage of this approach is that rather than the “one-shot de$ nition” that characterizes most texts, students continually learn and relearn how the threshold concept is illustrated across multiple contexts, thus reinforcing their understanding in more substantive ways. Further, foregrounding the “learning roadblocks” that many students encounter as part of the learning process helps circumvent and move more quickly past those misconceptions that keep students from progressing in their under- standing of Women’s and Gender Studies.

In ! reshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies, we make the assumption that ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing in Women’s and Gender Studies must be made transparent to students, and that learning will be done most e! ectively if students understand the course goals, the

PREFACE XI

pedagogical approach, and the potential roadblocks to understanding. We contend that the work happening on the part of the instructor and the work happening by students should not be “parallel tracks” that each negotiates independently, but part of the teaching and learning conver- sation itself, happening in and about the content, as part of the work of the classroom.

Features ! reshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies is organized strate- gically and conceptually in a reverse pyramid structure. " at is, each threshold concept is introduced at a broad level as the key idea of the chapter, while subsequent chapter components add layers of depth and speci$ city. Each chapter contains the following elements:

• Opening Illustration : The opening illustration engages readers in the topic—typically these are drawn from historical, cultural, biological, or current events topics.

• A Feminist Stance : We use the framing concept of a “feminist stance” (Crawley, et al.) to help students continue to understand the nature and strategies of a feminist approach with each chapter they read. Our intent is not to suggest that there is a singular, monolithic femi- nist stance, or what that stance is ; instead, we draw attention to what a feminist stance does —employ a critical lens using the threshold concepts.

• Definition of the Threshold Concept : Each chapter focuses on one of four threshold concepts. The chapter opens with a definition of the threshold concept, drawing from established and relevant research across interdisciplinary fields of study.

• Framing Definitions and Related Concepts : More specificity is offered by related concepts, or other explanatory terminology by scholars in the field that help students see how the threshold concept is sup- ported and illustrated by related terms.

• Learning Roadblocks : Once students have an initial grasp of the con- cept and its related terms, the chapter introduces common “learning roadblocks” or misconceptions that many students encounter which prevent a full grasp of the idea. These misconceptions are directly

XII PREFACE

addressed along with tools that can serve as a “check for under- standing” so students are able to understand not only why these learning roadblocks crop up but also where their own learning is in relation to the roadblocks. The goal of this feature is to help stu- dents identify common misunderstandings that prevent them from “crossing the threshold.”

• Anchoring Topics : To further develop students’ understanding of the threshold concept, each chapter includes a discussion of it in rela- tion to three anchoring topics: work and family, language, images, and symbols, and bodies. These three anchoring topics were cho- sen because of their centrality to feminist scholarship and activism. Selected issues within the anchoring topics are discussed through the prism of the particular threshold concept in an effort to help students develop a scaffolded, nuanced, and complex understanding of the cluster of related issues within the anchoring topics.

• Case Study : The case study offers an in-depth and analytical per- spective on one key issue that should crystallize students’ under- standing of the concept. Case studies have been selected based on relevance to the threshold concept, and to represent a broad range of interdisciplinary issues.

• Evaluating Prior Knowledge Activities : As Ambrose and colleagues have observed, students’ prior knowledge (particularly common- sense understandings or everyday use of discipline-specific terms) has a strong impact on how students absorb new knowledge. Activi- ties that ask students to evaluate prior knowledge, to monitor their progress, and to develop a metacognitive understanding of their knowledge building stem from this learning principle.

• Application Exercises and Skills Assessments: Gender and women’s studies classrooms typically emphasize several key related values focused on participatory learning: validation of personal experience, activism, reflexivity, action orientation, and local–global connections (see Crawley et al., 2008; Stake and Hoffman, 2000; Markowitz, 2005; Maher, 1987; Shrewsbury, 1993). This praxis orientation (see Blake and Ooten, 2008) is reflected in application exercises and skills assessments for each chapter in which students are invited to connect disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge with lived experience.

PREFACE XIII

• Discussion Questions : Consistent with the signature feminist pedago- gies of Women’s and Gender Studies classrooms that focus on collabo- ration, interconnectedness, and creating a community of learners (see Hassel and Nelson, 2012; Chick and Hassel, 2009), this book adheres to the convention of providing discussion questions for each chapter.

• Writing Prompts : The text includes writing activities that encourage students to process, reflect on, and integrate the course material.

• Works Cited and Suggested Readings : In this edition, we have sep- arated the Works Cited section from the Suggested Readings. Because the text is intended to serve as a critical introduction to key concepts and not as a reader, we provide suggested, relevant readings that instructors can use to support and develop students’ learning. In this way, we imagine the book to be part of a customized course in which the instructor can structure the curriculum around key ideas, then provide a deeper learning experience for students by adding primary documents, classic essays, or online texts to the course that reflect the instructor’s specific learning goals and area of expertise.

Goals of the Book As coauthors, our goals for this book have been to provide a text that re# ects what we have learned about student learning needs in Women’s and Gender Studies throughout our collective years of teaching in the $ eld as well as current thinking in the $ eld and in higher education more broadly about what it means to learn within a discipline or inter- disciplinary area. " e organization of the text around threshold concepts is intended to re# ect what Lendol Calder calls an “uncoverage” model, one in which students learn to think, see, and know like feminist schol- ars rather than absorb a body of knowledge to be “covered.”

As a result, our intent is to help students learn those ways of knowing and then be able to apply them to new subjects, in the way that femi- nist scholars do. We have tried to re# ect in the text some of our shared values as teachers and writers. We have aimed to re# ect an up-to-date sensibility in including recent data and research studies as well as cur- rent phenomena. Our tone emphasizes that arguments about sex and gender (and any number of other issues within feminist scholarship and

XIV PREFACE

activism) are unresolved, ongoing, and controversial, and the text con- textualizes a feminist perspective by explaining what that perspective stands in contrast to.

While we treat each of the four threshold concepts in a separate chap- ter, which in one sense implies their separability and separateness, they are of course interconnected, and we strive to make those connections explicit within each chapter. In some instances this means returning to the same topic across chapters and highlighting di! erent elements of it. For example, though feminist praxis has its own separate chapter, we have identi$ ed the ways that discussions of “problems” within Women’s and Gender Studies can be responded to with action or di! erent ways of thinking. Similarly, though intersectionality has its own chapter, we have attempted to incorporate an intersectional perspective and inter- sectional analysis throughout the book, addressing the interrelatedness of systems of privilege and oppression as part of an intersectional examina- tion both across and within topics and themes.

Logistics of Using the Text While individual programs and pedagogical approaches may vary, the threshold concepts we have identi$ ed are central to the content- and skills-based learning outcomes of a large number of Women’s and Gen- der Studies programs nationally (see Levin and Berger and Radelo! ). As such, we believe that using a text like ours can be helpful in making those programmatic learning outcomes explicit, and can support the assessment plans of programs and departments.

Logistically, one way to use this book in an introductory WGS course would be to assign all $ ve chapters in succession over the $ rst half of the semester before moving on to a varying number of topics (drawn from our anchoring topics or others of particular interest to the instructor) that would be spread out over the remainder of the semester. In this scenario, all of the threshold concepts would be revisited in the context of each topic.

A di! erent approach to using this book in an introductory WGS course would be to spread the assignment and reading of the $ ve chap- ters across the course of the entire semester, using one or more topics

PREFACE XV

in relation to each threshold concept. " is approach would allow for in-depth time with each individual threshold concept before moving on to the next.

Instructors can $ nd more materials to support their work in the classroom using this text with the eResources (www.routledge.com/ 9781138304352). Materials available online include the following:

• web resources • additional suggested readings • full text journal articles for use with the text

A Note on the Second Edition We are grateful for all of the feedback we have received since the book’s publication in January of 2015. We have presented on the threshold concepts approach to teaching the introductory course at state, regional, and national conferences for the past several years, and have had many stimulating conversations with colleagues that have informed our revi- sions. We also received a wealth of constructive feedback from reviewers that was very useful to us as we began the process of working on the second edition. Overall, this edition includes a signi$ cant number of updates, revisions, and expansions. " ere are new opening illustrations in Chapters 4 and 5, and the case studies in all $ ve chapters are either new or have been revised and expanded. In this edition, we have sepa- rated the Works Cited section from the Suggested Readings, and have signi$ cantly revised and/or expanded the end of chapter elements for every chapter. We have also, wherever possible, updated relevant sta- tistics, and make numerous references to signi$ cant news stories and cultural developments of the past three years, including the 2015 Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, that legalized same- sex marriage, the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Movement for Black Lives, and trans* rights activism (and backlash against it), just to name a few. We have also re-organized some sections, added many new examples, edited extensively for clarity, and moved some of the learning roadblocks so that they are more integrated into the relevant section. Finally, we have also incorporated many more “callbacks” to previous

XVI PREFACE

chapters throughout the textbook. As we have taught with the textbook, we have found it helpful to remind students to carry forward and build upon what they have learned about each threshold concept even as they move onto a new one.

Works Cited Ambrose, Susan, et al. How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart

Teaching . Jossey-Bass, 2010. Berger, Michelle Tracey, and Cheryl Radelo! . Transforming Scholarship: Why Women’s

and Gender Studies Students Are Changing ! emselves and the World . Routledge, 2011.

Blake, Holly, and Melissa Ooten. “Bridging the Divide: Connecting Feminist Histories and Activism in the Classroom.” Radical History Review , vol. 102, 2008, pp. 63–72.

Calder, Lendol. “Uncoverage: Toward a Signature Pedagogy for the History Survey.” Journal of American History , vol. 92, no. 4, 2006, pp. 1358–1371.

Chick, Nancy, and Holly Hassel. “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Virtual: Feminist Peda- gogy in the Online Classroom.” Feminist Teacher , vol. 19, no. 3, 2009, pp. 195–215.

Cousin, Glynis. “An Introduction to " reshold Concepts.” Planet , vol. 17, 2006, www. ee.ucl.ac.uk/~m# anaga/Cousin%20Planet%2017.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2017.

Crawley, Sara, et al. “Introduction: Feminist Pedagogies in Action: Teaching Beyond Disciplines.” Feminist Teacher , vol. 19, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–12.

Hassel, Holly, and Nerissa Nelson. “A Signature Feminist Pedagogy: Connection and Transformation in Women’s Studies.” In Exploring More Signature Pedagogies . Eds. Nancy L. Chick, Regan Gurung, and Aeron Haynie. Stylus Publishing, 2012, pp. 143–155.

Levin, Amy. “Questions for a New Century: Women’s Studies and Integrative Learn- ing.” National Women’s Studies Association , 2007, www.nwsa.org/Files/Resources/ WS_Integrative_Learning_Levine.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2017.

Maher, Frances. “Inquiry Teaching and Feminist Pedagogy.” Social Education , vol. 51, no. 3, 1987, pp. 186–192.

Markowitz, Linda. “Unmasking Moral Dichotomies: Can Feminist Pedagogy Over- come Student Resistance?” Gender and Education , vol. 17, no. 1, 2005, pp. 39–55.

Meyer, Jan, and Ray Land. “" reshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Link- ages to Ways of " inking and Practising within the Disciplines.” Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses . ETL Project. Occa- sional Report 4, 2003. https://kennslumidstod.hi.is/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ meyerandland.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2017.

Shrewsbury, Carolyn. “What Is Feminist Pedagogy?” Women’s Studies Quarterly , vol. 3, 1993, pp. 8–16.

Stake, Jayne, and Frances Ho! man. “Putting Feminist Pedagogy to the Test.” Psychology of Women Quarterly , vol. 24, 2000, pp. 30–38.

XVII

We owe a deep debt of gratitude to our faculty colleagues in the Uni- versity of Wisconsin System Women’s Studies Consortium. " is project emerged from conversations among our fellow Women’s and Gender Studies teachers throughout the state of Wisconsin over several years. " eir expertise, critical insights, years of teaching experience, and gener- osity of time and spirit shaped this project from start to $ nish.

In particular, we thank Helen Klebesadel, director of the Women’s Studies Consortium for her tireless support and advocacy for this book; former UW System Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian Phyllis Holman Weisbard o! ered research support in the early stages of the project; and we thank both Phyllis and JoAnne Lehman, editor of Fem- inist Collections , for suggesting that we write a review of introductory WGS textbooks for Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women’s Stud- ies Resources , published out of the UW System O% ce of the Women’s Studies Librarian. We especially thank JoAnne Lehman for believing in the work and making publication possible.

We are also thankful to the UW System O% ce of Professional and Instructional Development for a conference mini-grant in 2011 that supported bringing together Women’s and Gender Studies instructors to discuss threshold concepts in the $ eld.

Christie would like to acknowledge the support of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Faculty Development Program, which funded her small grant proposal. Holly is grateful to the University of Wisconsin– Marathon County, which awarded her a Summer Research Grant to

Acknowledgments

XVIII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

complete work on this project, as well as to the UW Colleges Women’s Studies Program that has supported her work on threshold concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies in material and immaterial ways. " anks especially to Susan Rensing who helped us work through some of the initial organizational challenges of the text and provided many helpful suggestions along the way. And a thanks to our reviewers:

Courtney Jarrett Ball State University Beth Sertell Ohio University Daniel Humphrey Texas A&M University Jennifer Smith Paci$ c Lutheran University Tanya Kennedy University of Maine JoAnna Wall University of Oklahoma Shawn Maurer College of Holy Cross Danielle DeMuth Grand Valley State Desirée Henderson University of Texas, Arlington Beatrix Brockman Austin Peay State University Marta S. McClintock-Comeaux California University of Pennsylvania Lynne Bruckner Chatham University Angela Fitzpatrick Coastal Carolina University Harry Brod University of Northern Iowa Danielle Roth-Johnson University of Nevada Julia Landweber Montclair State University Lauren Martin Pennsylvania State University Murty Komanduri Fort Valley State University Jocelyn Fenton Stitt University of Michigan—Ann Arbor Katherine Pruitt Indiana University—Purdue