EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDE

Thursday, December 1, 2022 1:10 PM

Squires & Brouwer (+ Booth Notes)

• Terms related to passing (frm Robinson):
○ Passing - interplay between 3 actors:
▪ The passer (performs privileged identity)
▪ The in-group clairvoyant (member of non-privileged group who can see through the
pass)
▪ Dupe (member of privileged group who believes the pass)
○ Racial passing - across racial lines from Black to White
○ Sex/gender passing - across sex lines from female to male
• Framing - the process of selecting some aspects of a perceived reality & making them more salient
in a communicating text to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral
evaluation, &/or treatment recommendation for the described phenomenon
• What successful passing can achieve:
○ Destabilization of the regime of White male privilege
• Media's use of pronouns when discussing O'Neill
○ Denver Post described Sean as a 20-year-old woman who posed as a teenage boy
○ No acknowledgement of his self-description as male
○ Press strategically switched between "him" and "her" when depicting O'Neill's identity &
alleged transgressions
• Media's use of photographs in the Phipps & Teena cases
○ Photographs captioned "Teena Brandon" instead of "Brandon Teena"
○ Playboy article of Brandon photo caption - "Dying to be a man"
▪ "found out Brandon was a woman"
• Author's attitudes toward Phipps, Teena, & O'Neill in terms of passing:
○ For the in-group, unwillingness to automatically side with Brandon & Sean derives in part
from the pain of passing which in turn derives from the feeling that the passer does not
want to be associated with the group & will do anything to escape it
○ Some in the in-group claimed passers as their own in order to illuminate oppressions
operating in social, political, & legal responses to the passing discovery
• Authors conclusions:
○ Comparison of dominant & marginal press reactions to cases of passing reveals that on the
issue of passing there are major differences & a few notable similarities between dominant
media & media that serve marginalized groups
▪ Also exposes ambivalences of acts of passing
□ The effects of passing & discoveries of passing can only be assessed in a radically
contextual manner
○ The queer press participated in progressive politics by framing the tragedy as a hate crime
○ Marginal people do not always (or frequently) produce oppositional or liberatory texts
▪ Major issue to which scholars & activists need to respond
○ Race & sex passing:
▪ Many social groups are invested in fixing racial & sexual identities & depend on
discrete categorization to maintain group interests & personal security
○ Need for critical mass or threshold of visibility for those who perform identities that cannot
be easily captures by our current norms & language

Tracy & Rivera

• Script - recipe for action that is rarely articulated, yet powerfully directs practice
○ Problematic when they promote unjust behavior
• Aversive sexism -
Ex: if executives espouse gender equity while simultaneously expressing private preferences

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 ○ Ex: if executives espouse gender equity while simultaneously expressing private preferences
that discourage women's equal participation in organizational life
○ Preferences for male career model intersect w enduring traditional scripts regarding
women's role at home
• Why the "choice script" is problematic:
○ Suggests that if women work, then navigating the challenges of work & life is their private
responsibility
○ Suggests women's opting out of careers to raise children equates with progress
▪ Effectively eliminates need for organizational/govt policy to address work-life issues
○ Glosses the raced & classed privileges of those who presumably have a "choice" to opt out
of paid labor
▪ Dismisses reality that many women need income to survive
○ Helps explain why work-life policies may not be enacted
▪ Assumed that if woman wants to spend more time with her children, she can simply
leave her job
○ Implies that in contrast to women, men do not have a choice about whether to work
• Male executives' use of the term 'success' for their children:
○ For daughters:
▪ Travel, peace, happiness, balance
▪ People skills, marriage, good/successful husband, work until they have kids & become
moms
▪ Focus on family life
▪ Idea that successful women are not suitable wives
○ For sons:
▪ Listed more prestigious job positions
▪ Good job w flexible environment, wonderful wife, specific careers
▪ Success mentioned 2x more for sons than daughters
○ Success more commonly used re preferred traits for envisioned sons-in-law than daughters-
in-law
• Organizational sensemaking theory - we do not know what we think until we see what we say

McCann
• Decontextualized violence -
○ Ex: movie about Florida prostitute (Wuornos) who murdered seven people turned into a
story about the actress's (Theron) voyage into the darkness of the character
• How film critics discussed Theron's performance:
○ Dramatic departure of the character from the real actress
○ 'You'll spend the first part of Monster searching for Theron under all that make-up'
○ Her efforts to personify Wuornos are less prominent in critical coverage of Monster than
narrative of aggressive, masculine, lesbian killer overtaking desirable, feminine actress
• How film dealt with the background of Wuornos
○ Contextualizes her within narrative of naïve hopes & desperate circumstances
○ Encourages us to see her as not a monster, but a deeply damaged consequence of
socioeconomic despair & gendered violence
• Social attitudes toward violent women
○ Violent women like Wuornos stand as an indictment of the very patriarchal practices that
drive so many heterosexual men to seek out images of nude women like Charlize Theron
○ Ugly, trashy, dirty, masculine

Linde Audio Lectures - Mod 3

• Pay gap
○ Gender pay gap = difference between earnings of men & women with identical jobs
• Stratification - gender stratification in schools
More high school teachers are women, yet fewer are principals or superintendents

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 ○ More high school teachers are women, yet fewer are principals or superintendents
○ Women earn less than men
• Mansplaining
• Microinequity - small incidences of gender stereotyping & harassment on the job
• Title VII - part of Civil Rights Act of 1964
○ Prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
• Title IX of the Education Act Amendments (1972) - all educational institutions that receive federal
funds are required to treat boys, girls, men, and women equally
○ Binding in all school that receive federal funds
○ Addresses many sites of gender inequality, not just athletics
• Affirmative Action - addresses historical discrimination in organizations against groups
○ Preferential treatment whose results are more important than intent
• Equal Opportunity Laws - focus on discrimination against individuals
• Stereotypes of women:
○ Sex object - judged by sexual appeal
▪ Contributes to sexual harassment
○ Mother - expected to take care of others & offer emotional support
▪ While actual mothers often face employment discrimination
○ Child - not taken seriously or considered physically incapable of difficult tasks
○ Iron maiden - labeled as 'too tough' or 'too masculine' if above categories are not met
• Stereotypes of men:
○ Sturdy oak - expected to be self-contained & strong
○ Fighter - expected to be aggressive & competitive
○ Breadwinner - expected to earn more than women
• Glass ceilings & walls
○ Glass ceilings = metaphor for invisible barrier that limits advancement of women &
minorities
○ Glass walls = metaphor for sex-segregation on the job
• Audience reception - how mediated texts are understood
• Context/textual analysis - understanding narratives & images in mediated texts
• Jackson Katz on heroic masculinity
○ Violent behavior is typically gendered male
○ Muscularity is a masculine ideal - signifies power & control
○ Heroic masculinity = guns
• Family Medical & Leave Act (1993) - unpaid leave for eligible employees to care for family
member then return to work

Chavez & Griffin

• Overall research format of article:
○ Personal & historical discussion
• Post-feminism - 'women should stop talking about oppression & engage their own power'
• How authors feel about power feminism:
○ They have personal interest in the myriad material impact that power feminism has on
feminisms and feminists in communication & on the world outside of academia
○ Power feminism does not feel like feminism
○ Desire a forum to consider the many sides of power feminist debates & to demonstrate
what we consider the high stakes they possess for progressive politics & theory
• How Griffin describes ideology of power feminism
○ Expectation for white women to adopt power feminism
○ Power feminism was to be the default 'of course' for white women
○ White women would follow voices that tell them to embrace their own power and please do
'stop whining'
• Backgrounds of Chavez & Griffin
Chavez:

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 ○ Chavez:
▪ Working class, bi-racial
▪ Smart mouth
▪ Younger bro
▪ Dad spent workweek away from home, mom maintained everything else
○ Griffin:
▪ Middle class, privileged
▪ White, two-parent household
• How power feminists might discuss the author's personal stories:
○ Stories could be co-opted for post-feminist narratives of success

Haenfler
• Type of masculinity that values competition & aggression:
○ Hegemonic masculinity
• Time period when men's movements grew a great deal:
○ Early 1980s
• What all Straight Edge members commit to:
○ No alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs
• Most prestigious members of Straight Edge
○ White, middle class, male, and young (16-23)
• How Straight Edge dealt with women:
○ Open to women & many women participate
○ But overwhelmingly consists of men
○ Primarily masculine context
• The meaning of the abbreviated sXe
○ Straight edge
○ Clean-living movement whose members abstain from alcohol, tobacco, & other drugs in an
effort to resist peer pressure & create a better world

Huang & Brouwer

• The author's goal regarding queer theory & intercultural theory:
○ Hope to contribute to projects of culturalizing queer theory & queering intercultural
communication
• Homonormativity - a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and
institutions, but upholds & sustains them, while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay
constituency & privatized, depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity & consumption
• What the concept of 'coming out' is based on:
○ The "coming home" concept in China - strong sense of obligation to travel to parents' home
for important holidays & landmark events
○ Built on particular kind of queer experience & geography, which is usually from the
standpoint of white, middle-class, urban U.S. citizenship
• Proportion of gay & bisexual men in China who are fully 'out':
○ 3%
• Greatest struggle faced by queer people in China:
○ Family
• Concept of the 'good homosexual':
○ Those who do not or cannot afford to be good consumers are sometimes condemned as
lacking 'culture' or describes as 'low quality', and thus not qualified to be a 'good
homosexual'

Linde Audio Lectures - Mod 4

• Different types of men's movements:
○ Often a response to feminism
Mostly centered on defining & maintaining an understanding of masculinity

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 ○ Mostly centered on defining & maintaining an understanding of masculinity
○ Profeminism - identify with feminist movement
▪ Response to 2nd wave feminism
▪ Gender equity
▪ Antisexism
▪ Opposing violence toward women
○ Mythopoetic Men's Movement - started in 1980s by Robert Bly, author of Iron John
▪ Claimed men had become too soft & needed to be initiated into manhood
▪ Called upon mythology
▪ Gathered at outdoor retreats
○ Promise Keepers (PK) - Christian men's organization
▪ Core beliefs expressed in 7 promises
▪ Masculinity in crisis, the soul of men is at stake
• Different types of feminism:
○ Radical - argues that oppression created by men must be resisted
○ Liberal - fights for legal & political equity
○ Womanism - recognizes sexism & racism experienced by black women
○ Postfeminism - claims we have moved beyond a need for feminism
• Different 'waves' of feminism:
○ First wave = b/w 1840-1920s
▪ Women activists already fighting for abolition of slavery & temperance
▪ Lucretia Coffin Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized Seneca Falls Convention in
1848
▪ 1920: Congress passed 19th Amendment
▪ Margaret Sanger lobbied for reproductive rights & 'birth control'
○ Second wave = b/w 1960-1990
▪ Linked to protests for civil rights & against American involvement in Vietnam
▪ Promoted change via meetings, organizations (NOW), legislation, protests, academic
circles, art, & performance
▪ Lobbied for equal pay, labor rights, 'the personal is political'
○ Third wave = started in early 1990s
▪ Included more of the struggles of all women (disabilities, race, age, class, etc.)
▪ Put theory into practice
□ 'door-to-door' feminism
□ 'Grrrl culture'
▪ Built coalitions between groups that identify as oppressed
○ Fourth wave = ?
▪ Spiritually informed activism
▪ Transnational feminism
□ Intersectionality
▪ Tech-savvy & digital natives (#metoo)
▪ Trans-inclusive

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