Gender Conflict in Cultural Contexts



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Gender Conflict in Cultural Contexts

SWMS 215g: 4 Units

Spring 2011

Lecture 34913R 10-11:50 MW

Discussions 34914R through 34921R various times

Joseph R. Hawkins Ph.D.

Office Hrs: by appointment

Phone: Anthropology Offices (213) 740-1900 (messages only) or actually this is best for messages (213) 741 0094 at ONE

Office Location: ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives 909 W. Adams or GFS 229A

E-mail: jrhawkin@usc.edu

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:

The purpose of this course is to help students identify and examine social conflicts through the lens of gender and to make a comparison of such conflicts across cultures, regions and historical periods. The course will depend heavily on anthropological methodologies, feminist, and queer studies. Classes will include lecture, film, a field trip and other resources.

This course seeks answers to questions such as: What do economic and subsistence strategies have to do with attitudes toward sexuality and gender? What are the ways that cultures provide for children, families and religious beliefs, while including a range of sex and gender roles? What do militaristic institutions have to do with same-sex eroticism? Do homosocial environments produce homosexual responses? How do men seek to control female reproduction? What is “natural” about eroticism?

In China until the late 1930s, many women were forced to bind their feet, a practice that was considered highly erotic. These constraints made it difficult for women to walk, and by extension helped men control their sexual activities and reproductivity (Hinsch 1999).

In certain regions of the world, people choose to raise female children as males. Some sub-arctic cultures do this when there are insufficient numbers of males who can be taught to hunt. As only “men” are allowed participate in the hunt among peoples of this subsistence category, the tribe, or band, depends on “men” as hunters to feed their group. Transgendered biological females become “men” and marry women to provide food for their families and their adoptive children (Williams 1986).

In Japan, for over 400 years men and male youths developed marriage-like unions and swore oaths of fealty to one another within the context of the militaristic samurai society. According to many scholars (Plugfelder 2001, Leupp 1999, Watanabe 1989) males of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) were predominately bisexual, or ambivalent about the sex of their sexual partners.

In India, hijras are “neither man nor woman” (Nanda ) That is, they surgically emasculate themselves, and live lives of religious devotion, while acting as prostitutes and performing at religious rituals (Nanda).

These are only some of the many cultural responses to sex, gender and sexuality found around the world. This course will focus on anthropological and historical research, while inspecting cross-cultural perspectives concerning disparaged power positions for males and females, attitudes and ideas about reproduction, ideas about sex-linked life-courses, gendered identities and sexual practices. Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the United States, South America and the South Seas will all provide areas of study.

Our aim will be to review a broad range of cultural contexts in order to examine the anthropological data that focuses on the categories of sex, gender and sexuality, and to see how these vary from culture to culture. Through such an examination, we will work to see ways we might eliminate gendered essentializations, stereotypes and social inequalities, while simultaneously working to imagine ways of disarming social conflicts based on gender and sexuality.

Required Texts

Brettell, Caroline B., Carolyn F Sargent eds.,

2001 Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Fifth Edition (GCC)

Nanda, Serena, Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India, Wadsworth Press,

1990 California. ISBN 0534122043

Course Reader (CR)- Available at Magic Machine

Course Objective

The primary goal of this course is for students to develop a critical awareness of the complex interrelationships between people and their cultures in the past and present, as well as in developed and developing contexts. More specifically, the course’s objective is to broaden awareness about the subjects of sex, gender and sexuality as these relate to patterns of subsistence, cultural ideals, historic eras, religion and ideological concerns. In addition, course assignments are structured to promote the refinement of critical thinking, reading, writing and speaking skills.

Students with Disabilities

The University of Southern California makes every effort to provide appropriate accommodations for students with documented disabilities. Students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations should be obtained from DSP and delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30am to 5pm Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to submit their own original work for all assignments. Any breach of academic integrity will be treated with the utmost seriousness and could result in failure of this course. If you have any questions about what is acceptable and unacceptable academic practice, please consult the Writing Center or come see me.

Academic integrity practices, especially citation and plagiarism, are discussed in “Trojan Integrity: A Guide Avoiding Plagiarism,” which is available on line at . Other useful USC resources:

“Trojan Integrity: A Guide to Understanding and Avoiding Academic Dishonesty”

, and

“Academic Integrity Overview”



Course Requirements:

Class participation 15 points (This includes attendance)[1]

Response papers 40 points (4X10)

Discussion Participation 15 points

Two Exams 15 points (2X7.5)

Final Essay 15 points

100 points total

Grade Scale

93-96%=A

90-93%=A-

87-89%=B+

83-86%=B

80-82%=B-

77-79%=C+

73-76%=C

70-72%=C-

67-69%=D+

63-66%=D

60-62%=D-

0-59%=F

Class Schedule

Week 1 Day 1 Introduction, Review Syllabus.

Day 2 Lecture: PPT Sex and Gender

Readings: GCC, Part I (pp. 1-48).

CR

Week 2 Day 1 Biology, Gender and Human Evolution

Day 2

Helen Fisher: Divorce and he Four-Year-Itch

Readings: GCC Part II

CR

Week 3 Day 1 Gender and Prehistory

Day 2

Hunters and Gatherers

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 4 Day 1 Domestic Worlds and Public Worlds

Day 2 Film: Small Happiness

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 5 Day 1 Equality and Inequality: The Sexual Division of Labor and Gender Stratification

Day 2 Film: Community

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 6 Day 1 The Cultural Construction of Gender and Personhood

Day 2 Midterm Exam 1

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 7 Day 1 Alternative Gendered Categories

Day 2

Readings: Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India

Week 8 Day 1 Culture, Sexualities and Body

Day 2

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 9 Day 1 Gender, Property and the State

Day 2 Film: Veiled Revolution

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 10 Day 1 Gender Household and Kinship

Day 2

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 11 Day 1 Masculinity, Gender, Ritual and Religion

Day 2 My Film: Sacred Striptease: A Japanese Rite of Renewal and Plenty

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 12 Day 1 Gender Politics and Reproduction

Day 2

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 13 Day 1 Culture Contact, Development and the Global Economy

Day 2 Midterm Exam 2

Readings: GCC

CR

Week 14 Day 1 Homosexualities Then and Now

Day 2 Visit to ONE Archives

Readings: CR Excerpt from Homophobias: Lust and Loathing across Space and Time

Week 15 Day 1 Gender and Violence

Day 2 Summary

CR

This class deals with a number of topics that can be challenging to traditional morality and religious ideals. No one is asking you to accept the ideas presented here wholesale. Instead, you are asked to read, listen and evaluate the ideas for yourself, while respecting the rights and ideas that may differ from your own and evaluate them critically.

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[1] Each absence will deduct one percentage point. Four or more unexcused absences are grounds for failure of the class.

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