Feminist Theory and Gender Studies

Definitions and Concepts

• Cyborgs are defined as "post-Second World War hybrid entities, made of, first, ourselves and other organic creatures in our unchosen, high-technological guise as information systems, texts, and ergonomically controlled labouring, desiring, and reproducing systems" by Donna Haraway.
• Essentialism is a mode of thinking that assumes all manifestations of gender difference are innate and transcultural and historical.
• Gender order refers to a patterned system of ideological and material practices performed by individuals in a society, through which power relations between women and men are made, and remade, as meaningful.
• Heterosexism is an ideology that privileges heterosexual people, relationships, behaviors, and attitudes.

Key Concepts in Queer Theory and Transgender Studies

• Heteronormativity is a key concept that relates how heterosexuality and complementary masculine and feminine gender roles are established, discursively and politically, as normal and natural.
• Gender Queer refers to individuals who identify as a combination of man and woman, neither man or woman, or both man and woman, or someone who rejects commonly held ideas of static gender identities and, occasionally, sexual orientations.

Important Events and Figures

• The Stonewall Riots, a significant event in the gay liberation movement, happened in 1969.
• Betty Friedan is the founder of the National Organisation for Woman (NOW).
• Julia Kristeva is a theorist who wrote about abjection.

Literature and Theorists

• Ann Oakley's "Sex, Gender and Society" is a seminal text that explicates the constructed nature of gender.
• Gayle Rubin wrote the seminal essay "Thinking Sex" in the field of Queer Studies.
• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick penned "Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire".
• Alice Walker is the founder of Womanism.

Feminist Movements and Waves

• Consciousness Raising (CR) was a key aspect of Second Wave feminism.
• Liberal feminism began in the 18th century.
• Pride Month is celebrated in June.