Gender and Feminist Studies Key Concepts

Key Concepts in Gender and Feminist Studies

• 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 and Gender

• Essentialism is the belief that all manifestations of gender difference are innate and transcultural and historical.
• Ann Oakley's "Sex, Gender and Society" is a seminal text that explicates the constructed nature of gender.

Gender and Power Relations

• 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 and Queer Theory

• Heterosexism is an ideology that privileges heterosexual people, relationships, behaviours, and attitudes.
• Heteronormativity is a key concept in queer theory and transgender studies that relates how heterosexuality and complementary masculine and feminine gender roles are established, discursively and politically, as normal and natural.

Gender Identity and Expression

• 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.
• Transvestism refers to the cross-dressing associated with nonheterosexual behaviour.

Key Figures and Events

• The Stonewall Riots, a significant event in the gay liberation movement, happened in 1969.
• The founder of National Organisation for Woman (NOW) is Betty Friedan.
• Julia Kristeva is known for theorizing about abjection.
• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick wrote "Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire".
• Gayle Rubin wrote the seminal essay "Thinking Sex" in the field of Queer Studies.
• Alice Walker is the founder of Womanism.

Feminist Waves and Key Concepts

• Consciousness Raising (CR) was a key aspect of Second Wave feminism.
• Liberal feminism began in the 19th century.
• June is celebrated as the Pride Month.