Gender Studies: Cyborgs and Feminist Theory

Cyborgs

• Donna Haraway defined Cyborgs 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."

Essentialism

• Essentialism is a mode of thinking that assumes that all manifestations of gender difference are innate and transcultural and historical.

Ann Oakley's Work

• Ann Oakley's "Sex, Gender and Society" is a seminal text that explicates the constructed nature of gender.

Gender

• Gender 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

• Heterosexism is an ideology that privileges heterosexual people, relationships, behaviors, and attitudes.

Radical Feminism

• The "woman identified woman" is a manifesto of Radical Feminism.

Queer Theory

• Heteronormativity is a key concept in queer theory and transgender studies, relating to how heterosexuality and complementary masculine and feminine gender roles are established, discursively and politically, as normal and natural.

Gender Identity

• Gender Fluid 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.

Gay Liberation Movement

• The Stonewall Riots, a significant event in the gay liberation movement, occurred in 1969.

Transvestism

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

History of Sexuality

• "The History of Sexuality" is subtitled as "The Will to Knowledge".

National Organisation for Woman (NOW)

• Betty Friedan is the founder of National Organisation for Woman (NOW).

Theorists

• Julia Kristeva theorized about abjection.

Literary Works

• "Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire" is penned by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.

Corporeal Feminism

• Elizabeth Grosz coined the term "corporeal feminism".

Consciousness Raising (CR)

• Consciousness Raising (CR) was a key aspect of Second Wave feminism.

Queer Studies

• "Thinking Sex", a seminal essay in the field of Queer Studies, is written by Gayle Rubin.

Liberal Feminism

• Liberal feminism began in the 19th century.

Womanism

• Alice Walker is the founder of Womanism.

Pride Month

• June is celebrated as the Pride Month.

Victim Feminism

• Naomi Woolf coined the term "victim feminism".