WGST 2800 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Combahee River, Intersectionality, Heterosexism

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Women's and Gender Studies
• Course: WGST 2800
• Professor: Megan Rivers- Moore

Document Summary

We must become fluent in each other"s histories - jacqui alexander. Complex, culturally and historically specific social system that organizes and regulates interactions between men and women. Men/masculinity given more social value than women/femininity, helps determine access to capital and resources. Connected to other systems that organize social interactions: race, sexuality, ability. Gender relations are social constructions (as well as gender) Who becomes marginalized when certain aspects of personal lives become politicized. Differences between men and women rather than among them. Emphasis on patriarchy, male domination, what women were imagined to share. Essentialist, idea that men and women are categorically different (ie. not as many women in science and technology bc they don"t have the intrinsic aptitude for it) Ignores women of colour, and others who were otherwise marginalized. Erased working class women"s and women of colour contributions to feminism. We are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual and class oppression .