文档介绍：SP 401 Fall 2010
Class #8
1. Library Resources for Oral Presentations (Mark Szarko, Librarian)
2. Discussion: The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) - Charlotte Perkins Gilman –
See Question Sheet
of this text in the contemporary period; relationship to other
accounts of gender and madness (. Susanna Kaysen- Girl, Interrupted, Sylvia
Plath – The Bell Jar). Is The Yellow Wallpaper a “feminist” text?
. 4. The Yellow Wallpaper as “Bridging Text” between First and Second Waves
of American Women’s Rights Activism
5. The Legacy of the “First Wave” of American Women’s Rights Activism (1848-
1920) for Women’s and Gender Studies
a. Critiquing the “Lenses of Gender”—(Sandra Bem)
Essentialism-The notion of gendered roles/hierarchy and male
domination as rooted intrinsically in biology
(male-centeredness)- defines males and male experience
as the norm and females and female experience as a deviation from that norm.
3 Gender polarization- assumes male and females are opposite in nature;
This lens may be superimposed on many aspects of dress, behavior,
work and sexuality.
b. Articulating a critique of the gender system as one of performance and
power; Describing a model of a system in which the parts (social/cultural,
legal/economic) work together to maintain a gendered hierarch