For your amusement, or edification, I’ve been putting together a list of terms & concepts students of my Intro to Gender Studies class are required to know – for exams & that sort of thing. I thought some of you might want to ‘check in’ to see how many you could define or explain (extra points if you can name the author/article we were teaching the concepts with!):
- masculinity / femininity
- LGBT (or GLBT, GLBTI, GLBTIQ, etc.)
- Intersex
- Binary
- hegemony
- social construction
- epistemology
- discursive
- gender assignment
- gender identity
- gender roles
- gender attribution
- biological gender / sex
- one sex model
- transgender / transsexualism
- queer theory
- sexual orientation
- subtraction studies
- “listening with”
- postmodernism
- deconstruction
- testosterone / estrogen
- intersectionality
- Targeted Discrimination, Compound Discrimination, Structural Subordination, Over Inclusion, Under Inclusion, Misappropriation, Structural-Dynamic Discrimination
- essentialism
- Feminism
- First, Second, Third Waves of Feminism
- postfeminism
- Patriarchy
- ERA
- butch / femme
- postcolonialism
- poststructuralism
- heterosocial / homosocial power relations
- methodological approaches
- standpoint theories
- paternalism
- the Arapesh, the Mundugumor, the Tchambali
- the four themes of masculinity: No Sissy Stuff, The Big Wheel, The Sturdy Oak, Give ‘Em Hell
- heteronormativity
- variability
- “thinking bent”
- institutionalized heterosexuality
- Gender Similarites Hypothesis
- stereotype threat
- identification / disidentification
- overprediction / underperformance
- “wisedom” or “wise” schooling
- denial of personal disadvantage
- five ways to enhance diversity: enhance leadership; diversify role models; less silence about discrimination; fairness in selection; educate minorities in “real world” dynamics
- glass ceiling / glass escalator
- marriage / civil unions
- “grandmother hypothesis” / “adaptive menopause”
- Hadza culture and gender roles
- “selection effects”
- four factors that brought about “the love revolution”
- cissexual / cisgender
I took a gender study class at the U of MN years ago.
I want my money back.
Ok, I give up…what author/article is this list of terms based on? Can you provide definitions with the terms, too?? I thought I was up on my gender terms, but several in the list I have never heard of before, such as “cissexual/cisgender.”
cissexual / cisgender comes from a couple of places, most notably Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl.
I’m sure you’ve already answered, but I can’t find it. Just curious – what school are you teaching at?
Lawrence University, in Appleton, WI.
Great list!
One recent book I’ve read that happens to have some really interesting perspectives as well as useful terms (“co-gendered” is one I really like) is ‘Shamans of the Foye Tree’. I did a review of it in Anthro News.
I think it’s terrific that you are teaching this course! We just need to get you a full time tenured spot somewhere that pays super! 🙂