Response Paper
This four- to five-page paper is worth 5% of your total grade. The assignment is meant to give you practice a) using APA citation, which we will discuss on March 10, and b) organizing your thoughts around issues related to sex and culture.
Submission and Deadlines:
Submit your Response Paper by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, April 3. You need to both upload your paper through the “Response Paper” Turnitin assignment on Blackboard (located in the Submissions & Quizzes section) and send your paper in an email attachment to prof.leah.jjay@gmail.com. Write “Case Brief” in your email subject line. Turnitin is plagiarism check please NO Plagiarism
File format and title: You can use Word, PDF, RTF, or ODT file formats (but not Pages or other formats that require special software to open). Make sure to include your surname and identify the assignment (e.g. “Williams Response Paper”) in your file title.
Write a four- to five-page paper responding to either the Gendered Expectations or the LGBTQ+ Identities material. You can also address other topics, but make sure it is clear how they relate to the assigned material. Make sure to include a thesis statement.
You should discuss at least three of the sources from the week in question, including at least one of the required sources (* asterisked). Include in-text citations and a reference page.
Gendered Expectations
Respond to at least one of the following questions, or your own related question:
What does it mean to see gender, masculinity, and/or femininity as social constructs? Does this approach raise new questions for you?
Do you see gender roles and gender hierarchies/hegemony more as important practices to ensure societal survival or as problematic traditions that maintain power differentials? How else do you understand these concepts?
How do you see gendered expectations interacting with other social identities? Does race, class, dis/ability, or immigration status play into gendered expectations?
Sources:
*Ember’s “Universal and Variable Patterns of Gender Difference”
*Schippers’ “Recovering the Feminine Other: Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Hegemony”
*Grazian’s “The Girl Hunt: Urban Nightlife and the Performance of Masculinity as Collective Activity”
Saldivia et al.’s “The Edge of Gender”
Lorde’s “The Uses of Anger”
Hobbes and Marshall’s “Alpha Males”
Smith’s “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy”
LGBTQ+ Identities
Respond to at least one of the following questions, or your own related question:
What are the effects of pathologizing people with non-normative genders and sexualities? What prior knowledge or experience can you draw from to understand these pathologizing classifications?
What sexualities or genders discussed this week were new to you? How can they help you understand more normative genders and sexualities?
What does it mean when non-normative people embrace, reject, or ignore labels?
Sources:
*Sangganjanavanich’s “Trans Identities, Psychological Perspectives”
*Human Rights Watch’s “New Health Guidelines Propel Transgender Rights”
*De Block & Adriaens’ “Pathologizing Sexual Deviance: A History”
Manders’ “The Butches and Studs Who’ve Defied the Male Gaze and Redefined Culture”
Brotto & Yule’s “Asexuality: Sexual Orientation, Paraphilia, Sexual Dysfunction, or None of the Above?”
Scherrer & Pfeffer’s “None of the Above: Toward Identity and Community-Based Understandings of (A)sexualities”
Drescher’s “Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality”
Zaltzman et al.’s podcast episode, “Queer”
