Syllabus PHIL 371 Philosophy of Feminism (Fall 2023) Revised - Week 3

PHIL 371: Philosophy of Feminism Concordia University Department of Philosophy PHIL 371/2 Day(s): Tuesday & Thursday @ 2:45PM - 4:00PM Class Location: FB S133 SGW Instructor: Eleni Panagiotarakou, PhD eleni.panagiotarakou@concordia.ca (All emails must include course code, full name, ID# Office Hours Location : ER 635 Time : Tuesday 10:00-11:45 or by appointment. In addition, you can also find me online on Friday mornings from 9:00-10:30 https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/85373328080?pwd=bEhRRFFiT0xlanJUMWVxekZVejdMUT09 Meeting ID: 853 7332 8080 Librarian Ethel Gamache ethel.gamache@concordia.ca Support for undergraduate students: https://library.concordia.ca/help/users/undergraduates/index.php Official Course Description “ This course provides an introduction to some of the central issues in contemporary feminist philosophy. The key arguments in feminist epistemology, feminist ethics, and sex and gender studies are discussed from a variety of perspectives.” 1 Specific Course Description & Objectives The etymology of the word feminism comes from the “Old French femenin (12c.) "feminine, female; with feminine qualities, effeminate," which is itself derived from the Latin femininus "feminine" from femina "woman, female," literally "she who suckles". 2 1 https://www.concordia.ca/academics/undergraduate/calendar/current/section-31-faculty-of-arts-and- science/section-31-220-department-of-philosophy/philosophy-courses.html 2 https://www.etymonline.com/word/feminism#:~:text=feminism%20(n.),a%20male%22%20(1875) . Page 1 of 34

Broadly understood, “feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks an end to gender-based oppression. Motivated by the quest for social justice, feminist inquiry provides a wide range of perspectives on cultural, economic, social, and political phenomena. It identifies and evaluates the many ways that some norms have been used to exclude, marginalize, and oppress people on the basis of gender, as well as how gendered identities have been shaped to conform and uphold the norms of a patriarchal society. In so doing, it tries to understand the roots of a system that has been prevalent in nearly all known places and times. It also explores what a just society would look like.” In this course w e will look at the key concepts and debates in feminist philosophy. Prerequisite: PHIL 232 or PHIL 263 Course Objectives A student who completes this course should be able to do the following: • Clearly communicate philosophical ideas, both verbally and in writing • Think reasonably about controversial issues, seeing both sides of them. • Discuss complicated issues in respectful and productive ways with fellow students. • Charitably and accurately explain central positions in contemporary analytic feminist philosophy • Identify, reconstruct, explain, and critically evaluate the main arguments in the course readings • Construct one’s own arguments about the course material. • Apply abstract theoretical thought to real-life situations. Assignments Editorial Essay (30%) Purpose: (I) learn the art of persuading writing (II) establish your name beyond scholar circles (e.g., if your op-ed achieves an “A”, you should consider pitching it to a newspaper). Further details will be given in class. Research Paper (40%) Purpose: Demonstrate understanding of the subject matter. Think critically about a theory or argument and put ideas into a logical order. Your paper must have in it the bibliography a minimum of two of our assigned readings. Further details will be given in class. (Please note that your paper will be verified by plagiarism software, including Chat GPT) Group Presentations (10%) Purpose: M otivate collaborative learning, encourage active learning, and develop critical- thinking communication and decision-making skills. Further details will be given in class. Take Home Exam (20%) Purpose: Demonstrate understanding of the subject matter. Further details will be given in class. Page 2 of 34

Required Readings Being aware and sympathetic to the financial difficulties many of you face, all the readings are free. You will find the readings as either URLs in this syllabus (Open Access) or in the Course Reserves (see Moodle). In the rare case that you have a hard time accessing a reading in the Course Reserves, please note that you may access all readings at the Concordia Library. Hellenistic Philosophy, Introductory Readings. Second Edition. Translated by Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson (Hackett, 1998 Readings Weekly Schedule | Texts 3 | Topics Week 1/ Introduction  McAfee, Noëlle, Ann Garry, Anita Superson, Heidi Grasswick, and Serene Khader, "Feminist Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023 Edition), Edward N. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-philosophy/ . Open Access  Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “We should all be feminists: TEDxEuston (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc Week 2 / Ancient Philosophy 1. Plato, Republic , Book 5 (on Queen-Philosophers) https://ia801905.us.archive.org/23/items/PlatosRepublictrans.BloomText/PlatosRepubli ctrans.Bloom_text.pdf 2. Annas, Julia. "Plato’s Republic and feminism." In Feminism and ancient philosophy , pp. 3-12. Routledge, 2019. 3. Levin, Susan B. "Women’s Nature and Role in the Ideal Polis: Republic V Revisited." In Feminism and Ancient Philosophy , pp. 13-30. Routledge, 2019. In-Class Writing workshop on how to write an op-ed Week 3/ Feminism & Metaphysics (What, exactly, is gender? And what’s the distinction between sex and gender?) 1. Frye, “Oppression” & Young, “Five Faces of Oppression” What is intersectionality? 2. Crenshaw, The Urgency of Intersectionality [Ted Talk]* & Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” *Content warning: this video contains graphic depictions of police violence towards the end (starting around 15:45) 3. Witte, “To the Binary and Beyond” 4. Haslanger, “Gender and Race: What Are They?” & Jenkins, “Amelioration and 3 For a 300-level course, students should be expected to read between 40-50 pages per week. Page 3 of 34

Inclusion” 5. Barnes, “Gender without Gender Identity” *Content warning: discussions of rape What is oppression? Week 4/ Epistemology 1. Gilligan, Carol. "In a different voice: Women's conceptions of self and of morality." Harvard Educational Review 47, no. 4 (1977): 481-517. https://sfonline.barnard.edu/sfxxx/documents/gilligan.pdf OPEN ACCESS 2. Grasswick, Heidi, "Feminist Social Epistemology," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2018 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-social-epistemology/ OPEN ACCESS 3. Kohlberg’s 6 Stages of Moral Development https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=bounwXLkme4 4. Carol Gilligan's Theory of Moral Development https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=HctzZwwueL4 5. Carol Gilligan on Women and Moral Development | Big Think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W_9MozRoKE Due: Editorial Essay Week 5 / Patriarch & Social Constructivism 1. Young, Iris Marion. "Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality." Human studies 3, no. 1 (1980): 137-156. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/s pecial/transnational/iris_marion_young.pdf OPEN ACCESS 2. Fox, Stephanie A., Brooke Scelza, Joan Silk, and Karen L. Kramer. "New perspectives on the evolution of women's cooperation." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 378, no. 1868 (2023): 20210424. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2021.0424 OPEN ACCESS 3. Justin Baldoni “Why I'm done trying to be "man enough" Ted Talks (2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cetg4gu0oQQ OPEN ACCESS 4. Angela Saini "How did patriarchy actually begin?" BBC (2023) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230525-how-did-patriarchy-actually-begin Week 6/ Political Philosophy 1. McAfee, Noëlle and Katie B. Howard, "Feminist Political Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/feminism-political/ 2. Porter, Elisabeth. "Finding a New Feminism: Rethinking the Woman Question for Liberal Democracy." Women's Philosophy Review 21 (1999): 90-92. In-Class Writing workshop on how to write a research paper Week 7/ Aesthetics 1. Heys, Cressida. 2007. Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies . New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 4: Aesthetic Surgery, Aesthetic Page 4 of 34

Ethics 2. Leboeuf, Céline. "What is body positivity? The path from shame to pride." P hilosophical Topics 47, no. 2 (2019): 113-128. https://d101vc9winf8ln.cloudfront.net/documents/41804/original/Schaefer.pdf? 1639157353 3. Cesarano, Francesca. "Beyond Choice: A Non-Ideal Feminist Approach to Body Modification." Res Publica (2022): 1-17. Week 8/ Existentialism 1. De Beauvoir, Simone. "The second sex." In Social Theory Re-Wired , pp. 346-354. Routledge, 2023. https://www.iphopper.net/_pubs/[de%20Beauvoir, %20Simone]_The_Second_Sex_1949.pdf 2. Simone de Beauvoir “Why I’m a Feminist”, 1975 https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=g6eDMaDWquI Due: Research Paper Week 9/ Gender 1. DuBois, L. Zachary, and Heather Shattuck‐Heidorn. "Challenging the binary: Gender/sex and the bio‐logics of normalcy." American Journal of Human Biology 33, no. 5 (2021): e23623. 2. Briggs, R. A., and B. R. George. What Even is Gender? . Taylor & Francis, 2023. Chapter 3 https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa- mono/10.4324/9781003053330-3/hate-player-briggs-george? context=ubx&refId=6feebff7-712e-4e3a-a064-ff4b2ab5e7d8 (see also Course Reserve for a printable version) 3. Judith Butler “What is Gender” 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=UD9IOllUR4k 4. Transgender Rights II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8NvPPHX5Y (2022) Week 10 Sex Selection (philosophy of) 1. Ganguli-Mitra, Agomoni. "Sex selection and global gender justice." Journal of Social Philosophy 52, no. 2 (2021): 217-233. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/josp.12405 (Open Access) 2. Unnithan, Maya, and Ben Kasstan. "“But it’s not that they don’t love their girls”: Gender equality, reproductive rights and sex-selective abortion in Britain." Medical anthropology 41, no. 6-7 (2022): 645-658. (Open Access) 3. Bride shortage in India driven by sex-selective abortions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU1dG7JLaEs (2021) 4. Gendercide: The Dangers of Being a Girl https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=x0FIAouMHjk (2023) 5. CNN The ethical case against sex-selective abortion isn’t simple (2018) https://theconversation.com/the-ethical-case-against-sex-selective-abortion-isnt- simple-103806 Week 11/ Sexism/Misogyny Page 5 of 34