Gender&LitUtopiaDystopia Wiki
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Utopian Ideas Chart


“Gender is a performance.” –Judith Butler

2nd Wave – Classist, Racist, White Majority

3rd Wave – Complicates issues of sexuality, gender, identity/performance, race, culture

Feminist Theories

-Liberal Feminist Theory – same political liberty across genders

-Marxist Feminist Theory – same economic liberty across genders

-Radical Feminist Theory – sex/reproduction/care are simultaneously empowering/oppressing for women

-Socialist Feminist Theory – joins Marxist and Radical theories

Utopia

Upper-class, inside – exploring fantasy worlds

Treating other races as “children” or “inferior”

Separates good and bad

“perfect society” includes slavery

feudalism is ending – ability to change profession

What is the critique?

-private property, feudalism, poverty

-slavery is good… immoral? Likens slavery to punishment

Three Guineas

What is the critique?

-lack of power/agency

-women in the workforce

-current education system

ellipsis (. . .) creates space, implies something is missing, unspoken, or unspeakable

Gender Stories

3 conceptualizations of Gender

-gender equals sex (feminine/masculine)

-gender does not equal sex (develops through social interaction)

-gender is the assignment of meaning to bodies

Expression of Sexuality – gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, queer

“gender” – masculine, feminine, androgynous, genderqueer

gender – socially constructed, includes “sex”, not stable; dimensions become more/less significant

Ideas-

-Identities can have gender implications

-Social Construction and Agency

-Religion/History

-Institutions created by humanity

-Preparation (tells children how to act as adults), prescription, and Reinscription

Herland

Expectations and Realities

E: “feminine vanity” – “frills and furbelows”

R: evolved costume, more perfect than Chinese dress; beautiful, useful, dignified, tasteful

E: dull, submissive monotony

R daring, social inventiveness; mechanical scientific development

E: pettieness

R: social consciousness

E: jealousy

R: broad, sisterly affection; fair-minded intelligence

E: hysteria

R: standard of health, vigor; calmness of temper

Ideas

Are these women or are they a 3rd gender?

Male Narrator provides for Point of View, Reaches broader audiences at the time

Children are like trees, growing together, part of society, natural growth/education

Eugenics- breeding humans to be better, avoid sex drive/aggression

Sexuality is shameful, removal prevents sexual violence

Judith Butler

Ideas

Do women exist?

What is it that allows us to become a “woman”?

What is not “womanly”?

No “we,” but “I” and the “other”

See the reality, manipulate rules of social gender construction, make fun of it

Queer (readings of Duggan and Warner)

Definition – not traditionally heterosexual, meaning origin: “strange”, “unnatural”

Defying standards of a heterosexual world

Heterosexuality makes sense of homosexuality by making it another form of heterosexuality

But there is no “normal”

Performance of gender/sexuality has an effect on all facets of life

Binary of right (natural) or wrong (unnatural)

The Straight Mind by Monique Witting

Ideas

Experience/desire must be filtered through categories and statistics

“Thus, when thought by the straight mind, homosexuality is nothing but heterosexuality” (28)

Wants to rid of gender difference/binary

Angels in America

Characters:

Prior – flamboyant and feminine

Belize- flamboyant and feminine, takes control later

Louis- pokes fun at/acknowledges homosexuality, goofy, chariming (w/Joe), unlikable (w/ Prior), selfish

Joe- performs heterosexuality, “weak”, married/church/right-wing, self-loathing

Roy- negative attitude, thinks homosexuality=powerlessness, wont admit to it

Performances in Angels

Homosexual perspectives, conflict, doubt, guilt, abandonment, humanity, loss, messiness, faith/religion/divinity, fantastical/magical, delusion, theatricality/imagination, race

Ideas

Prior as Jonah – prophet that doesn’t want to be a prophet

Judaism & Mormanism – Their journeys; being marginalized

Freedom & Other ideas are so distand & high that they’re unattainable

Hannah/Joe Phone Call – homosexuality is a joke, ridiculous

Homosexual–gay–sodomite(strong moral connotation; religious history)-inversion

Utopia – Harper & Mr Lies (Harpers reality is very dystopic)

Dystopia – dying characters; self-loathing; failing religions; corrupt lawyers

Blood Child

Ideas

Gender duty, sibling relations, male pregnancy, complexity of relationships, consent/agency, coming of age/growing up, parasitism, symbiotic, family structure, childbearing, C-sections (exploitative, violent, sex, rape, loss of virginity)

Evening, Morning, Night

Ideas

Discrimination, healthcare system, prison, what constitutes humanity, touch/love, children’s responsibility to care for parents, reproductive right, entrapment, free will, doubt/hesitation

Speech Sounds

Ideas

Intuition, communication, companionship/trust, violence, education/power, loss/greed, jealousy, access to resources

Black Feminist Thought & Afrofuturism

Ideas

Education, Housing, Healthcare Access for Black Women

There is a time for separation – balance coming together and separation

Afrofuturism critiques historica/modern-day oppression for people of color

Afrofuturism imagines a utopic future of liberation and progress

Analogue – A Hate Story

Characters

*Hyun-ae – submissive, feminine AI

*Mute – patriarchal AI

V for Vendetta

As a graphic novel…

Dialogue – image/text interplay

Panels – size, placement

Bubble Shapes – who, where, why

The Character “V”

Different speech

Androgynous

Used to believe in justice, now anarchy

No facial expression, grin

Imprisoned

Clever

Long hair – does this mean anything?

Sexuality – asexualish; respectful

Non-identitarian politics

Anarchy-rights for ALL

The Hunger Games

Ideas

Bow & Arrow

Revenge/Mercy Killings – Katniss

Love Story

Gendering Death

Test Question

Katniss Inadvertently starts a riot in district 11 by giving Rue a funeral.

Class Themes

Surveillance

Cocnetrated Power

Families Separated

Lack of Agency

Control of Information

Segregation

Little Value for Human Life

Violence

Controlled Resources

No Room for Growth