Intro to Women's Studies: Suggested Readings

PART 2 OF 2

Hi all, We are in the process of retooling our Intro to WS course, and we are
looking for recommendations for both a general introductory textbook (e.g., a
reader, such as Kesselman et al's Women: Images and Realities) and a text that
is a very short introduction to the various feminist theories. For the latter,
we have used Judith Lorber's Gender Inequalities in the past, and we'd be
interested to know what other texts folks recommend. Of course, if anyone has
one text that fits both bills, that'd be great!

Please reply privately, and I'll post to the list if there's interest.

Thanks,
Jessica 

Jessica Nathanson Director, 
Women's Resource Center 
Augsburg College 
Minneapolis, MN 
nathanso  AT  augsburg.edu 

As promised, here are the responses from my query. 
Thanks to all who replied!
Jessica

I just wanted to suggest that you make sure that some
feminist disability studies theories are incorporated.
 A couple of prominent feminist disability studies
theorists are Rosemarie Garland Thompson and Susan
Wendell (among many more).   Although perhaps a bit
outdated, I have often incorporated a chapter from the
book _Women with Disabilities_ edited by Michelle Fine
and Adrienne Asch called, "Smashing Icons: Disabled
Women and the Disability and Women's Movements." 
There are many more, and much more current articles
and books out there.  However, this article seemed to
really resonate with undergraduate students.

I use _Women, Men, and Society_ eds. Renzetti Curran
for my Intro to Women and Gender Studies.  Some of the
things I like about it is a consistant tone and that
it covers areas I've found other textbooks don't cover
well enough: biology, evolution, hunter/gatherer, etc.
(and, of course, these are the things that one student
will say, "but I saw on Nova that we are biologically
different, and that's why gender exists," etc.).  I've
used this text for a few years, and I think they're
coming out with an updated edition this Spring.

I really like Kirk and Okazawa-Rey's _Women's
Lives/Multicultural Perspectives.  We used to use
Images and Realities, but it just doesn't do enough
theory, and it seemed to encourage more story than
critical thinking.  So we switched, and it's made a
huge difference in our program.  WLMP begins with the
social construction of gender, including Judith Lorber
and a great piece by Allan Johnson called "Patriarchy,
The System," which really helps the students to "get
it" because it's about how P isn't about men but about
all of us and he compares it to "playing the game" and
uses Monopoly to illustrate.  (There's also a terrific
little video feed of him doing it on his website,
which I have been showing to my composition students
too.)  
 
The students LOVED Megan Seely's _Fight Like a Girl_,
which is more like a short cultural history of
feminism from an activist perspective.  I highly
recommend it.  

I have been using Kaplan and Grewal's An Introduction
to Women's Studies: Gender in a Transnational World
since I started teaching intro at Iowa (now doing it
at Keene State in NH) and I haven't ever felt the need
to look elsewhere. It's well-organized, contains a
variety of texts (scholarly, journalism, activist) and
I the more I teach it the more I see the value in a
text that presents a transnational perspective.  One
of the downsides is that there is a lot of material in
it and you really have to pick and choose depending on
your goals. Some of the pieces are just boring for
students. Also, some of them do not seem to be well
excerpted. Also, it lacks a solid piece about social
construction theory generally (it uses Vance's social
construction of sexual identity but you end up doing a
lot of explaining of social construction generally)
and one about privilege. I am supplementing this
semester with McIntosh's "Invisible Knapsack."

Jessica Nathanson
Director, Women's Resource Center
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN
nathanso  AT  augsburg.edu