Class Notes

09.06.02

by:Jessica Bray

Quiz Returned
Resource Report 1
Spender Article
-summary, analysis, evaluation
Monday assignment
Went over quiz

Gender: The constellation of personal attributes assigned to men and women in any culture. It is a primary characteristic by which we structure intimate relationships, divide labor, assign social value, and grant privilege.
-Not just linked to biological reasons, but is based on our perception of "cultural" or "normal affects" in our society.

Resource Report 1
-due Monday Sept 16
-link on syllabus on today's date (sept. 6), or on assignments page
-the resource report should complete four tasks: it should provide a summary of the information in the article or other resource, an analysis of its assumptions and argument, an evaluation of its reliability, authority, and intended audience, and a synthesis of its ideas with other class readings and themes
-be sure to pick an article that is not an assigned reading. There is a list online of the articles to choose from.
Click here: http://www.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/indv/indvrr.htm

Spender Article
Summary
-talks about gendered language and how we evaluate written language.
-Our expectation: Women speak too much, men can never get a word in, men's conversations is always more important, in a mixed group discussion, women speak 30% of the time while men speak the other 60%, women say key words in conversations to keep it going (tell me more etc.)
-Authority/power determines who speaks more (social place). Men seen as better writers, more knowledgeable, scholarly, whereas women are romantic, ramblers, and speak in gibberish in their writing.
Analysis
-Thesis: there was no one sentence thesis in this article, but quite a few sentences that could be molded together.
-pg. 8: "Within language studies it has now been established that over the centuries women have been enjoined by men to be silent. Sophocles might not have started it, but when he suggested that 'silence gives the proper grace to women,' he made a contribution to the image of a good woman as a silent woman in the western tradition."
-pg. 9: "And I never ceased to be amazed at the extent to which
our reality is predicated on the premises with which we begin; or
the extent to which measurement is in the eye of the beholder-or in the ear of the listener."
-pg. 11: "That there can be such a gap between belief and behavior is not (necessarily) because people are trying to concel sexist (or racist) actions: On the contrary they can genuinely feel that there is nothing problematic about their behavior and that they are performing in a perfectly good honourable manner-even as they engage in the most blatantly discriminatory practices."
-pg. 16: "For what has emerged, particularly in the educational realm, is that it is not just that the same contribution can be accorded a different mark or status on the basis of perceived sex, but that the same status and mark can be granted different weigtings on the basis of sex."
-Each table had to come up with their own version of the thesis
-group 2: Ancient traditions have led to the Western belief of both men and women that women who speak more than 30% of the time have spoken more than their fair share.
-importance of pulling key words from the articles as well as tying in other key words and ideas from other articles that connects them together.
-audience: those interested in thinking
Evaluation:
Click here: http://www.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/indv/indveval.htm
INDV 102 Critical Thinking: Evaluation
-did not have a chance to discuss this, will discuss it on
Monday as well as synthesis.

Monday assignment
Review evaluation and talk about syntheisis
read: Stack, "Different Voices, Different Visions" (42-48).
Quiz on Wednesday