Gender and Contemporary Society
Final Exam Study Guide
The final exam for Gender and Contemporary Society is scheduled for Monday, December 16, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, in ILC 125 (our regular classroom).
The final exam is comprehensive, that is, it covers material from the whole semester. Studying for a comprehensive final gives you the opportunity to review the semester's material, an activity that will make you retain more of what you have studied. This study guide should help make your review productive and effective. Remember that you can view most of the videos we have watched this semester by checking them out from the library.
There will be two final exam
review sessions:
Thu 12
Dec, 1:00-2:00 pm, Econ 104
Sat 14
Dec, 2:30-3:30 pm, Econ 104
You may attend either or both
sessions. DO NOT go to the review expecting to be given answers to possible
exam questions. Rather, you should already have begun to think about the
exam and should come to the session ready to share your insights and ideas
with other students.
The exam will be open note: that is, you may use notes made especially for the exam, NOT all your class notes. You may also use a dictionary, but you may not consult your textbook, articles, or any xeroxes during the exam. You will write your exam in a blue book (any size) using either pen or pencil (think legible).
For the exam, you will be given a choice of three essay questions that will ask you to address a theme or various themes of the course listed below. You will answer ONE of those questions. The question may ask you to consider particular articles or videos in your analysis.
Your essay will be graded on its fulfillment of the question's terms, sophistication of thesis; strength of argumentation and organization; effectiveness and appropriateness of illustration from the semester's readings; style; and mechanics. You should expect to take most of the two hours to plan, write, and proof your essay. The final counts 20% of your grade.
As you study, think about the following themes:
1. The relationship between language and gender; how language organizes how we think about women and men; how we assess speech differently depending on the speaker.
2. The relationship between biology, sex, and gender; how the cultural assumptions we all internalize shape our thinking about gender and how cultures are, in turn, dependent on those distinctions; how definitions of gender vary from culture to culture, era to era. The significance of living in a two-gender culture.
3. How gender shapes labor and work, including the sex industry, the military, the global economy (especially export processing zones, maquiladoras), patterns of immigration, economic theory.
4. Images of gender in the media and popular culture; "education" for gender in the schools and in the media.
5. How family systems and family roles shape and are shaped by our assumptions about gender.
7. Gender and science; gender and medicine; gender and health.
8. How intersections of race, class, and gender shape our selves, our experiences, our opportunities, our limitations, our relationships our society.
9. The performance of gender,
whether of hegemonic masculinity or marginalized identities.