Gender Troubles

Life has been busy but we came out of hibernation to release this fall reading list! We'll be back in a few weeks with more episodes.

Show notes:

Books-

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, by Andrea Lawlor

How to do Nothing, by Jenny Odell

Females, by Andrea Long Chu

Once and Future Feminist, edited by Merve Emre

A Certain Hunger, by Chelsea G. Summers

Podcasts-

Novara FM 

You're Wrong About - Online Shopping 

Articles of Interest

TV Shows-

I May Destroy You, written/directed by Michaela Coel

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, directed by Laura Poitras

In the FINAL episode of porn month, we interview Maggie MacDonald, a 4th year PhD student who studies the platformization of porn. We talk porn platforms, deepfakes, and anti-sex work policy in Canada. 

To read all the articles discussed in this episode, head to Maggie's website: https://www.internetmaggie.com

Check out the Maggie's Toronto Sex Work Action Project here: https://www.maggiesto.org

Gender Troubles will be taking a little break over the summer to rest and write more great episodes! Thanks for listening and we'll be back in September with lots more content <3

Emma and Eva talk about the sex wars (also known as the porn wars), a time in the 1980s when debates on sexuality, pornography and kink dominated the feminist conversation. 

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reading list:

Diary of a Conference on Sexuality 

Pleasure and danger : exploring female sexuality (Gayle Rubin's "Thinking Sex" starts on page 267)

Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis

Off our backs, "towards a politics of sexuality"

Juggling : a memoir of work, family, and feminism

Explanation of the Dworkin-MacKinnon Ordinance

Dworkin's "Against the Male Flood" and MacKinnon's "Only Words

From Pompeii to Pornhub, Eva & Emma discuss the long history of porn.

Show notes:

https://www.filmsite.org/sexinfilms1.html

https://www.proquest.com/openview/31a0431f5269893f8a5632a062bf0a46/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750

https://susannapaasonen.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/01pornification23-32.pdf

https://monoskop.org/images/e/e7/Williams_Linda_Hard_Core_Power_Pleasure_and_the_Frenzy_of_the_Visible.pdf

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/how-the-internet-changed-porn-201674/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/30/internet-porn-says-more-about-ourselves-than-technology

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/06/16/the-shady-secret-history-of-onlyfans-billionaire-owner/?sh=1b1496085c17

Staying power: The mainstreaming of the hard -core pornographic film industry, 1969–1990 Johnson, Stephen Patrick. University of Maryland, College Park ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  2009. 3359387.

https://archive.org/details/historyofpornogr0000unse/page/2/mode/1up?view=theater

Pornography: A Secret History of Civilisation. TV Mini Series. 1999. 

We kick off Porn Month with a conversation with Kyla Hewson and Kristen Pue, of the podcast Pullback! Pullback investigates the ethical issues behind everyday goods and services. Kyla and Kristen help us work through the issues around the ethical consumption of pornography. What does it look like to be an ethical porn consumer? What are the best ways to directly support porn creators? Is OnlyFans like farm-to-table cuisine? Listen now to find out. 

You can find Pullback here and follow them on Instagram Twitter Facebook 

The book we discuss, "Porn Work: Sex, Labor and Late Capitalism" can be found here 

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This episode, we talk through our thoughts about the leaked Supreme Court draft decision on Roe v. Wade. 

Readings and Recommendations 

Interrupting Criminalization, Abortion Decriminalization is Part of the Larger Struggle Against Policing and Criminalization

Reproaction, Understanding and Advocating for Self-Managed Abortion

Plan C, A Guide to Abortion Pills Online 

Evan Greer, digital security thread 

Caroline Duble, resource thread 

Melissa Gira Grant, The Real Fight for Abortion Rights Is Not in the Courts or Congress

Jenny Brown, Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now (free ebook) 

Science Vs, The Abortion Underground 

5-4 Podcast, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health: The End of Roe

K. Adetoyin, No More Coat Hanger Imagery tiktok 

Some lists of Abortion Funds: here, here, here, and here 

This week, Eva and Emma talk about surrogacy. They discuss different feminist perspectives on the topic and consider how we can expand the definitions of "parenthood" and "family" beyond the nuclear model. 

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READING LIST:

Anita L. Allen, "The Black Surrogate Mother"

Elizabeth S. Scott, "Surrogacy and the Politics of Commodification"

Radiolab, "Birthstory" 

Angela Davis, "Surrogates and Outcast Mothers: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties"

Katherine B. Lieber, "Selling the Womb: Can the Feminist Critique of Surrogacy Be Answered?"

Barbara Katz Rothman, "Reproductive Technologies and Surrogacy: A Feminist Perspective"

Sophie Lewis, "Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family" \

Sophie Lewis, "What is Family Abolition?" 

"Baby M" Surrogate Mother who fought for custody, video

Cover image: Louise Bourgeois, "The Family" (2007)

What's postmodern feminism? In this episode we desperately try to answer that question!

Show notes:

"Explainer: What is Postmodernism" by David Palmer, 2014

Artland "What is Dadaism?"

"On Judith Butler & Performativity" by Sarah Salih, 2007 

Feminist thought : a comprehensive introduction" by Rosemarie Tong, 1989

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 3. Feminist Postmodernism 

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 1999.

Eva and Emma talk about the male gaze, from its origins in feminist film criticism to how the concept gets used today. They also discuss what is often left out from the discourses around the male gaze... (hint: it's capitalism) and also get interrupted by Emma's lovey, loud cat!

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READING LIST:

Big Mama, tiktok 

Issues in Feminist Film Criticism (includes 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' and 'Women and Representation') 

Janell Hobson, 'Viewing in the Dark: Toward a Black Feminist Approach to Film'

Caroline Evans and Lorraine Gamman, 'The Gaze Revisited, or Reviewing Queer Viewing'

John Berger, 'Ways of Seeing' show and book 

Laura Mulvey, 'Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’'

Guerrilla Girls, archive 

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 'The Female Gaze' video series 

Molly Moss, 'thoughts on a queer gaze'

Eliza McDonough, 'Radical Queer Gazes'

In this episode, Eva & Emma discuss the history of gender discrimination within the Canadian Indian Act, and the Indigenous women who have been fighting to overturn this sexism since the 1960's.

Show notes:

Indigenous authors and organizations:

• Settee, Priscilla. “Indigenous Women Charting Local and Global Pathways Forward.” The English Journal, vol. 106, no. 1, National Council of Teachers of English, 2016, pp. 45–50
• Collaborative Process on Indian Registration, Band Membership, and First Nation Citizenship Fact Sheet, Government of Canada, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne
• Ontario Native Women's Association, Feathers of Hope
• Simpson, Audra. Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States. Durham ; London: Duke University Press, 2014. 
• Gehl, Lynn. 2000. “The Queen and I: Discrimination Against Women.” Canadian Woman Studies/Les Cahiers De La Femme Volume 20, Number 2
• Borrows, John. 2016. “Unextinguished: Rights And The Indian Act”. University of New Brunswick Law Journal Volume 67.
• The Indian Act Said What?, Native Women's Association of Canada
• Ongoing Indian Act Inequity Issues- Enfranchisement & Marital Status, Native Women's Association of Canada
• Presentation to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs Re: Bill S-3 – An Act to amend the Indian Act (elimination of sex- based inequities in registration) Submitted by Dr. Pamela D. Palmater

Other sources:

• Gender discrimination persists in Canada’s Indian Act, United Nations committee rules, APTN National News
• Bill C-31, Indigenous Foundations, First Nations & Indigenous Studies, UBC
• https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1467214955663/1572460311596
• Milloy John. 1991. “The Early Indian Acts: Developmental strategy and constitutional change.” In Sweet Promises: A Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada, edited by J.R. Miller. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Day, S. (2019). Equal Status for Indigenous Women— Sometime, Not Now : The Indian Act and Bill S-3. Canadian Woman Studies, 33(1-2). Retrieved from https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/view/37770
• Indian Act Sex Discrimination, Gwen Brodsky
• Women in Canadian History: Mary Two-Axe Earley, Rise Up Feminist Archive

In the late 1800s, both First-wave feminism and the women-lead Temperance Movement were gaining steam in North America. But why did so many more women join the temperance movement than the suffrage cause? Eva tells Emma about the different strategies both movements used to recruit members, focusing in on the ways christian morality and fears over family safety helped (white, Protestant) women conceive of themselves as political participants. 

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Reading List:

Sophie Lewis, Shebeen Queens

Elizabeth K. Churchill, article in The Women’s Journal

Mother Stewart, Memories of the crusade; a thrilling account of the great uprising of the women of Ohio in 1873, against the liquor crime

Criminal, ep 73 Carry A. Nation

Suzanne M. Marilley, Frances Willard and the Feminism of Fear

The Canadian Encyclopedia, Temperance Movement in Canada

Frances Willard, Hints and Helps in our Temperance Work

Jack S. Blocker, Jr., Separate Paths: Suffragists and the Women's Temperance Crusade

OSU, Woman's Crusade of 1873-74

Cover Image: "A woman's liquor raid - how the ladies of Fredericktown, O. abolished the traffic of ardent spirits in their town" from The National Police Gazette, Nov. 8 1879

In this week's episode, Emma tells Eva about the history of domestic work, and the patterns of colonialism and racism that still permeate this area of employment. Plus, a rundown of some major successes in domestic worker collective organizing that have resulted in better wages, better working conditions, and more rights for these workers. 

Cover image: Colonial Dining by William Henry Jackson, 1895

Show notes:

Modigliani, Kathy. “BUT WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN? CHILDCARE, WOMEN, AND DEVALUED LABOR.” The Journal of Education, vol. 168, no. 3, Trustees of Boston University, 1986, pp. 46–69, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42741755.

MATHER, CELIA. “Domestic Workers: Their Time Now.” International Union Rights, vol. 17, no. 4, International Centre for Trade Union Rights, 2010, pp. 17–19, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41937560.

Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. “The Indenture of Migrant Domestic Workers.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 1/2, The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2017, pp. 113–27, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44474112.

Nanny Knows Best: The History of the British Nanny, Katherine Holden, History Press, 2013

https://www.domesticworkers.org/about-domestic-work/domestic-worker-history/

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/03/hellraiser-juana-nicolas/

https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-unions-call-for-recognition-of-the-importance-of-domestic-workers/

https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C189

https://www.ryerson.ca/socialjustice/social-justice-week/2020/10/united-for-domestic-workers-rights/

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/daycare-during-wartime

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-09-06-0909050150-story.html

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/legal-scholar-fights-to-protect-domestic-workers-from-exploitative-conditions-1.5893958

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/advocates-call-for-changes-to-ottawa-s-nanny-program-1.527167

https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/foreign-worker-rights.html

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/26/17275708/housekeepers-nannies-sexual-harassment-laws

https://fee.org/articles/unionizing-nanny/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/obituaries/dorothy-bolden-overlooked.html

https://ca.talent.com/salary?job=nanny

This week: a celebration of the life and work of bell hooks, who died last week at the age of 69. bell was an unparalleled writer, poet, and theorist, and was incredibly influential in the feminist movement. In this episode, Eva & Emma discuss some of their favourite pieces by bell.

Please read the following pieces of writing about bell, written by Black folks and people of colour. 

Hua Hsu: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks

Arabelle Sicardi: https://arabellesicardi.substack.com/p/bell-hooks-will-live-forever

Maiysha Kai: https://www.theroot.com/bell-hooks-author-educator-and-feminist-icon-dead-at-1848220902

Tao Leigh Goffe: https://www.vulture.com/2021/12/bell-hooks-books-essays-to-read.html

Lynnée Denise:https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-12-19/appreciation-bell-hooks

Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés: https://twitter.com/CeciliaMilanes/status/1471238070653657096

A compilation of people:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/16/bell-hooks-remembered-she-reminded-us-of-the-better-world-we-were-working-towards

Read full books and articles by bell hooks online. Please consider donating to Bilphena’s library! https://www.bilphenaslibrary.com/books

Show notes:

https://blackrosefed.org/intersectionalism-bell-hooks-interview/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMVqnyTo_0

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/gustafson/FILM%20165A.W11/film%20165A%5BW11%5D%20readings%20/hooksparis.pdf

https://www.uwyo.edu/aded5050/5050unit12/theory%20as%20liberatory%20prac.pdf

https://savedbythe-bellhooks.tumblr.com

Cover image by. James Keyser, 1992

In this episode, Eva tells Emma about the 1970's "Wages for Housework" movement, an international campaign calling for housework and care work to be compensated. They discuss the movement's radical grassroots origins, different feminist perspectives on the gendered division of labour, and the legacy of the movement in today's working and home life. Digressions include conversations about training squirrels and cleaning up roommate's beard hair. 

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Reading List:

Wendy Edmond, All Work and No Pay : women, housework, and the wages due

Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework

Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work For Mother 

Louise Toupin, The History of Wages for Housework

Gender difference in housework stats 

Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Women and the Subversion of the Community

image: poster from the See Red Women's Workshop

This week, Eva and Emma get into an introduction to Postcolonial Feminism. They discuss the origins of postcolonial theory, examine how Western feminists frame so-called "third world" women and highlight the ways in which feminist rhetoric gets weaponized to perpetuate colonialism. 

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Reading List:

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Routledge’s The post-colonial studies reader

Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes” 

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak”

Sara Ahmed, excerpt from Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality

Lila Abu‐Lughod, "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?"

Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle 

Rich, Janine, “"Saving" Muslim Women: Feminism, U.S Policy and the War on Terror”

image: Leyly Matine-Daftary, PORTRAIT OF FARIDEH GOUHARI 

In this episode, Emma tells Eva about the early roots of Ecofeminism and its strange, essentialist solutions to fighting patriarchy and capitalism. Side-tangents include Aristotle, The Giving Tree, and mind-body dualism. 

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Support us on Patreon

Reading List:

• General Overview of Ecofeminism by Laila Fariha Zein & Adib Rifqi Setiawan
  
• Feminist Environmental Philosophy, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition) by Warren, Karen J., edited by Edward N. Zalta 
  
• The Paradox of Gendering Nature by G. Brach
  
• Feminism, Western Culture, and The Body, in Unbearable Weight by Susan Bordo
  
• The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant
  
• Ecofeminism by Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies
  
• Women and Life on Earth records (WLOE)
  
• Climate Change and Gender Justice: International Policy and Legal Responses by Kameri-Mbote, Patricia
  
• Grassroots Activism: An Exploration of Women of Color’s Role in the Environmental Justice Movement by Rainey, Shirley A., and Glenn S. Johnson
  
• The store of early ecofeminist action regarding the Love Canal neighbourhood built on a toxic dump site
  
• "Columbus thought the world was shaped like a titty" article
  
• Image described in opening
  
• Ecofeminism diagrams by Sarah Davis
  
• Cover image from The Minnesota Women's Press

Eva gets into Adrienne Rich's 1976 book "Of Woman Born" and talks about radical feminist approaches to motherhood. We discuss the narrow definition of Rich's "mother" figure, Black feminist responses to her concepts, and the Texas abortion ban. Plus, a rundown on the censored Judith Butler interview in the Guardian.

*Content warning*: This episode contains discussion of abortion, infanticide, and mental health struggle.

Cover image painting by Chantal Joffe, 2004

Reading List:

Judith Butler Interview with Jules Gleeson https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/07/judith-butler-interview-gender; The portion of the Interview that was deleted by The Guardian https://www.patreon.com/posts/55912898

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Adrienne Rich, 1976 https://archive.org/details/ofwomanbornmothe00rich/page/n7/mode/2up

From Motherhood to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, edited by Andrea O'Reilly, 2004 https://www.scribd.com/document/336903061/Andrea-O-Reilly-From-Motherhood-to-Mothering-Th-BookZZ-org

The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and Black Mother-Daughter Relationships, Patricia Hill Collins, 1987 https://www.proquest.com/docview/1300131753?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true

Motherhood Reconceived: Feminism and the Legacies of the Sixties, Lauri Umansky, 1996 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Motherhood_Reconceived/_7IUCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

This week, Eva talks to Emma about the origins of the term “intersectionality”, how the definition has changed, and the importance of crediting and centring Black feminists. Plus-- a rant about the upcoming OnlyFans pornography ban.

Reading List:

Kimberle Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color”:

http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/critique1313/files/2020/02/1229039.pdf

Kimberle Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”

http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/critique1313/files/2020/02/1229039.pdf

Alex Kirshner, for Slate:

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/onlyfans-porn-ban-cruel.html&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1629763228495000&usg=AOvVaw0d-owS6fv4uSJO_8kHcAHm

Tilly Lawless’s instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tilly_lawless/?hl=en

Intersectionality Venn diagram/Wheel:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sylviaduckworth/50245846893

Jane Coaston, for Vox:

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination

Crenshaw interview with Columbia Law School:

https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality-more-two-decades-later

Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech:

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

Photograph used in cover image by Miranda Barnes, https://www.mirandabarnes.com

In this episode, Emma provides an overview of second wave, radical feminism. What does it mean to be a radical feminist, and is this term still useful today? Listen to find out!

Reading list:

Nachescu, Voichita. “Radical Feminism and the Nation: History and Space in the Political Imagination of Second-Wave Feminism.” <i>Journal for the Study of Radicalism</i>, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, pp. 29–59. <i>JSTOR</i>, www.jstor.org/stable/41887617

Leigh Miller, A History of Radical Feminism https://www.sutori.com/story/a-history-of-radical-feminism–Pf5HsUfrBG26boQJdwtLbWUS

Kathie Sarachild, Conciousness Raising Groups: A Radical Weapon, https://vrrws.seriousotters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Feminist-Revolution-Consciousness-Raising-A-Radical-Weapon-Kathie-Sarachild.pdf

Carol Hanisch, The Personal is Political,  https://webhome.cs.uvic.ca/~mserra/AttachedFiles/PersonalPolitical.pdf

Gillette, Meg. “Modern American Abortion Narratives and the Century of Silence.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 58, no. 4, 2012, pp. 663–687. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24247022

***Trigger Warning: This article is explicit, and speaks about sexual violence***  
Andrea Dworkin, Prostitution and Male Supremacy, http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/MichLawJourI.html

Erica West, The Pitfalls of Radical Feminism, https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/radical-feminism-second-wave-class

Roz Kaveney, Woman Enough, https://www.advocate.com/print-issue/current-issue/2014/07/16/woman-enough

Audre Lorde, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, from the book Sister Outsider, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32951.Sister_Outsider

Barry, Kathleen. “The Underground Economic System Of Pimping.” <i>Journal of International Affairs</i>, vol. 35, no. 1, 1981, pp. 117–127. <i>JSTOR</i>, www.jstor.org/stable/24357006

Barry, Kathleen. “Female Sexual Slavery: Understanding the International Dimensions of Women’s Oppression.” <i>Human Rights Quarterly</i>, vol. 3, no. 2, 1981, pp. 44–52. <i>JSTOR</i>, www.jstor.org/stable/761856

Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” <i>Stanford Law Review</i>, vol. 43, no. 6, 1991, pp. 1241–1299. <i>JSTOR</i>, www.jstor.org/stable/1229039. Accessed 20 Aug. 2021.

In this episode, Eva talks about the first birth control clinic in the US and the different tactics feminists of this time used to spread their message.

Reading List:

Ellen Chesler, Woman of valor: Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement in America.

https://archive.org/details/womanofvalormar000ches/page/n11/mode/2up

Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography.

https://archive.org/details/margaretsangerau1938sang/page/n1/mode/2up

Jill Lepore, The secret history of Wonder Woman.

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780804173407

Peter C Engelman, A history of the birth control movement in America.

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780313365096

Emma Goldman. Marriage and love.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1914/marriage-love.htm