Exam III

Posted: Wed, May 7, 2025

Logistics

  • Our third and last exam is Thursday, May 15, 10:30am–12:30pm. It will be the same format as the two previous exams, but you will have more time.
  • Your full course lexicon is due in hard copy at the end of the exam. This is the typed/cleaned-up version, which should include a list of terms with their definitions, explanations, or illustrations.
  • The exam is closed book and closed notes, except that you are allowed to consult your own course lexicon.
  • The exam will consist of six short answer questions and an essay question.
  • If you need a quiet room, extended time, etc., please reach out!

Possible Essay Prompts

Two of the following prompts will be selected to appear on the exam, and you will be asked to answer one of the two. An excellent essay should (a) demonstrate a clear grasp of the relevant course materials, (b) develop a clear, thoughtful, reasoned, and structurally complete analysis, and (c) draw on but go beyond our class discussions in some way. Aim for 500–700 words.

  1. Why have feminist theorists found it far more useful to study pregnancy, rape, and sexuality as political institutions rather than biological givens?
  2. The lesbian continuum—is it a thing?
  3. “Concern about straight women’s well-being, and agreement that straight men would benefit considerably from some basic instruction on how to treat women, is something of a running joke in queer subculture—or, to be more accurate, in dyke subculture” (Ward 2020, 17). How come?

Advice:

  • Imagine that you are writing to a friend not enrolled in the class, rather than to me as the instructor. Don’t presume familiarity with the readings. Explain your key terms. Use clear, direct, and simple prose. Don’t mistake obscurity for profundity.
  • Don’t be afraid to speak in your own voice. I want to hear it. Use the first-perron pronouns. Have an opinion. But don’t confuse assertions with arguments. Try to persuade your audience with reasons that are acceptable to not just yourself.
  • Don’t merely summarize/describe/report. Your aim is to show that you not only understand our materials and discussions well but have thought carefully and critically about them on your own. Refer to our texts, authors, and class discussions where appropriate (no citation style necessary).
  • Don’t repeat the prompt. Think about how you want to introduce your discussion.
  • Be organized. Have a plan. Make an outline. Write as legibly as you can.

Topics It Would Make Sense to Review

Pregnancy

  • History of gender equality rights in U.S. constitutional law
  • Abortion as an issue of liberty vs. equality
  • The role played by the specter of “butchery in Mexico” in the legalization of abortion in the States
  • Critique of Roe as protecting only a middle-class right to abortion
  • Reed-Sandoval on being legally vs. socially documented

Rape

  • The property theory of rape
  • The biological theory of rape
  • MacKinnon’s political theory of rape
  • MacKinnon on gender division as a product of heterosexuality
  • Davis on rape as a mechanism of white supremacy and capitalism
  • Trans women’s role and function in prison heterosexual economies, and their agency under oppression
  • Greene on the abuse of trans women as intrinsic rather than incidental to prisons

Sex

  • The idea of heterosexuality being imposed/enforced rather than natural
  • How Rich turns the tables on heterosexuality as the default vs. homosexuality as requiring special explanation
  • How Rich’s analysis of sexuality differs from thinking of it as either a biological given or an individual choice/preference
  • Rich on the compulsory heterosexuality of lesbians vs. gay men
  • Rich’s analysis of heterosexuality as a political institution
  • Rich’s idea of a lesbian continuum
  • Ward’s analysis of how compulsory heterosexuality and misogyny intersect to oppress straight women
  • Ward’s idea of the misogyny paradox and her proposed solution