Hooks – “Selling hot pussy: representations of Black female sexuality in the cultural marketplace.”

1. According to hooks, representations of black female bodies in contemporary popular culture rarely subvert or critique images of black female sexuality. Explain.
2. What body parts have been singled out as symbolic of black female sexuality? In what ways within the cultural marketplace? And with what consequences?
3. Black women have also been presented as the expendable character in modern film. Discuss what this may mean to society and to black women.
4. Be prepared to discuss why hooks spent so much time discussing Tina Turner. What is the point hooks is trying to make and is she successful?
5. According to Naomi Wolf, what is the difference between beauty pornography and beauty sadomasochism?
6. What does she mean when she says that “A misogynist culture has succeeded in making women hate what misogynists hate?”

Lutz and Collins – “The color of sex:…”

1. Why are the photographs of National Geographic important to an understanding of gender?
2. Photographs of women become one of the primary devices by which magazines depict “universal human values.” What are these values and how are they depicted in National Geographic.
3. Traditionally, what is significant about how the magazine treats women working outside the home?
4. How is gender relevant to the presentation of progress and of traditional nation?

Klein – “Duality and redefinition:…”

1. What is, according to Klein, young or third wave feminism?
2. How is this young feminism juxtaposed with second wave feminism?
3. What appears to be the role of disenfranchisement and disillusionment to the emergence of punk, hip hop, ghetto rap, etc.?
4. Who and what are the Riot Grrls?

Lorde – “Age, race, class, and sex: women redefining difference.”

1. What does Lorde mean when she argues that it is not the differences that separate women but our refusal to recognize and examine those differences that is problematic?
2. What might be the “answer?”
3. Why doesn’t the concept of sisterhood transcend these differences?
4. What is the mythical norm within society?
5. Why do, according to Lorde, white women have difficulty in reading Black women’s work?
6. In what ways might you apply Lorde’s insights to understanding differences between men as well as women? Connect to earlier readings and to the West and hooks article.

Williams – “Benefits for nonhomophobic societies: an anthropological perspective

1. Briefly compare and contrast different cultural responses to being “gay” or “lesbian.”
2. What are the benefits for nonhomophobic societies? Discuss. Do you agree?

Hooks and West – “Breaking bread”

1. What is the point of the discussion?
2. What do hooks and West think is eroding dynamic spirituality in Black life? Why?
3. And what is the answer to that erosion?
4. What does it mean for a progressive Black male on the Left to ally himself with the critique of patriarchy and sexism?
5. What are their ideas about how gender might be part of the re-envisioning of the struggle for Black liberation?