Essay One ( 50 points; 4-5 pages) will ask you to describe and analyze how gender organizes individual life?yours or a character from a selected film or novel (see below). You may do this in several ways:
1. You may do an auto-ethnography in which you describe a particular moment in which you came to understand yourself as a gendered being?that is, a moment you remember of clear socialization to gender. You are looking in memory for an instance of what sociologist Arlie Hochschild?s (1994: 4) has named ?magnified moments?: ?episodes of heightened importance, either epiphanies, moments of intense glee or unusual insight, or moments in which things go intensely but meaningfully wrong. In either case, the moment stands out; it is metaphorically rich, unusually elaborate and often echoes [later].? To do this, you may want to recall the moment writing in the present tense. Then, step back, refer to yourself in the third person to get some distance, and analyze what you have written using concepts and referencing readings from the course. The use of concepts, properly defined, is critical to the assignment.
2. You may focus on a particular experience of ?the generalized other? (see Blackboard Notes Unit IV) in the form of a movie or television show that affected your socialization to gender. Recall where and when in your biography you saw it; summarize the plot briefly and identify what moved you; analyze what you have written in using concepts and referencing readings from the course. The use of concepts, properly defined, is critical to the assignment.
3. You may keep a diary of a typical day and then note the moments when you engage in ?doing gender.? Your paper should expand on the moment or moments when you are engaged in presenting yourself as a gendered being. You must use course concepts and reference course readings.
4. If you do not wish to write about yourself, you may select a character from one of these novels–Brick Lane by Monica Ali, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, or Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn; or from one of these films-The Hunger Games by Gary Ross, 2012; Juno by Jason Reitman 2006; Little Miss Sunshine by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, 2006; Mean Girls by Mark Waters, 2004; Pride and Prejudice by Joe Wright, 2005; Social Network by David Fincher 2010.
You must use course concepts, properly defined, and reference course readings.