Reference no: EM133514882

Assignment:

1. Read Loretta Ross' article for the week, "Personal Journey...." Using her work and a notes for the week, discuss what reproductive justice is and why we all should care about reproductive justice. What does her story teach us about the need for reproductive justice? Be sure to include evidence from the reading and notes.

2. Read Collins' "Very Necessary...." Discuss, then, Collin's point about a hegemonic femininity in the section (pp. 193-199) "Work that Body: African American Women and Hegemonic femininity." Explain three points that she makes about African American women and hegemonic femininity, her criticism of hegemonic femininity and why femininity understood in these ways are oppressive for Africana women? For full credit be sure to discuss hair texture and female features; heterosexual; and work, marriage (motherhood and wealth).

3. Think about the above question and how femininity is a gender ideology, and how it is oppressive/ hegemonic as you unpacked above. Know that a gender ideology is taken for granted assumptions about what is feminine and masculine and how men and women and other folks who define themselves beyond these two categories, should define themselves and behave in the world. Also know that gender ideologies for African Americans evolved during enslavement and in contrast two white masculinity and white femininity, which are again, oppressive.

Given the above, move through Collins' (pp. 199-212) and discuss two suggestions about what a new Black gender ideology for Black women, men and others, would look like and the basic ideas that this ideology seeks to challenge in specific terms because as she writes, a new ideology "cannot be based upon someone else's subordination." For full credit discuss challenges to global capitalist ways of economic survival (205-206);

4. From Ani's, "To Be Afrikan" reading....Given all that we have discussed in the past five weeks, should we return to an African way of thinking as a way to understand Africana women? Collins' suggests this point in regards to sexuality. What does it mean for us to be Afrikan, according to Marimba Ani? What is her argument and what is her rationale for making this point(s)? What is Sankofa and what does this term have to do with being Afrikan; who is she talking to? Finally, do you agree or disagree with her argument as we think about the experiences of Africana women in America? Why or why not?