CVSP 230 Final, Fall 2002

7 cent ene MEDIC gy UNIVERSITY Libary = OF BERET FINAL EXAMINATION C.S. 230 Time: 2 4% Hours January 29, 2003 Il. Dr. L. Shehadeh Discuss at length ONE of the following: 50% . “Today I see feminism as the Great Experiment That Failed, and women in my generation, its perpetrators, are the casualties. Many of us, myself included, are saddled with raising children alone. The resulting poverty makes us experts at cornmeal recipes and ways to find free recreation on weekends. At the same time, single men from our generation amass fortunes in CD’s and real-estate ventures so they can breeze off on ski weekends. Feminism freed men, not women. Now men are spared the nuisance of a wife and family to support. After childbirth, if his wife’s waist doesn’t return to 20 inches, the husband can go out and get a more petite woman. It’s far more difficult for the wife, now tied down with a baby, to find a new man. My blind date, that Friday, waved goodbye as he drove off in his BMW. I walked home and paid the sitter with laundry quarters”. a. Explain what this woman is trying to say. b. Analyze her argument from a feminist perspective. c. Do you agree with her? d. Has feminism actually failed? “Women should get education so they can be brainy in the way they raise their children. Women can start small business, do consulting, write freelance out of the home. But women don’t belong in 12-hour-a-day executive office positions, and I can’t figure out today whatever made us think we would want to be there in the first place. As long as that biology is there, women can’t compete equally with men. A ratio cannot be made using disproportionate parts. Women and men are not equal, we’re different. The economy might even improve if women came home, opening up jobs for unemployed men, who could then support a wife and children, the way it was, pre-feminism”. Explain what this woman is trying to say. Analyze her argument from a feminist perspective. Do you agree with her? Re women better off without feminism? Why? no TP Discuss at length ONE of the following: 40% OF BEIRUT J.L. Borges said, “I, who have been so many men, in vain, want to be one man: myself”; and Albert Beguin said, “What is important for me is to know who | ” am”. a. How, according to you, do these two quotations reflect women’s condition? b. What would you recommend as a solution for this problem? c. What would Karl Marx suggest? “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society: It is civilization as a whole that produces this creature intermediate between male and eunuch”. Simone de Beauvoire. Explain what de Beauvoire means by this statement. . How would the different feminist theorists react to such a statement? What is your own opinion? I. Answer the following: (10%) 1. In what way(s) has this course affected you? Why? 2. Any comments you'd care to make? IV. Instructions: . Read questions carefully. . If you are doubtful, ASK. . Number your questions correctly. - Do NOT use pencils. . Do NOT divide question into a,b,c,