WGS 240 EXAM 1 2026/2027 | WOMEN'S & GENDER STUDIES STUDY GUIDE,
PRACTICE QUESTIONS, ANSWERS & EXAM REVIEW
Women's and Gender Studies - ANS ✔✔an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning
women, gender, and feminism
Androcentrism - ANS ✔✔men as the center of society
"First Wave" feminism - ANS ✔✔started in the mid-1800s when women demanded the right to vote(not
very inclusive, mostly centered around white women)
"Second Wave" feminism - ANS ✔✔women's rights movement that revived in the 1960s with a different
agenda than earlier women's suffrage movements; second-wave feminists demanded equal rights for
women in employment and education, women's right to control their own bodies, and the end of
patriarchal domination
Intersectionality - ANS ✔✔the focus on lived experience and the understanding of "simultaneous
privilege and oppression" across multiple groups; involves the way all peoples experiences of gender are
created by the coming together of multiple identities like race, ethnicity, and social class
"Personal is political" - ANS ✔✔explains how things taken as personal or idiosyncratic have broader
social, political, and economic causes and consequences. In other words, situations that we are
encouraged to view as personal are actually part of a broader cultural patterns
Patriarchy - ANS ✔✔a system where men and masculine bodies dominate because power and authority
are in the hands of adult men
Core principles of feminism - ANS ✔✔(1) Feminism concerns equality and justice
(2) Feminism is inclusive and affirming of women across their differences
Transnational feminism - ANS ✔✔the movement for the social, political, and economic equality of
women across national boundaries
Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women - ANS ✔✔treaty adopted in
1979 by the UN general assembly that prohibits all forms of discrimination against women by legally
binding countries that ratify it to incorporate equality of men and women into their legal system
Liberal feminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of feminism that believes that the present system is okay and works
within this context for change in public areas such as education and employment
Radical feminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of feminism that recognizes the oppression of women as the
fundamental political oppression where women are categorizes as inferior based on their gender
Lesbian feminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of radical feminism that focuses on how complulsory
heterozexualtiy and heterosexual privelege function to maintain power in society
, compulsory heterosexuality - ANS ✔✔the cultural norm that assumes and requires heterosexuality
Heterosexual privilege - ANS ✔✔the rights and privileges of heterosexuality, such as legal marriage and
being intimate in public
Ecofeminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of feminism that focuses on the association of women with nature and
the environment and the simultaneous relationships among patriarchy, global economic expansion, and
environmental degradation
Socialist feminism - ANS ✔✔a perspective that uses economic explanations from traditional marxist
theory to understand women's oppression(socialist feminists use the insights of class analysis alongside
radical feminist explanation of gender oppression)
Women of Color Feminism - ANS ✔✔asserts that gender is constructed by a range of interlocking
inequalities that work simultaneously to shape women's experiences
Postmodernist perspective - ANS ✔✔focuses on a relationship between knowledge and power;
questions the assumption that reality has an inherent order that is discernible through scientific inquiry,
rejects binaries or dualistic thinking like male/female and heterosexual/homosexual and attempts to
destabilize such fixed identities; emphasizes that humans actively construct or shape their lives in the
context of various social systems, and often in the face of serious constraints
Queer theory - ANS ✔✔makes the case that gender and sexuality are socially produced and used as
instruments of power
"Third Wave" feminism - ANS ✔✔feminist activity influenced by postmodernism, queer theory,
multiracial feminism, recognizes inclusivity of the term "women"
Anti-feminism - ANS ✔✔the ways certain groups who believe they would lose from a redistribution of
power have worked hard to discredit and destroy the feminist movement and brand feminists in
negative ways
Misogyny - ANS ✔✔hatred of women
Grassroots movement - ANS ✔✔a movements that uses the people in a given district, region or
community as the basis for a political or economic movement
Black feminism - ANS ✔✔an embodies, positioned, ideological standpoint perspective that holds black
women's experiences of simultaneous and multiple oppressions as the epistemological and theoretical
basis
Borders and Borderlands - ANS ✔✔borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to
distinguish us from them
Latinx - ANS ✔✔a person of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or nonbinary
alternative to Latino or Latina)
Mythical norm - ANS ✔✔a white, middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, abled, thin, young adult
PRACTICE QUESTIONS, ANSWERS & EXAM REVIEW
Women's and Gender Studies - ANS ✔✔an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning
women, gender, and feminism
Androcentrism - ANS ✔✔men as the center of society
"First Wave" feminism - ANS ✔✔started in the mid-1800s when women demanded the right to vote(not
very inclusive, mostly centered around white women)
"Second Wave" feminism - ANS ✔✔women's rights movement that revived in the 1960s with a different
agenda than earlier women's suffrage movements; second-wave feminists demanded equal rights for
women in employment and education, women's right to control their own bodies, and the end of
patriarchal domination
Intersectionality - ANS ✔✔the focus on lived experience and the understanding of "simultaneous
privilege and oppression" across multiple groups; involves the way all peoples experiences of gender are
created by the coming together of multiple identities like race, ethnicity, and social class
"Personal is political" - ANS ✔✔explains how things taken as personal or idiosyncratic have broader
social, political, and economic causes and consequences. In other words, situations that we are
encouraged to view as personal are actually part of a broader cultural patterns
Patriarchy - ANS ✔✔a system where men and masculine bodies dominate because power and authority
are in the hands of adult men
Core principles of feminism - ANS ✔✔(1) Feminism concerns equality and justice
(2) Feminism is inclusive and affirming of women across their differences
Transnational feminism - ANS ✔✔the movement for the social, political, and economic equality of
women across national boundaries
Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women - ANS ✔✔treaty adopted in
1979 by the UN general assembly that prohibits all forms of discrimination against women by legally
binding countries that ratify it to incorporate equality of men and women into their legal system
Liberal feminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of feminism that believes that the present system is okay and works
within this context for change in public areas such as education and employment
Radical feminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of feminism that recognizes the oppression of women as the
fundamental political oppression where women are categorizes as inferior based on their gender
Lesbian feminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of radical feminism that focuses on how complulsory
heterozexualtiy and heterosexual privelege function to maintain power in society
, compulsory heterosexuality - ANS ✔✔the cultural norm that assumes and requires heterosexuality
Heterosexual privilege - ANS ✔✔the rights and privileges of heterosexuality, such as legal marriage and
being intimate in public
Ecofeminism - ANS ✔✔a branch of feminism that focuses on the association of women with nature and
the environment and the simultaneous relationships among patriarchy, global economic expansion, and
environmental degradation
Socialist feminism - ANS ✔✔a perspective that uses economic explanations from traditional marxist
theory to understand women's oppression(socialist feminists use the insights of class analysis alongside
radical feminist explanation of gender oppression)
Women of Color Feminism - ANS ✔✔asserts that gender is constructed by a range of interlocking
inequalities that work simultaneously to shape women's experiences
Postmodernist perspective - ANS ✔✔focuses on a relationship between knowledge and power;
questions the assumption that reality has an inherent order that is discernible through scientific inquiry,
rejects binaries or dualistic thinking like male/female and heterosexual/homosexual and attempts to
destabilize such fixed identities; emphasizes that humans actively construct or shape their lives in the
context of various social systems, and often in the face of serious constraints
Queer theory - ANS ✔✔makes the case that gender and sexuality are socially produced and used as
instruments of power
"Third Wave" feminism - ANS ✔✔feminist activity influenced by postmodernism, queer theory,
multiracial feminism, recognizes inclusivity of the term "women"
Anti-feminism - ANS ✔✔the ways certain groups who believe they would lose from a redistribution of
power have worked hard to discredit and destroy the feminist movement and brand feminists in
negative ways
Misogyny - ANS ✔✔hatred of women
Grassroots movement - ANS ✔✔a movements that uses the people in a given district, region or
community as the basis for a political or economic movement
Black feminism - ANS ✔✔an embodies, positioned, ideological standpoint perspective that holds black
women's experiences of simultaneous and multiple oppressions as the epistemological and theoretical
basis
Borders and Borderlands - ANS ✔✔borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to
distinguish us from them
Latinx - ANS ✔✔a person of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or nonbinary
alternative to Latino or Latina)
Mythical norm - ANS ✔✔a white, middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, abled, thin, young adult
