WMST 1000 UoG Definitions Questions and
Comprehensive Answers Graded A+ 2024-2025
Standpoint Theory - ✔️✔️Every subject is situated because our social positions and
experiences shape our perceptions and standpoint, a more complete understanding of
social relations must incorporate the perspectives of marginalized voices (who have
been ignored and appropriated)
White Privilege - ✔️✔️the invisible package of unearned assets, special right, advantage,
or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people. (white
people/dominant group)
Cis-Gender - ✔️✔️Individuals whose gender identity corresponds to their biological sex
Transgender/Transsexual - ✔️✔️Gender identity or gender expression that differs from
their sex assigned at birth. Those who transition via medical assistance identify as
transsexual
Mythical Norm - ✔️✔️A term coined by Audre Lorde that labels the societal norm for a
human is white, male, middle-class, heterosexual, healthy abled, thin and a young adult.
No one will always fit this norm, and those people are discriminated and oppressed.
Beauty Myth - ✔️✔️society pressures women to measure their worth in terms of physical
appearance and use media to portray unattainable and unrealistic standards of beauty
(young, very thin, white or very light-skinned and able-bodied)
Gender - ✔️✔️the socially constructed roles, characteristics and behaviours a culture
expects from masculinity (male) and femininity (female)
Essentialism - ✔️✔️Concept used to examine the attribution of fixed, intrinsic, innate
qualities or true nature to women, racial groups etc. that one cannot observe directly
(underlying reality or essence) yet gives them their identity and is responsible for
similarities category members share
Gender Binaries - ✔️✔️a concept or belief that there are only two genders and that one's
sex or gender assigned at birth will align with traditional social constructs of masculine
and feminine identity, expression, and sexuality. (Male -dominant, Female-
marked/abnormal)
Intersectionality - ✔️✔️framework that considers the multilayered dimensions of social
identities (race, sexual orientation, gender identity etc.) and/or locations and how they
intersect to shape experiences. coined by Kimberly Crenshaw 1989
, Sexism - ✔️✔️the belief that one sex is innately superior to the other (male vs female) a
set of attitudes that are entirely entrenched in the structure of society (patriarchy and
gender binaries)
"Problem With No Name" - ✔️✔️the anxiety and oppression felt by women (housewives)
in the 50s & 60s to achieve something more in life than just a home and a family like an
education or career
Purity Myth - ✔️✔️the contemporary focus on virginity as an indicator of female moral
worth and commodifying it (purity rings)
Madonna/Wh*re Dichotomy - ✔️✔️Indicates the polarized perceptions of women in
general as either "good," chaste, and pure Madonnas (an object of worship and
everything that all women should aspire to be); or as "bad," promiscuous, and seductive
Wh*res (sexually active is lacking in morality and humanity)
Cult of Domesticity - ✔️✔️set of cultural assumptions made clear to women from Victorian
Europe to the early 1960s. (women are idealized as mothers and housekeepers, take
care of the home and raise the children) and must remain in the private sphere
Male Gaze - ✔️✔️the way in which the visual arts and literature depict the world and
women from a masculine point of view, presenting women as objects of male pleasure
(objectifying them/scopophilia)
Gender Wage Gap - ✔️✔️the gap in earnings between women and men, usually
expressed as a percentage or proportion of what women are paid relative to their male
equivalents
Care Deficit - ✔️✔️as more women enter the workforce, there is a decline in the
caregiving services that they can perform, including care to children, aging family
members, and family members with disabilities or long-term illness (Women from
developing countries fill these gaps and are typically underpaid)
Social Constructivism - ✔️✔️learning is a collaborative process, and knowledge develops
from individuals' interactions with their culture and society (Vygotsky)
socially constructed - ✔️✔️Values or norms that are invented or "constructed" in a culture;
people learn these and follow the conventional rules
Marxists - ✔️✔️Criticizes systems such as capitalism as a set of structures, practices,
institutions, incentives, and sensibilities that promote exploitation of labor, the alienation
of human beings, social inequalities and the debasement of freedom (This includes
relations of domination such as racism and sexism)
Comprehensive Answers Graded A+ 2024-2025
Standpoint Theory - ✔️✔️Every subject is situated because our social positions and
experiences shape our perceptions and standpoint, a more complete understanding of
social relations must incorporate the perspectives of marginalized voices (who have
been ignored and appropriated)
White Privilege - ✔️✔️the invisible package of unearned assets, special right, advantage,
or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people. (white
people/dominant group)
Cis-Gender - ✔️✔️Individuals whose gender identity corresponds to their biological sex
Transgender/Transsexual - ✔️✔️Gender identity or gender expression that differs from
their sex assigned at birth. Those who transition via medical assistance identify as
transsexual
Mythical Norm - ✔️✔️A term coined by Audre Lorde that labels the societal norm for a
human is white, male, middle-class, heterosexual, healthy abled, thin and a young adult.
No one will always fit this norm, and those people are discriminated and oppressed.
Beauty Myth - ✔️✔️society pressures women to measure their worth in terms of physical
appearance and use media to portray unattainable and unrealistic standards of beauty
(young, very thin, white or very light-skinned and able-bodied)
Gender - ✔️✔️the socially constructed roles, characteristics and behaviours a culture
expects from masculinity (male) and femininity (female)
Essentialism - ✔️✔️Concept used to examine the attribution of fixed, intrinsic, innate
qualities or true nature to women, racial groups etc. that one cannot observe directly
(underlying reality or essence) yet gives them their identity and is responsible for
similarities category members share
Gender Binaries - ✔️✔️a concept or belief that there are only two genders and that one's
sex or gender assigned at birth will align with traditional social constructs of masculine
and feminine identity, expression, and sexuality. (Male -dominant, Female-
marked/abnormal)
Intersectionality - ✔️✔️framework that considers the multilayered dimensions of social
identities (race, sexual orientation, gender identity etc.) and/or locations and how they
intersect to shape experiences. coined by Kimberly Crenshaw 1989
, Sexism - ✔️✔️the belief that one sex is innately superior to the other (male vs female) a
set of attitudes that are entirely entrenched in the structure of society (patriarchy and
gender binaries)
"Problem With No Name" - ✔️✔️the anxiety and oppression felt by women (housewives)
in the 50s & 60s to achieve something more in life than just a home and a family like an
education or career
Purity Myth - ✔️✔️the contemporary focus on virginity as an indicator of female moral
worth and commodifying it (purity rings)
Madonna/Wh*re Dichotomy - ✔️✔️Indicates the polarized perceptions of women in
general as either "good," chaste, and pure Madonnas (an object of worship and
everything that all women should aspire to be); or as "bad," promiscuous, and seductive
Wh*res (sexually active is lacking in morality and humanity)
Cult of Domesticity - ✔️✔️set of cultural assumptions made clear to women from Victorian
Europe to the early 1960s. (women are idealized as mothers and housekeepers, take
care of the home and raise the children) and must remain in the private sphere
Male Gaze - ✔️✔️the way in which the visual arts and literature depict the world and
women from a masculine point of view, presenting women as objects of male pleasure
(objectifying them/scopophilia)
Gender Wage Gap - ✔️✔️the gap in earnings between women and men, usually
expressed as a percentage or proportion of what women are paid relative to their male
equivalents
Care Deficit - ✔️✔️as more women enter the workforce, there is a decline in the
caregiving services that they can perform, including care to children, aging family
members, and family members with disabilities or long-term illness (Women from
developing countries fill these gaps and are typically underpaid)
Social Constructivism - ✔️✔️learning is a collaborative process, and knowledge develops
from individuals' interactions with their culture and society (Vygotsky)
socially constructed - ✔️✔️Values or norms that are invented or "constructed" in a culture;
people learn these and follow the conventional rules
Marxists - ✔️✔️Criticizes systems such as capitalism as a set of structures, practices,
institutions, incentives, and sensibilities that promote exploitation of labor, the alienation
of human beings, social inequalities and the debasement of freedom (This includes
relations of domination such as racism and sexism)
