Philosophy Paper
Write an essay roughly three pages in length double-spaced for each of the topics below. Your grade will be based on the level of engagement you display and the quality of your writing. In order to receive a passing grade your presentation must be well-organized and extremely polished (i.e., nearly free of grammatical errors, and completely free of unclear sentences and undeveloped assertions). Do not mimic the prompt in your introduction. Please remember that you may not consult secondary literature on the readings, and that the minimum penalty for plagiarism is an F for the class. Staple all of your work together in the following order: the prompt on top followed by the two essays.
Essay Topics
1. The overarching question of Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is “What is woman?” A major part of her answer is that to be a woman is to be the Other or at least an Other. How does she begin to develop this thesis in her Introduction to Part One? Be sure to address the following statements: (a) ‘the category of Other is as original as consciousness itself,’ (b) ‘No group ever defines itself as One without immediately setting up the Other’ opposite itself’, (c) ‘The relation of two sexes is not of two electrical poles.’
2. One of the principal contemporary notions for understanding the relationship between different forms of discrimination is Kimberlé Crenshaw’s notion of intersectionality. Explain this notion and how it was anticipated by writers such as Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, bell hooks, and the Combahee River Collective.