Research Paper Prospectus on “the mind has no gender”
Paper details:
1. This is a Seminar Paper Prospectus, (basically a mini critical analysis research paper) the requirements for this paper will be uploaded under “additional materials” as “Prospectus Requirements.”
2. This needs to be MLA format. However no heading. (page number should be in the header.) Please look at owl purdue if you have more MLA format questions.
3. You will need to cite 9 sources. 4 primary text and 4 secondary text. I will upload some of them and I will state which are primary and which are secondary, this can be found under “additional materials.” You should site all of these in a “works cited” page in the paper. AND quote at least once from each at least 4 of the sources (2 primary and 2 secondary). For the secondary text, give a quick summary of what the text is about (3 sentences). (you can look up secondary text, but they have to be scholarly and peer reviewed articles, or books and they can only be 10 years old, if you find any but don’t have a way view them email me and I can see if i can get it through my school database.) However, if you choose to do that, you still need to cite the ones i uploaded, and quote at least one of them. Also, even if you do not quote all of the 9 sources I submit and you only quote 4, you still need to cite ALL 9 sources in the works cited page.
Primary sources that can not be uploaded because they’re books -> Eliza Haywood, “Fantomina.” and John Cleland, “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.”
Secondary Sources that can not be uploaded because they’re books -> Michel Foucault, “The History of Sexuality.”
4.This is the main idea i want you to focus on, it is my thesis statement, but feel free to tweak it, or make it better. – “It is important to note that sex is a biological difference but gender is a social construct. Through these various 18th century readings, we come to understand that the mind does not possess any gender of it’s own.”
5. The main point is that THE MIND DOES NOT POSSESS ANY GENDER OF ITS OWN. Now in order to prove that you must give examples from the text, mainly primary text and then back it up with secondary text. (e.g., “In ‘The Female Husband’ by Henry Fielding, gender was seen by Hamilton as a social relation that he challenged and broke the traditional barriers of.” <- this is a primary text, I will upload it, you can use this sentences. Just quote an example of where you see this in the text and then explain how it proves that the mind has no gender.
Also, if the mind has no gender, than what is gender and what are gender roles = basically gender is a performance, we see this both in primary text “Fantomina” and “The female husband” when they take on these different roles by assuming different disguises.
Side note: its also good to bring up the opposing side, and argue why their wrong.
6. Questions you might want to extract and expand on that relate to the thesis: 6.1. How does forcing a mind to conform to societal demands harm a person, or a society? (where can we see it harming a person?)
6.2. How can (and why do) these constraints harm women’s sexuality (and sexual desire)?
6.3. What kind of questions arise from masturbation, prostitution, Marriage, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality (queer sexuality) and pornography, regarding the idea that the mind has no gender? Do these categories (specify which ones) work for or against the idea that the mind has no gender, where can we see this? Do any theorist (secondary text) agree or disagree with this?