WGS.101 Introduction to Women's & Gender Studies
Spring 2013
"When Women Pursue Justice" (2005), a community mural in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, honors ninety American female activists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Women portrayed in the mural, dedicated to late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, include Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emma Goldman, Alice Paul, Mary McLeod Bethune, Margaret Sanger, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dorothy Day, Angela Davis, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta and Audre Lorde. The mural, created by multiple artists, interns and community volunteers, was designed by Janet Braun-Reinitz, who holds a degree in Women's Studies. (Image courtesy of Artmakers, Inc. Used with permission.)
Instructor: Andrea S Walsh
Writing Advisor: Elizabeth Fox
Lecture: MW3-4.30 (5-233)
Class Description:
This course offers an introduction to Women’s and Gender
Studies, an interdisciplinary academic field that explores critical
questions about the meaning of gender in society. The primary goal
of this course is to familiarize students with key issues,
questions and debates in Women’s and Gender Studies scholarship,
both historical and contemporary. Gender scholarship critically
analyzes themes of gendered performance and power in a range of
social spheres, such as law, culture, work, education, medicine,
social policy and the family.
Throughout the semester, we will
“question gender” in multiple ways: Why has gender been an
organizing principle of society? How do “gendered scripts” for
dress and behavior emerge in different societies and historical
periods? How do we explain the sexual division of labor and the
unequal status of women and those activities and roles deemed
“feminine” in society? How does gender intersect with power and
authority? What factors contribute to the formation and success of
movements for and against gender equality and fluidity? Can we
imagine a future in which we largely ignore gender or envision
gender and sexuality in more expansive, fluid or egalitarian
ways?
This semester you will become
acquainted with many of the critical questions and concepts
feminist scholars have developed as tools for thinking about
gendered experience. In addition, we will explore the complex ways
in which gender interacts with class, race, ethnicity, sexuality
and age within various spheres and institutions of society. Reading
materials include classic and contemporary women’s and gender
studies texts, as well as political documents and personal
narratives of gendered lives. WGS. 101 readings include scholarship
from a variety of disciplines, including history, African-American
studies, literature, sociology, and psychology. Course topics
include: the first and second waves of American women’s/gender
rights activism, and gender issues in relation to the law,
socialization, education, work, health and reproduction, sexuality,
families, and globalization. Through successfully completing this
course, students will be better prepared to participate in and
contribute effectively to the larger public conversation about the
role of gender in society, to apply the critical tools of women’s
and gender studies in their academic, personal and occupational
lives, and to take more advanced classes in this field. As a
CI-H course, Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
provides a supportive context for students to improve their oral
and written communication skills. Major written assignments in the
course ask students to analyze closely the rhetoric of political
and literary texts within their historical contexts, apply theories
of gendered development, and engage with contemporary debates in
the field.
An oral presentation assignment, as well as class discussions,
enable students to connect theoretical debates to contemporary
issues of gender.
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