WGS.101 Intro Women's & Gender Studies
Spring 2014
"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: M-W 3-4.30 (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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