WGS 269 - Women and Gender in a Global Society

A comparative analysis of gender relations incorporates and goes beyond a “women and politics” or “women and economics” approach by focusing on the organization of political, economic and cultural aspects of life, illuminating the systematic way that social norms, laws, practices, and institutions advantage certain groups and forms of life and disadvantage others. In order to illuminate the various ways that primarily women and men (with a recognition of the range of gender identities) are advantaged and disadvantaged according to their gender categories, gender analysis must incorporate analysis of race, class, sexuality, and other axes of disadvantage, and explore interactions among them. These axes are defined differently in different national contexts, and so examining variation across national borders illuminates the variety of social arrangements that are consistent with how humans are categorized biologically: This type of analysis thereby denaturalizes and politicizes gender, racial/ethnic, and class relations (among others). The wide variety of modes and degrees of resistance to these forms of social organization, and success in challenging them, illuminate and inspire new strategies of resistance for people in other countries.

This course uses both the critical lens of transnational analysis in women and gender studies alongside the analytic perspective of comparative politics to examine gendered experiences across the globe. We will add a gendered lens to the investigation of political, economic and cultural spaces, considering the interplay of domestic and global structures, systems, policies and gender. It focuses on understanding women and gender in students’ own and other “spaces” and “locations.” The course is interdisciplinary in nature using a textbook and supplementary primary and secondary source readings and films that highlight a global perspective on gender. The course includes a focus on the intersectionality of race, class, and a range of identities as part of how people in their gender identities experience politics, economics and cultural issues differently, often with unequal power and outcomes. The course is cross listed as a women and gender studies course and a political science course. Thus, students will also come to understand the sub-discipline in which the course falls as a political science course, namely comparative politics. Students will learn what comparative politics entails as a sub-field and methodology. We will also use ideas from historic periods of feminist theory and activism to comparatively investigate the persistence of gender inequality. We will examine such issues as the different power of gendered people in political positions, focusing on political representation, participation in elections and political institutions, and the roles of social movements. We will explore the ways in which labor markets and economic policies impact people due to their gender in different, yet related, ways, focusing on wages, labor market participation and economic opportunities. It will draw on examples from various world regions and time periods to analyze similarities and differences across cases around the globe. Thus, this course examines women and gender from a comparative perspective across the globe, amplifying women in the two-thirds world through the lenses of economics, politics and culture. Cross-listed with POL 269 .

Credits: 3
Terms Offered: Fall, Spring
Attributes: Social Sciences (SS)