Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines issues where ideas about males and females either explicitly or implicitly influence policy makers. Focuses on current public policies and their relationship to women on topics such as sexuality and violence, economic security, race and inequality, and climate change. Students who have taken this topic under GSWS 320 (or WS 320) may not take this course for further credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

In this class we will focus on the ways that gender structures the world in which we (women, men and those who identify as both or neither) live. We will examine evidence of the changes that have taken place in the status of “women” relative to the status of men (especially over the last three or four decades). We will also discuss changing ideas about masculinity and femininity and how they structure our ideas about sexuality, as well as the role of both public policy and feminist movements in creating those changes. Based on an examination of the position of women vis-a-vis men around the world, we will ask what possibilities there might be for public policy or private citizens to improve the world. We will consider a wide range of issues in policy and politics, including violence against women, reproductive rights, women and work, family values, poverty and dependency, women in politics, and women's movements (national and international). For each of these issues, we will try to examine how differences and inequalities among women affect our analysis. Students will develop a familiarity with the main "women's issues" covered in this course and with the main policy responses associated with those issues. They should also gain some knowledge of gender-based analysis and policy analysis. They will develop this familiarity through assigned reading, class discussions, tests and assignments.

There will be one four-hour lecture each week.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: