Course Description

This course is a cross-disciplinary introduction to theories and scholarship in the study of women’s experiences across history and geography. The course examines various theoretical perspectives on the social constructions of gender and its interlinked relationships with other social constructs of difference (e.g., race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, ability, and age). Our central goal is to read and think critically about these networked systems which have shaped and influenced the historical, cultural, social, political, and economic contexts of women’s and other lives. Specific attention will be given to the ways in which gender affects access to opportunity, and to women’s modes of resistance to gendered inequalities. We will consider the various ways women have worked to create new systems of change by engaging in national and global transformational politics. This interaction between political activism and academic scholarship distinguishes Women’s Studies from other academic disciplines. Accordingly, the goals of this course include not just intellectual analysis, but personal and social change.