University of Warwick
Department of Sociology
Module: International Perspectives on Gender, 2012/13
Lecturers: Lyndsey Moon and Caroline Wright
Tutors: Nazia Hussein; Lyndsey Moon; Joanna Russell-Cuttell; Caroline Wright
Introduction
This module introduces students to the diverse manifestations of gender around the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. It uses case studies from Britain, Russia, China, South Africa, India, Iran and Ireland. Themes of nationalism, resistance, family, sexuality, religion and work are pursued in order to facilitate analytical connections between case studies. The module explores gender relations as socially and historically variable and emphasises the importance of disaggregating categories of female and male. Particular attention is paid to the symbolic importance of gender and the extent to which it is at the centre of religious and political ideologies that have dominated the last 100 years: colonialism; nationalism; socialism; religious fundamentalism. Attention is also paid to individual and collective resistance to and transformation of gender inequalities and to how contemporary gendered events in case study countries link to recent history.
Autumn Term
Week 2 Introduction: What is Gender?
Week 3 Gender, School and Work in Contemporary Britain
Week 4 Gender, Family and Sexuality in Contemporary Britain
Week 5 Gender and State Socialism: The USSR
Week 6 Gender and Post-Soviet Russia
Week 7 Gender, State Socialism and Capitalism: China
Week 8 Feminism, Orientalism and Nationalism
Week 9 South Africa: Apartheid, Resistance and the articulation of gender, ‘race’ and class
Week 10 South Africa: Gender and the post-apartheid era
Spring Term
Week 11 Gender, Colonialism and Nationalism in India
Week 12 Gender, Feminism and Post-colonial India
Week 13 Gender and Religious Fundamentalism
Week 14 Gender, Religion and the State in Iran
Week 15 Multiple Meanings: Islamic women and the ‘veil’
Week 16 Reading Week
Week 17 Women, the Nationalist Struggle and the Irish Free State
Week 18 Gender and Modernisation in the Irish Republic
Week 19 Gender and Global Capitalism: World market factories
Week 20 Women Working Worldwide: Taking on global capital
Summer Term
Two revision lectures, weeks to be arranged.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module the student should have an understanding of:
1. the diverse social and cultural manifestations of gender in the twentieth and twenty first centuries in Britain, Russia, China, South Africa, India, Iran and Ireland
2. the complex ways in which individual capacities to exercise agency are differentiated by gender
3. the way in which gender is constructed in articulation with other social and cultural identities, such as ‘race’, ethnicity, age, sexuality, class, religion
4. the relationship between gender and nationalism, gender and orientalism and gender and economic globalisation
5. the diversity of social movements established to tackle unequal gender relations and the challenges they face
With reference to the above students should be able to:
1. understand and analyse the historical, social and political processes which underpin manifestations of gender in different parts of the world
2. locate, retrieve, process and evaluate a wide range of materials about gender manifestations internationally
3. participate effectively in seminars
4. draw on a range of sources to construct their own reasoned arguments
5. make scholarly presentations, verbal and written, on international perspectives on gender
Cognitive Skills
In the process of developing a substantive understanding of diverse international social and cultural manifestations of gender in the twentieth and twenty first centuries, students will also acquire the ability to:
1. assess critically comparative social and cultural manifestations of gender, the complex ways in which gender is constructed in articulation with other social and cultural identities, and the differential impacts this has on individual capacities to exercise agency
2. locate, retrieve, process and evaluate a wide range of materials about gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, age, sexuality, class, religion and nationality in the twenieth and twenty first centuries
3. evaluate competing and complementary theoretical frameworks for understanding the interaction of gender with other social and cultural identities
4. make scholarly presentations, verbal and written, on the substantive and theoretical issues covered in the module material
Teaching and Learning Methods (which enable students to achieve learning outcomes)
1. A framework of 20 lectures that establish the module’s outer limits and internal logic
2. Weekly seminars, over 20 weeks, for structured discussions, including student presentations on specific topics
3. Two pieces of class work, with written feedback
4. Self-directed individual and collaborative study in the library and on the internet, in preparation for seminar discussion and presentations
5. A dedicated two week period of revision lectures and seminars in the Summer term
Assessment Methods
These measure the aforementioned learning outcomes and determine the final mark for this module.
One 2,000 word essay (due Tuesday 30 April 2013 before 2pm) 33% AND
One three-hour examination in the Summer term 67%
Non-Assessed Work
This is used to provide feedback on your progress, completion is compulsory.
1. Due in at the start of your seminar in week 7 (week beginning 12 November 2012):
Write a 1,000 word integrated summary of one of the following pairs of readings. Write in your own words, paraphrasing the readings and comparing and contrasting them. A few selective quotes may be used, and should be clearly marked as such using quotation marks and providing the page number(s). Make sure you follow the guidelines on presentation and referencing in the Undergraduate Handbook and PSP.
a) McRobbie A. (2007) ‘Top Girls? Young women and the post-feminist sexual contract’, Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, Nos. 4-5, pp. 718-737
Jackson, C. (2002) ‘“Laddishness” as a self-worth protection strategy’, Gender and Education, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 37-51
b) Reid, S.E. (2002) ‘Cold War in the kitchen: Gender and the de-Stalinization of consumer taste in the Soviety Union under Krushchev’, Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 211-252
Nakachi, M. (2006) ‘N.S.Krushchev and the 1944 Soviet Family Law: Politics, Reproduction and Language’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 40-68
2. Due in at the start of your seminar in week 17 (week beginning 18 February 2013):
A class essay of 2,000 words, the title to be chosen from the list below:
a) ‘Communism may weaken or decompose existing forms of male bias, but it may also intensify existing forms, or recompose new forms’. Discuss in relation to China.
b) How is gender implicated in nationalist projects? Use particular examples in your answer.
c) ‘It is impossible to make sense of the lives of female domestic workers in apartheid South Africa without analysing the complex intersections of class, race and gender’. Discuss.
d) To what extent has the end of apartheid brought gender equality and racial equality in South Africa?
e) Critically assess the symbolic and material roles of Indian women and men in the nationalist movement to overthrow British rule.
f) Have the ‘dreams of modernity’ been realised for women in India today?
Core Readings
Core readings are identified for each week and need to be read before the relevant seminar. All the core readings are available electronically as well as in hard copy in the Library. There are three types of electronic resources that are accessed via the Library: scanned in extracts; e-journal articles and e-books. Other resources can be accessed directly from the internet using the link provided.
You will need Adobe Reader to access resources electronically, and you can download it free if you don’t already have it on your machine:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html?promoid=DAFYK
Scanned in Extracts
These are chapters of books available via the Library’s dedicated site for e-resources for this module:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/main/electronicresources/extracts/so/so112/
You will need to ensure that you are registered for the module via eMR in order to have access, and you must also Sign-in to the intranet site (see top menu bar, right-hand-side). Then you simply look for the reference you require (they are arranged alphabetically by author’s surname). It will open as a pdf and the chapter follows on from the Copyright Notice. You can read it on screen but you will also need to print a copy to bring to the class and you might also want to save a copy (for your own personal use only).
E-journal articles
The link provided will take you to the Library’s Classic Catalogue site for that e-journal. You will then need to select a database to access it through, checking that it has the relevant year. You will need to be logged in and then the database archive will open and you need to select the Vol. and/or No. of the journal and page down for the article. You can click to open the pdf, which may take a few seconds, but the interface and reliability does vary. It is recommended instead to save the pdf to your hard drive or data-stick (right click, select ‘save target as’, then choose a directory and give the file a meaningful name). You can then open the saved document, print it, search it etc.
E-books
The link provided after the reference in the reading list will take you to the Library’s Classic Catalogue site for that e-book. If you are on campus you click for access. If you are off-campus click ‘Log In’ (top left of the page), then ‘Athens Users, log in here’ (bottom of screen at the left) and you should be prompted for your normal Warwick login. Once you have opened the book you need to search for the relevant chapter. You can read this on-screen but if possible you must also print a copy to bring to the class. To print a Netbook make sure you have searched for the chapter using the box at the left-hand side, expanding sections as necessary to find it. Then select Print from the top banner and choose the option ‘Pages starting with the current page’, inserting the number of pages in the box and clicking OK (where possible, the number of pages is provided in square brackets as part of the reference in this reading list). This will prompt the creation of an Adobe document so click to Run and the chapter will then come up on your screen with an option to print. You can also save a copy using File, Save a Copy. You will notice that under the terms of University Access to Netbooks only a limited number of pages can be printed each hour, so you may need to access the e-book again later if other library users have used the quota. If you are unable to print the reference you must ensure that you have extra detailed notes to bring to the seminar.
Additional Readings
All the additional readings listed below for each topic are available in the library and should be used when you are doing more in depth work, eg. for a seminar presentation, class essay, assessed essay or revision for exams.
Autumn Term Reading List
Week 2 Introduction: What is Gender?
Seminar What’s the difference between sex and gender?
Questions
Have you met a gendered approach so far in your studies? If so, what difference did it make?
How convincing are explanations of differences between women and men that are based on biology? What about society and culture?
Core Reading (distributed in first lecture)
Marchbank, Jennifer and Gayle Letherby (2007) Introduction to Gender: Social Science Perspectives, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, (ch. 1 ‘Gendered Perspectives: Theoretical Issues’)
Additional Readings
Backett, Milburn and Linda McKie (2001) Constructing Gendered Bodies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Butler, Judith (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York, London: Routledge
Butler, Judith (1993) Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, New York, London: Routledge
Butler, Judith (2004) Undoing Gender, New York, London: Routledge
Cranny, Francis, Anne et al (2003) Gender Studies: Terms and Debates, Basingstoke: Macmillan
Daly, Mary (1979) Gyn/ecology: The metaethics of radical feminism, London: The Women’s Press
Dawkins, Richard (1989) The Selfish Gene, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Harrison, Wendy Cealey (2006) ‘The Shadow and the Substance: The sex/gender debate’, in Kathy Davis, Mary Evans and Judith Lorber (Eds) The Handbook of Gender and Women’s Studies, London: Sage, pp. 35-52
Hines, Sally (2010) ‘Sexing Gender – Gendering Sex: Towards an Intersectional Analysis of Transgender’, in Yvette Taylor, Sally Hines and Mark E. Casey (Eds) Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 140-162
Holmes, Mary (2009) Gender and Everyday Life, London, New York: Routledge
Kerr, Joanna (Ed.) (1993) Ours by Right: Women’s Rights as Human Rights, London: Zed
McKenna, Wendy and Suzanne Kessler (2006) ‘Transgendering: Blurring the boundaries of gener’, in Kathy Davis, Mary Evans and Judith Lorber (Eds) The Handbook of Gender and Women’s Studies, London: Sage, pp. 342-354
Oakley, Ann (1985) Sex, Gender and Society, Gower: Maurice Temple Smith
Pilcher, Jane and Imelda Whelehan (2004) Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies, London: Sage
Rich, Adrienne (1977) Of Woman Born, London: Virago
Rubin, Gayle (1975) ‘The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex’, in Rayna Reiter (Ed.) Toward an Anthropology of Women, New York: Monthly Review Press (reprinted in Linda Nicholson (Ed.) The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, New York, London: Routledge, 1997)
Tobach, Ethel and Betty Rosoff (Eds) Challenging Racism and Sexism: Alternatives to genetic explanation, New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York
Week 3 Gender, School and Work in Contemporary Britain
Seminar To what extent has male advantage and female disadvantage been
Questions reversed in UK schools?
What’s the relationship between masculinity and educational achievement? How does social class make a difference?
What’s the relationship between masculinity and paid work? How does social class make a difference?
To what extent are the current spending cuts falling disproportionately on women, and why?
Core Reading (everybody to read two, one on Austerity/cuts plus one other)
Collinson, David and Jeff Hearn (1996) ‘“Men” at “work”: multiple masculinities/multiple workplaces’, in Mairtin Mac an Ghaill (Ed.) Understanding Masculinities, Buckingham: Open University Press, pp. 61-76