Women’s & Gender Studies

This course examines development economics with a feminist lens. It describes how economic growth and economic development have differential impacts on men, women, intersectional groups, and on gender equality. Based on theoretical perspectives from feminist economics and on human development, the course describes and assess the impact of policy solutions and aid projects. The course introduces concept of gender in general and in relation to the development discourse in particular. It describes how policy has moved from women in development to gender and development and the emergence of post-colonial feminist approaches. Main features of mainstream development economics are contrasted with feminist economics. Labor market and employment is discussed in relation to concepts such as productive/reproductive and formal/informal, with an emphasis on the relevance of these concepts for the global south in particular. Various indicators of economic inequalities are presented and gender disaggregated data is introduced to enhance the understanding of concepts such as the feminization of poverty and multidimensional poverty both theoretically and empirically. A social provisioning approach to the gender dimension of economic life is discussed. The course deepens the understanding of the underlying power structures of economic and gender inequalities. It brings in the broader concept of human development and capability approaches. It discusses ways of conceptualizing and practically working with critical perspectives on men and masculinities in economic development. This course discusses and problematizes the relationship between economic growth and gender equality: to what extent does economic growth impact on gender equality? Does gender equality spur economic development? The course looks at more practical policy solutions to the problem and brings up policies, methods, and strategies for reducing gender inequalities. It gives a short theoretical background to each of the strategies. Examples of strategies that are discussed include women's movements, gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting, micro-credits, and corruption.

This course introduces the nuances of gender in relation to the international human rights law framework. This interdisciplinary course provides an understanding of international human rights law; exposure to the main human rights conventions and their gendered objectives; and the manner in which gender is of relevance from a human rights perspective. Further, students develop critical thinking and analysis skills whilst comparing different instruments of international human rights law.

This course integrates a gender perspective in the studies of societies and politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It deploys an interdisciplinary approach and provides a gendered understanding of key issues and concepts such as nation and citizenship, family/kinship, social movements and civil society, violence and conflict. The course is based on two methods: (1) a theoretical framework setting the basis for gender studies in the MENA region; (2) an analysis of case studies and topical issues in order to understand the place of women and gender in the transformations of societies and political regimes in the MENA region.

This course introduces the sociological analysis of gender. It utilizes a gender perspective to systematically apply a gender lens to key topics in sociology. The first part of the course covers basic theoretical dimensions of gender, including the nature versus nurture debate, intersectionality, and various sociological perspectives on gender. The second part of the course examines social institutions (family, the educational system, the workplace, health) with a focus on gender inequalities and gender norms. 

This course examines the philosophy of sex and gender in three steps. It first looks at how the human subject in the history of philosophy is sexed and privileged as a man. It then examines the metaphysics of gender, questioning both essentialist and constructionist versions of gender ontology. Lastly, it pursues the question of intersectionality and its relationship with sex and gender

A research project that assigns students to expert professors in their proposed research topic. The course takes the students' research capabilities to a more professional level. This can be most closely compared to what is called a supervised research project in the USA.

This interdisciplinary course trains students in cultural critique: making invisible power relations in media, art, and culture visible. Students are provided with theoretical tools to become aware of how gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, but also social class, and religiosity impact the production, consumption, and interpretation of communication, literature, film, language, (art) history, games, and social media.  Emphasis is placed on the way in which representations are never neutral, but always partial, biased, and implicated with processes of inclusion and exclusion. Building on feminist and post-colonial theory, students learn to analyze how media and cultural expressions are formed by sexist, racist, heteronormative, transphobic, and Eurocentric norms.  The question of how scientific knowledge is created and how science contributes to hierarchical power relations are examined.
 

Since the emergence of the feminist movement in Taiwan of the 1970s, Taiwanese society has seen more than a few women's issues proposed and discussed in an increasingly broad and extensive manner. Reflecting the changes in social, political, and cultural conditions, the general perspectives in which the same issue is discussed also changes. This course explores Taiwanese women's conditions of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on the more modern period, that is, the mid-to-late twentieth century. With a brief introduction of what Taiwanese women's traditions may involve and how Taiwanese women modernize, the course explores how the feminist movements unfolded, how they reflect or change Taiwanese women's social status, the rise of women's studies and/or feminist scholarship, sexual violence, sex work, and lesbian issues. The course also reflects on issues of migration and global human flow, and discuss how the introduction of immigrant spouses as well as migrant workers may compel us to rethink women's issues in contemporary Taiwan.

This course explores the rise of feminism in England from the publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to World War I, when London was a hot house of radical thinking and the temporary or definitive home of a variety of brilliant cosmopolitan thinkers and writers who converged here attracted by the infinite opportunities for debate on the most varied ‘isms’: positivism, liberalism, socialism, trade-unionism, Ibsenism, Freudianism, vegetarianism, pacifism, secularism and, last but not least, evolutionism. Darwin’s theories of natural and sexual selection and his views of the place of woman in the evolution of the human species had a wide and deep impact on the debate on the Woman Question. They were received and appropriated in different ways by New Woman writers, but none of them escaped their influence. UCL had a prominent place in these exciting debates because of its deep connection to Darwinism through figures such as Francis Galton, Edward Grant, Edwin Ray Lankester, and Karl Pearson, so this is the right place to explore Darwinism’s fundamental ontological implications for the cultural and literary discourse of the fin-de siècle

Situated within the field of the sociology of sexualities, this course addresses the historical, cultural, and social construction of sexuality. Part 1 of the course investigates conceptual foundations of the social construction of sexuality. Part 2 of the course looks at the changing historical meanings of sexual categories and at the ways in which LGBT social movements have sought to politicize them. Part 3 examines the social regulation of sexuality through an analysis of topics such as sexual violence and harassment, women's sexualized imagery in the media, and controversies around same-sex marriage. At the end of the course, students have a solid knowledge of the core concepts in the field of sociology of sexualities, they are able to apply these concepts to contemporary controversies about sex and sexualities, and they understand the ways in which sexuality shapes our social world.