Gender Studies - Department of Sociology & Anthropology

Gender Studies - Department of Sociology & Anthropology

University of Warwick

Department of Sociology

Module:International Perspectives on Gender, 2008/9

Convenor:Caroline Wright

Tutors:Caroline Wright, Dominic Pasura

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.

Autumn Term Lectures

Week 2Introduction: What is Gender?

Week 3Gender, School and Work in Contemporary Britain

Week 4Gender, Family and Sexuality in Contemporary Britain

Week 5Gender and State Socialism: The USSR

Week 6Reading Week

Week 7Gender and Post-Soviet Russia

Week 8Gender and State Socialism: China

Week 9Feminism, Orientalism and Nationalism

Week 10South Africa: Apartheid and the articulation of gender, ‘race’ and class

Spring Term Lectures

Week 11South Africa: Gender, resistance and the post-apartheid era

Week 12Gender, Colonialism and Nationalism in India

Week 13Gender and Post-colonial Nation-building in India

Week 14Gender and Religious Fundamentalism

Week 15Gender, Religion and the State in Iran

Week 16Reading Week

Week 17Multiple Meanings: Islamic women and the ‘veil’

Week 18Women, the Nationalist Struggle and the Irish Free State

Week 19Gender and Modernisation in the IrishRepublic

Summer Term Lectures

Week 21Revision Lecture

Week 22Revision Lecture

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, and gender and orientalism
  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 16 lectures that establish the module’s outer limits and internal logic
  2. Weekly seminars, over 16 weeks, for structured discussions, including student presentations on specific topics
  3. Two class essays, 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.Two weeks of revision classes in term 3, including two revision lectures

Assessment Methods(which measure the aforementioned learning outcomes and

determine the final mark for this module)

One 2,000 word essay (due Tuesday 28 April 2009)33%AND

One three-hour examination in the Summer term66%

Non-Assessed Work(used to provide feedback on your progress, completion is compulsory)

1. Due in at the start of your seminar in week 7 (week beginning 10 November 2008):

A class essay of 1,500 words, the title to be chosen from the list below:

a) How worried should we be that girls are outperforming boys in the UK schooling system?

b)‘Equal opportunities in the workplace: fiction not fact’. Discuss.

c)How ‘symmetrical’ is the contemporary British family?

d)What is the crisis in the British family a crisis about? How is the crisis gendered?

e)Why might state socialism in the Soviet Union have been described as patriarchal?

2.Due in at the start of your seminar in week 17 (week beginning 16 February 2009):

A class essay of 2,000 words, the title to be chosen from the list below:

a)What impact has post-communism had on men and masculinities in Russia?

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 in South Africa?

e)Critically assess the symbolic and material roles of Indian women and men in the nationalist movement to overthrow British rule.

Core Readings

Core readings are identified for each topic and must be read before the relevant seminar. All the core readings are available electronically as well as in hard copy in the Library. Most are available via the Library’s dedicated site for e-resources for this module:

You will need to complete Web Sign-on to access the site, and then you simply look for the reference you require. You can read it on screen using Adobe Reader ( you need to load it) and you should also print a copy to consult in your seminar.

Some of the core readings cannot be made availablein this way because they are already available electronically, as electronic journal articles or e-books. In such cases, you will find the relevant link directly after the reference below. Depending on the interface, this may lead directly to the article, or to a download option, or to an invitation to identify the institution for access (University of Warwick). The article will be a pdf so you will need Adobe Reader (see above). You are recommended to save the pdf to your hard drive or data-stick (right click, select ‘save target as’, then choose a directory). You can then open the saved document, print it, search it etc. In the case of e-books, you will need to search within the book to find the chapter you want and may only be able to view on screen on a page-by-page basis; in this case you will need to make 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 doing more in depth work, eg. for a seminar presentation, class essay, assessed essay or revision for exams.

Week 2Introduction: What is Gender?

SeminarThink of an example you’ve come across whereby differences between

Questionswomen and men are explained on the basis of biology.

Does this account convince you? Why (not)?

What other factors might explain the differences? (eg. social/cultural)

Week 3Gender, School and Work in Contemporary Britain

SeminarIs women’s experience of education in Britain different from men’s?

Questions

If so, how and why?

What’s the relationship between masculinity and paid work?

Core Reading

Charles, Nickie (2002) Gender in Modern Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ch. 5 (‘Schooling – It’s a Girl’s World’)

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

Additional Reading

Abbott, P. and Wallace, C. (1997 - 2nd edition) An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives, London: Routledge, ch. 4 (‘Education’)

Bradley, Harriet and Geraldine Healy (2008) Ethnicity and Gender at Work: Inequalities, Careers and Employment Relations, Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Charles, Nickie (2002) Gender in Modern Britain, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, ch. 2 (‘Gender at Work’)

Coppock, Vicki, Deena Haydon and Ingrid Richter (1995) ‘Patronising Rita: The Myth of Equal Opportunities in Education’ in Vicki Coppock et al The Illusions of ‘Post-Feminism’: New Women, Old Myths, London: Taylor & Francis, pp. 47-74

Coppock, Vicki, Deena Haydon and Ingrid Richter (1995) ‘More Work, Low Pay: The Myth of Equal Opportunities in the Workplace’, in Vicki Coppock et al The Illusions of ‘Post-Feminism’: New Women, Old Myths, London: Taylor & Francis, pp. 75-105

Dex, Shirley and HeatherJoshi, (1999) ‘Careers and Motherhood: Policies for Compatibility’Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 23, No.5, pp. 641-659

Goodwin, John (1998) Men’s Work and Male Lives: Men and Work in Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate

Jackson, C. (2002) ‘“Laddishness” as a self-worth protection strategy’, Gender and Education, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 37-51

Jenkins, Sarah (2004) Gender, Place And The Labour Market,Aldershot: Ashgate

Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling, Milton Keynes: Open University Press

McDowell, Linda (2003) Redundant masculinities?: Employment change and white working class youth,Malden: Blackwell Publications

McRobbie (2007) ‘Top Girls? Young women and the post-feminist sexual contract’, Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, Nos. 4-5, pp. 718-737

Mirza, H. S. (1992) Young, Female and Black, London: Routledge, chs 2-4

Myers, Kate and Hazel Taylor with Sue Adler and Diana Leonard (Eds) (2007) Genderwatch: Still watching, Stoke on Trent, Sterling: Trentham Books

Reay, D. (2001) ‘“Spice girls”, “nice girls”, “girlies”, and “tomboys”: gender discourses, girls’ cultures and femininities in the primary classroom’, Gender and Education, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 153-166

Skelton, Christine (1993) ‘Women and Education’, in Diane Richardson and Victoria Robinson (eds) Introducing Women’s Studies: Feminist Theory & Practice, London: Macmillan, pp. 324-349

Walby, Sylvia (1997) Gender Transformations, London: Routledge, ch. 2 (‘Recent Changes in Gender Relations in Employment’)

Warren, Tracey (2000) ‘Diverse Breadwinner Models: A Couple-Based Analysis of Gendered Working Time in Britain and Denmark’,Journal of European Social Policy, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 349-371

Warrington, M., M. Younger and J. Williams (2000) ‘Student attitudes, image and the gender gap’, British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 393-407

Witz, Anne (1993) ‘Women and Work’, in Diane Richardson and Victoria Robinson Introducing Women’s Studies: Feminist Theory & Practice, London: Macmillan, pp. 272-302

Week 4Gender, Family and Sexuality in Contemporary Britain

Seminar What is a family? How would you describe it to someone from Mars?

Questions

How is the contemporary family gendered?

What is the ‘crisis’ in the British family? Why is there a ‘crisis’ in the family?

Core Reading

Abbott, Pam, Claire Wallace and Melissa Tyler (2005 – 3rd edition) An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives, London: Routledge, ch. 6 (‘The Family and the Household’)

Wright, Caroline and Gill Jagger (1999) ‘End of century, end of family? Shifting discourses of family “crisis”’, in Gill Jagger and Caroline Wright (eds) Changing Family Values, London: Routledge, pp. 17-37

Additional Reading

Abbott, Pam, Claire Wallace and Melissa Tyler (2005 – 3rd edition) An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives, London: Routledge, ch. 8 (‘Sexuality’)

Abbott, Pam and Claire Wallace (1992) The Family and the New Right, London: Pluto Press

Adams, Carol (1990) The Sexual Politics of Meat: A feminist-vegetarian critical theory, Cambridge: Polity Press

Allen, Graham (ed.) (1999) The Sociology of the Family: A reader, Oxford: Blackwell

Charles, Nickie (2002) Gender in Modern Britain, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, ch. 3 (‘Families and Households’).

Charles, Nickie (2002) Gender in Modern Britain, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, ch. 7 (‘Sexuality, Power and Gender’)

Charles, Nickie (2002) Gender in Modern Britain, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, ch. 4 (‘Gendered Parenting’)

Dallos, Rudi and Roger Sapsford (1995) ‘Patterns of Diversity and Lived Realities’, in John Muncie et al (eds) Understanding the Family, London: Sage, pp. 125-170

Featherstone, Brid (2004) Family Life and Family Support: A Feminist Analysis, Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Giddens, Anthony (1992) The Transformation of Intimacy, Cambridge: Polity Press

Gittins, Diana (1993) The Family in Question: Changing Households and Familiar Ideologies, London: Macmillan

Jackson, Stevi et al (eds) (1993) Women’s Studies: A Reader, ch. 6 (various authors), pp. 179-222

Jackson, Stevi (1993) ‘Women and the Family’, in Richardson, D. and Robinson, V. (eds) Introducing Women’s Studies: Feminist Theory & Practice, London: Macmillan, pp. 177-200

Jagger, Gill and Caroline Wright (eds) (1999) Changing Family Values, London: Routledge

Jones, Helen and Jane Millar (1996) The Politics of the Family, Aldershot: Avebury

Richardson, Diane (1993) ‘Sexuality and Male Dominance’, in Diane Richardson and Vicki Robinson (eds) Introducing Women’s Studies, London: Macmillan, pp. 74-98

Westwood, Sallie (1996) ‘“Feckless Fathers”: Masculinities and the British state’, in Mairtin Mac an Ghaill (ed.) Understanding Masculinities, Buckingham: Open University Press, pp. 21-34

Young, Michael D. and Peter Willmott (1973) The Symmetrical Family: A Study of Work and Leisure in the London Region, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Week 5Gender and State Socialism: The USSR

SeminarWhat is the origin of women’s oppression, according to Marxist Questions thought?

What does Marxism prescribe to end women’s oppression?

To what extent did the communist state in Russia put Marxist theory on gender into practice? Give examples.

Core Reading

Charles, Nickie (1993) Gender Divisions and Social Change, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 103-116

Voronina, Olga (1994) ‘The Mythology of Women’s Emancipation in the USSR as the Foundation for a Policy of Discrimination’, in Anastasia Posadskaya et al (eds) Women in Russia: A New Era in Russian Feminism, London: Verso, pp. 37-56

Additional Reading

Atkinson, Dorothy, Alexander Dallin and Gail Warshofsky Lapidus (eds) (1978) Women in Russia, Hassocks: Harvester Press

Attwood, Lynne (1990) The New Soviet Man and Woman: Sex-role Socialization in the USSR, Basingstoke: Macmillan

Bryson, Valerie (1992) Feminist Political Theory, London: Macmillan, ch. 7 ‘Marxist Feminism in Russia’, pp. 131-144

Edmondson, Linda (ed.) (2001) Gender in Russian History and Culture, Basingstoke: Palgrave (chapters 6-10)

Goldman, Wendy (2002) Women at the Gates: Gender and Industry in Stalin’s Russia, Cambridge: Camridge University Press

Haynes, John (2003) New Soviet Man: Gender and Masculinity in Stalinist Soviet Cinema, Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press

Ilic, Melanie (ed.) (2001) Women in the Stalin Era, Basingstoke: Palgrave

Issoupova, Olga (2000) ‘From Duty to Pleasure? Motherhood in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia’, in Sarah Ashwin (ed.) Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, London: Routledge, pp. 30-54

Kiblitskaya, Marina (2000) ‘Russia’s Female Breadwinners: The Changing Subjective Experience’, in Sarah Ashwin (ed.) Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, London: Routledge, pp. 55-70

Kukhterin, Sergei (2000) ‘Fathers and Patriarchs in Communist and Post-Communist Russia’, in Sarah Ashwin (ed.) Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, London: Routledge, pp. 71-89

Malysheva, Marina (1992) ‘Feminism and Bolshevism’, in Shirin Rai, Hilary Pilkington and Annie Phizacklea (eds) Women in the Face of Change, London: Routledge, pp. 186-199

Mamonova, Tatyana with Sarah Matilsky (eds) (1984) Women and Russia: Feminist Writings from the Soviet Union, Oxford: Blackwell

McDermid, Jane (1998) Women and Work in Russia 1830-1930: A study in continuity through change, London: Longman

McDermid, Jane (1999) Midwives of the Revolution: Female Bolsheviks and Women Workers in 1917, London: UCL Press

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

Sanbom, Joshua A. (2003) Drafting the Russian Nation, De Kalb: Northern IllinoisUniversity Press (ch. 4 ‘The Nationalization of Masculinity’)

Wood, Elizabeth (1997) The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia, Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press

Zhuk, Olga (1994) ‘The Lesbian Subculture: The Historical Roots of Lesbianism in the Former USSR’, inAnastasia Posadskaya et al (eds) (1994) Women in Russia: A New Era in Russian Feminism, London: Verso, pp. 146-153

Week 6Reading Week

There will be no lecture or seminars this week. Your first class essay is due in at the start of your seminar next week.

Week 7Gender and Post-Soviet Russia

Seminar Are contemporary Russian men in crisis?

QuestionsTo what extent is the crisis gendered?

How was sexuality regulated in the Soviet state and how have attitudes to, and the regulation of, sexuality changed in the post-Soviet era?

Core Reading

Ashwin, Sarah and Tatiana Lytkina (2004) ‘Men in Crisis in Russia: The Role of Domestic Marginalization’, Gender and Society, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 189-206

Omel’chenko, Elena (2000) ‘“My body, my friend?” Provincial Youth Between the Sexual and the Gender Revolutions’, inSarah Ashwin (ed.) Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, London: Routledge, pp. 137-167

Additional Reading

Ashwin, Sarah (2002) ‘The Influence of the Soviet Gender Order on Employment Behavior in Contemporary Russia’, Sociological Research, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 21-37

Attwood, Lynne (2001) ‘Rationality versus Romanticism: Representations of Women in the Stalinist Press’ in Linda Edmondson(ed.)Gender In Russian History And CultureBasingstoke: Palgrave, pp.158-176

Attwood, Lynne (1996) ‘Young People, Sex and Sexual Identity’, in Hilary Pilkington (ed.) Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia, London: Routledge, pp. 95-120

Bridger, Sue and Rebecca Kay (1996) ‘Gender and Generation in the New Russian Labour Market’, in Hilary Pilkington (ed.) Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia, London: Routledge, pp. 21-38

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