Honours Specialization - Sex, Body and Identity

GEND 2206  Sex, Body and Identity

Prerequisites:

Any 18 credits completed.

Hours:

Three hours of lecture per week for one term.

Credits:

3

Description:

Sex, Body, and Identity I aims to provide students with a forum for thinking critically about how individuals learn, perform and experience their gendered identities. To approach the question of gender from a critical perspective, students will be asked to reflect on a number of theoretical questions. First, what exactly is gender and how is it different from sex. Second, how have feminist theorists, inspired by a variety of perspectives, made sense of gender and its implications for lived experience? Third, how are social imperatives related to femininity and masculinity both internalized and held in check by a vast constellation of concrete and abstract forces? Fourth, how do prevailing conceptions of femininity and masculinity condition our relationships to our own bodies and the bodies of others? Finally, how are the gendered norms and values that anchor themselves on the bodies and minds of human beings caught up in broader patterns of inequality and oppression? This course is suitable for students who do and do not have a background in women's studies or gender studies.