Problems in the Study of Gender and Sexuality: Inequality

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course analyzes inequality and the overt and covert violence that results from it. These inequalities are often grounded in gender and sex but also result from a complex intersection of gender, sex, and other identities. Inequality is what produces the experience of differential citizenship, a topic that exercises scholars the world over. In particular, those interested in issues of feminism, community, and ethnicity have studied why women (some women more than others) or particular social groups such as gay or trans groups, experience disenfranchisement more than their counterparts, even when, officially, many cultures/ nation states grant their members/citizens formal legal equality. Many of the examples around which this course is framed emerge out of South Asia, but our analyses will be structured through an engagement with theoretical texts that address issues of gendered oppression and discrimination in other parts of the world. Readings will include historical, anthropological, literary texts. Key themes of the course include: debates on parite in France and differential citizenship for religious minorities in India; caste based violence in India studied comparatively with debates on violence against aboriginal in Australia and Canada; rape and human rights; the politics of homosexuality; violence around popular and high culture; the panic around "family values". This course is part of the College Course Cluster program, Inequality.