SOCI 315: Contemporary Gender Relations

In an age of legal equality between the sexes and greater acceptance of homosexuality, how do we explain the persistence of workplace discrimination, sexual violence, and the under-representation of women in public life? How do normative ideals of femininity and masculinity affect our everyday experience of our bodies and our intimate relationships? How are these ideals circulated through the media and reproduced in social institutions, and how are they articulated in different national, cultural and religious contexts? Readings for this course will provide the platform for considering the ways in which gender, both subtly and overtly, structures human experience on both the micro level of individual experience and the macro level of social structure. 

 

Credits: 3