Interdisciplinary survey of the major areas of women's studies: women's history, cross-cultural perspectives, women in literature, psychology of women, etc. Basic principles and concepts fundamental to more advanced women's studies research. Topics vary. Required for major and minor. Writing intensive.

Interdisciplinary survey of the major areas of women's studies: women's history, cross-cultural perspectives, women in literature, psychology of women, etc. Basic principles and concepts fundamental to more advanced women's studies research. Topics vary. Required for major and minor. Writing intensive.

This course explores the diversity of women's lives through the dynamics of status, power, privilege, and inequality in contemporary United States. Students will examine women's diverse experiences by using the theoretical framework of the social construction of race, gender, economic class, and sexual orientation in historical context. We will examine categories of difference and the processes, philosophical developments, institutions, and conditions that lead to and rely on power and privilege in modern American society.

Using a social construction approach, students explore the multiple ways in which gender is constructed within the lives of children, women, men, and transgender people. Specific attention focuses on the social institutions and systems that encourage both the construction and reproduction of gender identity and expression across the lifespan. Students actively participate in identifying historical and current day factors and institutions that shape gender. Students explore the roles of families, schools, educational settings, media, the workplace, recreation activities, the medical system, religion, laws, and the laws and the legal system in the construction of gender.