WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY IN AFRICA

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER STUDIES (SS122) 2016

COURSE OUTLINE
LECTURER; Mrs. Munodawafa
Contact Details: 0773226556 [email protected]

COURSE AIMS:

This course is focused on giving students a broad understanding of the discipline of

Gender Studies, its subject matter, key issues and concepts.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of the course students should be able to:

 Understand how Gender Studies as a discipline developed and its value in

contemporary society.
 Apply the fundamental perspectives in Gender Studies to solving and
addressing everyday life social problems and issues.

 Understand the role of Gender Studies in society, and in particular, its

function as a science and tool for advocacy and social change.

METHODOLOGY AND IMPORTANT COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Grades are determined on the following Course Work 30% and Final Exam 70%. All
essays must be written properly with regard to grammar and sentence construction.
Methods of learning include lectures, group and individual activities. Students will
write one essay, an essay in class examination and a group presentation.  

COURSE CONTENT

TOPIC1. Introduction and key terms

Gender/Sex
Gender and sex (roles)
Gender criticism
Feminism
Domestic labor
Patriarchy
Socialization
Gender equality, equity, etc

TOPIC 2: Background of Western Feminism

Feminist waves
Selected feminist theories

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 -Radical Feminism
-Marxism Feminism
-Liberal Feminism
-Black Feminism

TOPIC 3: Theoretical Perspectives on Gender

1. Biological explanation:
a) Hormones and brains
b) Brain lateralization
c) Evolutionary Perspective
2. Psychoanalytic theory
3. The Social Perspective
a) The social construction of gender
b) Social learning theory
4. Cognitive Developmental Theory
- Dyanda and Musara’s research
5. Mother – child Attachment Theory

TOPIC 4: PATRIARCHY
i) The meaning of Patriarchy
ii) Emergency of Patriarchy
iii) Education and Patriarchy
iv) Patriarchy and inequality
v) CASE STUDY – Zimbabwe

TOPIC 5: Gender stereotypes

 Theoretical framework of stereotypes

 definitions, consequences

 Personal and societal

TOPIC 6: Gender development

i) The Pre-colonial period

ii) The colonial period
iii) The Post Colonial period
iv) Women In Development
v) Gender and development

TOPIC 7: GENDER AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

i) Gender issues in education
- Obstacles to girls’ education
ii) Gender issues in the workplace
- What kind of women’s work
- High achieving women

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 - Obstacles to job satisfaction and achievement
iii) Gender issues in the media
- Male and female images
- Balancing of gender issues

Assessments

a) Marks will be awarded according to the relevance and depth

of your research and all round presentation of your paper
including grammar and spelling.

b) The three assignments will contribute 30% of your exams’

total marks.

c) References should be on a page of their own at the end of the paper.

ASSIGNMENTS
1. ‘Domestic violence is a barrier to women’s promotion in the workplace. ‘
Discuss
2. Examine the assertion that ‘feminism is a western ideoogy’.

References

Acker, J. (1999) ‘Rewriting Class, Race, and Gender: Problems in Feminist

Rethinking’, pp. 44–69 in M.M. Ferree, J. Lorber and B.B. Hess (eds) Revisioning
Gender. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Amadiume, I. (1987) Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African
Society. London: Zed Books.

Bacchi, C.L. (1999) Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bem, S.L. (1993) The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Bem, S.L. (1998) An Unconventional Family. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. R. Nice. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Braidotti, R. (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Feminist

Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.

Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and
London: Routledge.

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Butler, J. (1993) Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York and
London: Routledge.

Calasanti, T. and C.A. Bailey (1991) ‘Gender Inequality and the Division of
Household Labor in the United States and Sweden: A Socialist-Feminist Approach’,
Social Problems 38: 34–53.

Chodorow, N. (1978) The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley: University of

California Press.

Cixous, H. and C. Clément (1986) The Newly Born Woman, trans. B. Wing.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Orig. 1975.)
Collins, P.H. (1990) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman.
Connell, R.W. (1987) Gender and Power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Connell, R.W. (1995) Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Delphy, C. (1993) ‘Rethinking Sex and Gender’, Women’s Studies International Forum
16: 1–9.

Deutsch, F.M. (1999) Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.

Epstein, C.F. (1988) Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender and the Social Order. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Felski, R. (1997) ‘The Doxa of Difference’, Signs 23: 1–21.

Ferree, M.M., J. Lorber and B.B. Hess (1999) ‘Introduction’, pp. xv–xxxvi in M.M.
Ferree, J. Lorber and B.B. Hess (eds) Revisioning Gender. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Firestone, S. (1971) The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. New York:
Bantam.

Flax, J. (1987) ‘Postmodernism and Gender Relations in Feminist Theory’, Signs 12:
621–43.

Foster, J. (1999) ‘An Invitation to Dialogue: Clarifying the Position of Feminist

Gender Theory in Relation to Sexual Difference Theory’, Gender & Society 13: 431–56.

Frye, M. (1996) ‘The Necessity of Differences: Constructing a Positive Category of

Women’, Signs 21: 991–1010. Gagné, P. and R. Tewksbury (1998) ‘Conformity
Pressures and Gender Resistance among Transgendered Individuals’, Social Problems
45: 81–101.

Gallop, J. (1982) The Daughter’s Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.

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Gamson, W. (1992) Talking Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Garber, M. (1992) Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. New York and
London: Routledge.

Garber, M. (1995) Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life. New York:
Simon and Schuster.
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration.
Berkeley: University of California Press.

Glenn, E.N. (1992) ‘From Servitude to Service Work the Racial Division of Paid
Reproductive Labor’, Signs 18: 1–43. Glenn, E.N. (1999) ‘The Social Construction and
Institutionalization of Gender and Race: An Integrative Framework’, pp. 70–96 in
M.M. Ferree, J. Lorberand B.B. Hess (eds) Revisioning Gender. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.

Goffman, E. (1974) Frame Analysis. New York: Harper Colophon.

Hargreaves, J.A. (1986) ‘Where’s the Virtue? Where’s the Grace? A Discussion of the
Social Production of Gender Relations in and Through Sport’, Theory,Culture &
Society 3: 109–21.

Hartsock, N.C.M. (1987) ‘The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a
Specific Feminist Historical Materialism’, pp. 159–80 in S. Harding (ed.) Feminism
and Methodology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.