esade

Women's and gender studies (2225.YR.014475.1)

Datos generales

Tipo:

 OPT

Curso:

 1,2,3,4,5

Periodo:

 S semestre

Créditos ECTS:

 2 ECTS

Profesorado:

Grupo Profesor Departamento Idioma
Year 1 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade ENG

Grupo Profesor Departamento Idioma
Year 2 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade ENG

Grupo Profesor Departamento Idioma
Year 3 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade ENG

Grupo Profesor Departamento Idioma
Year 4 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade ENG

Prerrequisitos

Ningun prerrequisitos necesarios para seguir este curso.

Contribución de la asignatura al programa

"Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the
challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good
governance." - Kofi Annan
Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that explores critical questions
about the meaning of gender in society. Each class provides a theoretical framework,
as well as examples of gendered-related situations that are controversial today, in
order to make students reflect on our contemporary society, and create a debate.
As a result, students not only learn how to use gender as a frame of analysis, but also
think about the manifestation of gender in their own lives, leading to a range of
personal and intellectual discoveries.

Objetivos de aprendizaje de la asignatura

Throughout the semester, we will "question gender" in multiple ways:
? What is the difference between sex and gender? Why does gender matter?
? Why don't we have a women's History? What lives did our female ancestors
have?
? What does ?being a woman in the 21st century' mean? How can intersectionality
help us to understand women's experiences?
? How do gendered structures of power operate in politics and at work?
? What are the different kinds of feminism?
? How is gender taken into account in the political agenda?
? How is the current visual industry an obstacle towards more gender equality?
OBJECTIVES
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
? Define basic terms and concepts central to the field of Women's and Gender
Studies.
? Understand and engage with central debates in this field.
? Use diverse methods of analyzing gender in society.
? Communicate effectively about gender issues in both writing and speech,
drawing upon Women's and Gender Studies scholarship and addressing a public
audience

Contenidos

1. Lesson 1 : What is gender?

Sex and gender are two different concepts. The gender identity is composed of four
components, as a consequence there are a wide range of diverse genders in our
societies. Individuals experience discrimination not only because of their gender, but
also because of their race, class, age, etc¿To take into account all these factors,
gender is now studied under an intersectional perspective.
Readings
¿ Spade, J.Z. & Valentine, C.G. 2010. The Prism of Gender. In Cargan, L. & Ballantine, J.H. eds.
Sociological Footprints: Introducing Readings in Sociology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. pp.67-72.
¿ West, C. & Zimmerman, D. 1987. Doing Gender, Gender and Society, 1(2): 125-51.
¿ Hock, R. (2012). Human Sexuality. Pearson New International Edition. Pearson.
¿ McCall, L. (2005). The Complexity of Intersectionality. Signs, 30(3), 1771-1800.
¿ Jagose, A.R. (1996). Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press.

2. Lesson 2 : Women in History (1): from the Roman Empire to the French Revolution

The evolution of women¿s roles in History has to be understood in order to get a
clearer view of women¿s current situation. At every point in our world History, there
were powerful women ¿ even when their rights were not guaranteed. From the
influential Roman courtesans to the revolutionary women who invaded the Bastille in
1789, without forgetting the role of the catholic moral during the Middle Age, a large
panel of women¿s stories will be covered.
Reading
¿ Freisenbruch, Alice. « Seven things you don¿t know about Roman
women ». HistoryExtra. https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/ancient-rome-women-girlsfacts/ (november 2016)
¿ Gristwood, Sarah. « Game of Queens: when women ruled Renaissance
Europe ». HistoryExtra. https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/ancient-rome-women-girlsfacts/ (november 2016)

3. Lesson 3 : Women in History (2): The three waves of feminism (from the 19th century to today)

The term feminism describes movements that aim to establish equal rights for women.
There were three waves of feminism The first wave, occurring in the 19th, was
concerned with women¿s right to vote. The second wave, which took place in the
1960s, was about women willing to get social rights. The third wave, beginning in the
1990s, sees women¿s lives as intersectional, demonstrating how race, class, and
gender are all significant factors when discussing feminism.
Reading:
First wave:
¿ Nancy Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (1987).
¿ Mary Jo Buhle and Paul Buhle, The Concise History of Woman Suffrage (1978)
Second wave:
¿ Alice Echols, Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 (1989).
¿ Angela Davis, Women, Race, and Class (1981).
Third wave:
¿ Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013).
¿ Anne-Marie Slaughter, Unfinished Business (2015)

4. Lesson 4 : Being a woman in our 21st century world: different cultures, different situations. Gender in education.

Global and regional data, from international organisations (such as the gender index),
will be analysed to understand that women have different experiences depending on
their class, nationality and culture.
Reading:
¿ UNESCO (2018a) Meeting our commitments to gender equality in education. Gender Review of the
Global Education Monitoring Report series. Retrieved from:
https://gem-report-2017.unesco.org/en/2018_gender_review/
¿ Hayes, R. M., Lorenz, K., & Bell, K. A. (2013). Victim blaming others: Rape myth acceptance and
the just world belief. Feminist Criminology.
¿ Unicef (2018) Child marriage: Latest trends and future prospects. Available at
https://data.unicef.org/resources/child-marriage-latest-trends-and-future-prospects/
¿ WHO (2017) Violence against women. November 29th. Available at
http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
¿ Dobbin, F. and Kalev, A., (2016) `Why Diversity Programs Fail¿ Harvard Business Review, Retrieved
from:
https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail?referral=03759&cm_vc=rr_item_page.botto.
¿ Stoet, G., & Geary, D. C. (2018). The gender-equality paradox in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics education. Psychological science, 29(4), 581-593.

5. Lesson 5: Gender in politics

The sex-typing characteristic of most institutions in the modern world cannot be denied
and we¿ll analyse how gender shapes the ways people look at politics. However, some
changes have occurred in this field, for example Europe has never had so many
women as country¿s leaders. Nevertheless, some challenges remain.

6. Lesson 6: Gender in family and at work

Women are still victims of discrimination which prevent them from having the career
they want. They do more domestic work, they suffer from the glass ceiling, and in the
worst case they are victims of sexual harassment. A change has been noticed over the
last decades, new laws and projects have been implemented to protect, but more
progress needs to be done.
Reading:
¿ The Straits Times. (2016) You don't need much space to have sex: Josephine Teo on `no flat, no
child¿ belief. Retrieved from
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ministers-rejoinder-to-no-flat-no-child-belief
¿ Tang, D. T. S. (2011) Conditional Spaces: Hong Kong Lesbian Desires and Everyday Life. Hong
Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
¿ Gender specific toys: do you stereotype children?. BBC, Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-40936719/gender-specific-toys-do-you-stereotype-childre
n
¿ UN Women 2019. UN Women and Partners Launch New Initiative to Repeal Discriminatory Laws
Worldwide. Retrieved
from:http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/3/news-un-women-and-partners-launch-initi
ative-to-repeal-discriminatory-laws
¿ Ryan. K., (2019, Mar). Working women are more at risk of job automation than men. World
Economic Forum, Retrieved from:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/women-face-greater-threat-from-job-automation-thanmen/

7. Lesson 7: Fighting for gender equality: the different kinds of feminism

The first wave of feminism was liberal: women wanted equal rights. From the 1960s,
new ideologies started to appear, and nowadays feminism refers to more than 7
different possible views: radical feminism, cultural feminism, black feminism¿
Reading:
¿ Higgins, C. (2018, Jun 22), The age of patriarchy: how an unfashionable idea became a rallying cry
for feminism today, The Guardian, Retrieved from:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/22/the-age-of-patriarchy-how-an-unfashionable-idea
-became-a-rallying-cry-for-feminism-today

8. Lesson 8: Gender in the political agenda

What has been achieved legally since the first feminist wave? How is gender taken into
account in the political agenda today? Are the gendered-orientated laws efficient?
Reading:
¿ United Nations (2018) UN sustainable development goals: GOAL 5: Achieve gender equality and
empower all women and girls. Available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg5
¿ Kapai, P. (2019, April) #Metoo in Asia: Breaking Down Barriers, The Asian Jurist, Retrieved from:
https://www.wsrcweb.hku.hk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Puja-Kapai-MeToo-in-Asia.pdf

9. Gender in our visual culture

Even if gender has been taken more seriously into account over the last decades, the
visual industry (TV shows, magazines, novels, advertisement and videogames) keeps
objectifying women. This marketing strategy makes it almost impossible to fight
against the prejudices about women, in terms of jobs, personalities, and
self-development.
Reading:
¿ Millum, Trevor. Images of Woman: Advertising in Women's Magazines. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1975.
¿ Messaris, Paul. Visual persuasion: the role of images in advertising. London: Sage, 1997.
¿ Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: Harper
Perennial, 2002..
¿ Loofbourow, Lili. ¿The male glance: how we fail to take women¿s stories seriously.¿ The Guardian,
06 Mar. 2018, Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/06/the-male-glance-how-we-fail-to-take-womens-st
ories-seriously

10. Gender at a digital age:

We¿re living in a network society, but women have less access to it than men. The Web
both helps and hurts women: they can access more information, and use it to organize
amongst themselves and defend their rights, but at the same time cyber-harassment
has increased over the last years. In the tech industry, they are underrepresented, and
lots of video-games have a sexist content.
Reading:
¿ Braithwaite, A. (2016). It¿s About Ethics in Games Journalism? Gamergaters and Geek Masculinity.
Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116672484
¿ Shaw, F. (2016). ¿Bitch I Said Hi¿: The Bye Felipe Campaign and Discursive Activism in Mobile
Dating Apps. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116672889
¿ Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy Society and Culture. Vol 1: The rise of the network
society. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
¿ Cheong, Pauline Hope. "Gender and Perceived Internet Efficacy: Examining Secondary Digital Divide
Issues in Singapore." Women's Studies in Communication, vol. 30, no. 2, 2007, pp. 205¿228.
¿ Chu, Arthur. ¿Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds.¿ The Daily
Beast, The Daily Beast Company, 27 May 2014, Retrieved from
www.thedailybeast.com/your-princess-is-in-another-castle-misogyny-entitlement-and-nerds-1

Metodología

To actively question the meaning of gender in our community, this course is structured
in a format that mixes lecture and discussion. It is thus important that students come
to class on time, and that they complete the reading and writing tasks by the assigned
dates.
Many issues that we'll address in the course are controversial. Students will have
different viewpoints and perspectives, as a consequence it's crucial that they respect
one another's experiences so that our classroom is a safe and supportive space to
debate.
Active participation is required to receive full credit for the attendance and participation
component of the final grade (10%). Three other assignments - two individual writings
and one group-project, also count for part of this grade.

Criterios de evaluación

First and second writings (30% of the final grade for each writing)
Each student will be responsible for submitting two major writing assignments over the
course of the semester. Essay assignment prompts will be distributed at least two
weeks in advance of the due dates. Each essay should demonstrate understanding of
key concepts in the course, and have an introduction, parts and subparts with clear
titles, and a conclusion.
Students will choose their topic from a list given by the teacher. For the first essays
the choices will be related to women in politics, or in education, or at work. For the
second one, the topics will be more related to controversial and recent
gendered-related events: women at the digital age, the #MeToo movement, etc?
Each essay should be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 point font, with
one-inch margins; one page equals 250 words.
Both essays should be between 800 and 1000 (around 4 pages).

The project: a simulation of a debate (UN Women) - 30% of the final grade
Students will be in groups of 4, and will be given a list of different topics that we would
have already covered in class. They'll have to create a debate at the UN Women
headquarters, as if they were a group of experts in charge of a particular issue (for
example: education of girls in Africa, cyber-harassment, etc?). They'll have to search
about the topic they agreed on, organise a debate and record it.
The video should be between 5 and 8 minutes. It can be edited if the students want to
add external elements (music, subtitles?). It has to be sent to the professor in mp4 or
AVI format. No-one else, except from the students, should be seen in the video.

Bibliografía

Feminisms: A Global History. Lucy Delap. Pelican. 2020.
Gender: The Basics (2nd edition) by Hilary M. Lips

Horarios y secciones

Grupo Profesor Departamento
Year 1 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade

Horario Year 1

Del 9/1/2023 al 27/1/2023:
Lunes y miércoles de 14:30 a 16:00.
Cada viernes de 15:00 a 16:30.

Grupo Profesor Departamento
Year 2 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade

Horario Year 2

Del 9/1/2023 al 27/1/2023:
Lunes y miércoles de 14:30 a 16:00.
Cada viernes de 15:00 a 16:30.

Grupo Profesor Departamento
Year 3 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade

Horario Year 3

Del 9/1/2023 al 27/1/2023:
Lunes y miércoles de 14:30 a 16:00.
Cada viernes de 15:00 a 16:30.

Grupo Profesor Departamento
Year 4 Joyce Gwendoline Peronne Gourdin Esade

Horario Year 4

Del 9/1/2023 al 27/1/2023:
Lunes y miércoles de 14:30 a 16:00.
Cada viernes de 15:00 a 16:30.