Course Code:
WMST 100
Credits:
3
Calendar Description:
This survey course will introduce students to Women's Studies as an interdisciplinary field. A wide range of issues, some of which are controversial, will be explored from historical, political, and societal perspectives and through a variety of media.
Date First Offered:
2002-01-01
Hours:
Total Hours: 45
Lecture Hours: 45
Total Weeks:15
This course is offered online: Yes
Depending on semester schedules, this course may be available online. Please consult the
Academic Timetables.
Pre-Requisites: None
Non-Course Pre-Requisites: None
Co-Requisites: None
Rearticulation Submission: No
Course Content:
Women’s Studies 100 offers a progressive examination of the position of women in Canadian society. The course will introduce students to Women’s Studies as an interdisciplinary field in which issues are explored from historical, political and sociological perspectives.
We will begin by considering western feminist ideas and action from the Enlightenment to the second wave as the foundation for modern feminist issues. We will then examine themes of contemporary importance to Canadian women, including sexuality and the body, paid and unpaid labour, race and class, violence towards women, globalization, and women and culture. Throughout the term we will also consider application to these themes by the major theoretical schools of feminist thought, including liberal, socialist, Marxist, radical, global and post-modern feminisms.
Block One: A “Herstory” of Liberal Feminism
- the Enlightenment
- meritocracy and equal opportunity
- the marriage debate
- legal position of women under coverture
- inheritance laws
- formal education of women
Readings: Astell, Mary, “from Some Reflections Upon Marriage”
Wollstonecraft, Mary, “from A Vindication of the Rights of Women"
“Liberal Feminism,” from Feminist Issues, Ch 1
Block Two: Modern Liberal Feminism
- woman’s suffrage
- the Person’s Case (1929)
- the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1970)
- advances and limitations of liberal feminism
Readings: LeGates, Marlene,“The Origins of the Second Wave”
Video: Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement
Block Three: Gender and the Family, Socialist and Marxist Feminism
- capitalist economic systems
- unpaid labour
- co-providers to wage-earners
- colonized structures of labour
- division of labour and double load
- same-sex families
- heteronormativity
- discourse of romance and intimacy
- poverty and the family
- lone-parent families (social threat and social problem discourses)
Readings: "Making Families: Gender, Economics, Sexuality, and Race,” Feminist Issues, Ch 8
Douglas, Susan and Meredith Michaels, “The Mommy Wars: How the Media Turned Motherhood Into a Catfight”
Holcomb, Betty, “Friendly for Whose Family?”
Block Four: Education and Work
- part-time employment
- the wage gap
- parental leave
- labour force segregation and pay differentials
- “pink-collar ghetto”
- polarization of jobs
- shift to a service economy
- working poor
- neo-liberalism and family policy
Readings: “Paid Work, Jobs, and the Illusion of Economic Security,” Feminist Issues, Ch 9
Burke, Martha, “Power Plays: Six Ways the Male Corporate Elite Keeps Women Out”
Video: Wage Slaves: Not Getting By in America
Block Five: Global Feminism and Globalization
- global activism and NGOs
- fundamentalism and capitalism
- global feminisms
“Unessential Women: A Discussion of Race, Class, and Gender,” Feminist Isuues, Chapter 4
Kamala, Kempadoo, “Globalizing Sex Workers’ Rights.”
Block Six: Third-Wave and Post-Modern Feminism
- post-feminist movement
- poststructuralism and postmodernism
- young feminism
- rethinking gender and the body
- transgender politics
Readings: “Postmodernism and Poststructuralism,” from Feminist Issues, Ch 2
“Gendering the Subject,” Feminist Issues, Ch 2
“Third-Wave Feminisms,” Feminist Issues, Ch 3
Steenbergen, Candis, “Feminism and Young Women: Alive and Well and Still Kicking.”
Block Seven: Beauty, Aging, and Health
- politics of appearance
- status of aging women, beauty as youth
- eating disorders
- pornography
- fashion industry and cosmetic surgery
- double standards in biomedical research
Readings: “Aging, Beauty, and Status,” Feminist Issues, Ch 5
Block Eight: Violence against Women
- sexual and physical abuse
- spousal and child abuse
- femicide
- sexual harassment
Readings: “Violence against Women,” Feminist Issues, Ch 6
Learning Outcomes:
WMST 100 should help students attain the necessary skills to read and to write about gender issues in an academic manner and to pique interest in women’s history and the politics of gender in today’s society. By the end of WMST 100 students should be able to:
- Explain the significance of Enlightenment feminism and the progress of liberal feminism to the twenty-first century
- Trace the development of first-wave feminism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Canada, including the woman’s suffrage movement
- Describe the historical struggles of women, including second-wave activism, in the areas of property rights, education, and workplace legislation
- Explain the relations between gender, race, disability and class in Canadian society
- Apply the theories of the major theoretical schools of feminist thought to social issues, including the politics of women’s sexuality, the workplace (both paid and unpaid), motherhood, violence against women, women and aging, gender socialization, and globalization
- Deliniate the debate between social determinists and genetic determinists as it applies to gender identity (nature vs. nurture debate).
Grading System:
Letters
Passing Grade:
D (50%)
Grading Weight:
Final Exam: 20 %
Assignments: 80 %
Number of Assignments:
2
Nature of Participation:
Article review and dropbox postings
Writing Assignments:
Article review and dropbox postings
Percentage of Individual Work:
100
Percentage of Group Work:
0
Course Offered in Other Programs:
Yes
Other Programs:
Academic, Associate of Arts Diploma - Fine Arts, Associate of Arts Degree, Associate of Arts - Criminology Specialization, Elementary Education, Academic Humanities, Academic Social Sciences