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GED2003 Gender Matters: Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Society: Home

Course Description

This is an introductory course on gender perspectives and feminist studies. There are four parts of the course. First, the course starts by introducing the distinction between sex and gender and stating why gender matters. By using life-stage analysis, representations from pop culture, and the lived experiences of Chinese people in the eras of Revolution and Reform, this course enables students to intellectually understand that gender roles- femininity and masculinity- are actually in the process of being constructed based on a certain social institutions underpinned by hierarchical power relations. Field observations will be conducted to foster students' sensitivity and capacity to use gender perspectives in examining their everyday lives. Second, the course then turns to issues of sexuality. The sociality of sexuality in various cultures and historical times will be discussed. LGBTQ groups’ situation and voices are to be presented followed by an examination of the arguments that heterosexuality is a socially made hegemony and sexuality is fluid. Part Three introduces students to the three topics related to “Feminism”, namely, transnational and local movements, theories of women’s and other minorities' liberation, as well as Feminism as research methodology and epistemology. In the final phase we will discuss two lived gender/sexuality related cases related to the intersection with other structural forces such as national development, class formation, modernity, personal liberation, and etc.

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第二性

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