Seminar Gender Roles in Cross Cultural Perspective

Gender is a socially constructed phenomenon in which cultures play a key role in defining what it means to be masculine or feminine. Cultural groups might differ from each other on how the physical body is interpreted, how marriage traditions are shaped, how distribution of work is organized and how resources are distributed. This course aims to study gender systems and gender related problems that shape women’s lives across cultures and countries. In this course, we will explore the issue of women's and men’s power and the creative strategies employed cross-culturally with relation to gender roles. This course is a broadly comparative study of sex roles and gender beliefs around the world presented in different units such as global standards, violence, sex, marriages, work and war. By having such broad coverage of issues this course will promote critical thinking about gender roles in different cultural contexts because students are exposed to different theories and issues on cultural differences of gender roles across the world. Case studies are drawn from various continents and regions such as Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America. Thus, we will look at the cultural construction of gender from a wide array of biological, social, economic, political, religious and symbolic perspectives and we will explore theories of gender and discover how sex differences have been represented. Lectures will include various teaching materials including readings, illustrations such as figures and graphs and films/videos focusing on various case examples. The lecture also aims to strengthen critical reading and writing skills as well as effective presentation skills because every student is expected to have a presentation during the lectures. In addition, collaborative or independent papers and assignments would provide opportunities to apply theoretical concepts to the case studies and improve general understanding of the main issues. @font-face { font-family: Helvetica; } @font-face { font-family: Helvetica; } @font-face { font-family: Calibri; } @page WordSection1 {size: 612.0pt 792.0pt; margin: 70.85pt 70.85pt 2.0cm 70.85pt; mso-header-margin: 36.0pt; mso-footer-margin: 36.0pt; mso-paper-source: 0; } P.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: -Calibri-,-sans-serif-; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-fareast-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-style-unhide: no; mso-style-qformat: yes; mso-style-parent: --; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi } LI.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: -Calibri-,-sans-serif-; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-fareast-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-style-unhide: no; mso-style-qformat: yes; mso-style-parent: --; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi } DIV.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: -Calibri-,-sans-serif-; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-fareast-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-style-unhide: no; mso-style-qformat: yes; mso-style-parent: --; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi } .MsoChpDefault { FONT-FAMILY: -Calibri-,-sans-serif-; mso-bidi-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-fareast-font-family: -Times New Roman-; mso-style-type: export-only; mso-default-props: yes; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi } .MsoPapDefault { MARGIN-BOTTOM: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; mso-style-type: export-only } DIV.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1 } FB 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Uni Kassel SoSe 2014 Global Political Economy Ertan Senem