(= A WSS 262) Sociology of Gender

Catalog description

This course examines how gender is socially constructed in contemporary U.S. society. The course examines how gender orders our everyday lives, our sense of self, our friendships, romances, conversations, clothing, body image, entertainment, work, sexuality, and parenthood. Students will learn how conceptions about gender create and enforce a system of gender difference and inequality. This course will examine the lives, experiences, and representations of heterosexual and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) persons. The course will reveal the “common sense” world of gender that surrounds us by exposing the workings of institutions such as the family, the classroom, the workplace, and the media. Throughout the course we will emphasize the ways in which people experience gender opportunities and constraints differently according to their race, gender, class, and sexuality. Only one version of A SOC 262 may be taken for credit. Prerequisite(s): A SOC 115 or permission of instructor.