Gender and Sexuality in France (in French)

Catalog description

Description:This course introduces students to the history, sociology, and anthropology of women, feminism, and of gender and sexuality in contemporary France from the 19th century to the present. Interdisciplinary in approach, the course draws on feminist theory and empirical studies to address a range of political, economic, social, and cultural questions and the way they have played out through time. Specifically the course addresses the following issues: the history of the relationship between the condition of women, gender roles, and feminism from the Revolution to the present day; the importance of gender to such contemporary debates as parity, sexual identities, prostitution and sex-work, hetero-centrism and homosexuality, gay marriage, sexual harassment and so on; and finally the intersection of questions of gender and post-colonialism as a means to understanding contemporary polemics, the question of the Islamic veil in particular.