Gender and Sexuality in Everyday Life

Catalog description

It’s no secret that gender and sexuality shape our social realities, even when we don’t explicitly acknowledge their influence. Both can significantly affect where and with whom we build community, how we’re compensated for our time and labor, how we’re represented in popular culture, as well as impacting our lives in many other ways. In this course, we’ll explore some of the ways gender and sexuality operate within diverse social contexts. We’ll dig into examples of gender performances, sexual identities, intersectional experiences, and a spectrum of other concepts that show up in contemporary media, historical case studies, and ongoing research across the arts and sciences. Along the way, this course will help us think deeply about how we express power through everyday applications of gender and sexuality in society. It will also help us grow our capacity for critical reflection through daily practices that affirm who we are and how we care for each other. Essential Questions: To help model pathways for inquiry in this class, the course will revolve around five guiding questions, including: Why is it important to study gender and sexuality in different critical and creative contexts? What ways might we use existing research to explore how gender and sexuality show up within our personal and professional lives? How have gender and sexuality influenced media and popular culture? How can varying social locations and contexts impact the ways we think about identity, community, and communication? Which structural factors can we address to help advance sustainable forms of care and belonging in everyday life while centering gender and sexuality?