Global Gender Politics- PSCI 390B
Spring 2011
T TH 9:30-10:50 am
Professor Rincker, CLO 290 (ex. 2025)
Office Hours: T TH 1-3pm or by app’t, mrincker@calumet.purdue.edu
Introduction
This course examines how gender roles in societies around the world affect women’s and men’s political
participation. We will examine whether, why and how women are different than men in the extent and
modes of their political participation. We will explore how gender interacts with race, class, ethnicity and
sexual orientation to affect women’s power and status in societies across the globe.
While we read about the lives of men, women and children around the world, we will find that women and
politics research challenges popular conceptions of what constitutes a democracy, who gets
representation and who is fully endowed with the rights of a citizen.
The course is divided into three parts. In the first portion of the class, we examine the range of women’s
political interests, including right-wing and left-wing movements from the period of U.S. woman suffrage to
the present. In the second part of the course, we look three “sets” of factors that affect women’s
participation in politics: socio-economic, institutional and cultural. In the third part of the class we both
apply and question the applicability of our insights about American women to women in other countries
including the Middle East, East Asia, Africa and Latin America. You will also participate in a simulation of
a United Nations Conference on Women presenting in a small group on the status and political
participation of women in an assigned country.
Textbooks
hooks, bell. 2000. Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. South End Press.
Alsanea, Rajaa. 2007. Girls of Riyadh. Penguin Press.
Kristof, Nicholas, and Sheryl WuDunn. 2010. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for
Women Worldwide. Vintage Books.
Other readings are available on the course Blackboard website.
Assignments
Participation
3-5 page Children’s Literature Evaluation & Presentation
Midterm
3-5 page Group Research Project Reflection Paper
Final
1
20%
15%
25%
15%
25%
Participation means not missing classes, investing yourself in this class, and pitching in to
make class fun.
-It doesn’t mean you have “all the answers.”
-It does mean I expect you to:
Ask questions: for example, when things I say or your classmates
say are not clear to you; or the readings spark questions in your mind that we haven’t
1
discussed, etc.
Share your thoughts and opinions on what we read (or don’t read, and why), what we see,
what you observe in the world, what other people say in class or on our class website.
Take ownership of your education and the incredible opportunity we have to learn and
grow in this class. Try to make each class relate to you and your life and contribute in some
way to every class period.
2
Children’s Literature Evaluation and Presentation. What are gender roles? How are gender,
race, class and sexuality roles portrayed in the books we read as children?
For this assignment choose a favorite book you read as a child and use our discussion of sex,
gender, sexual orientation, transgender, and intersectionality to evaluate this book. In 3-5 pages,
you need to evaluate how the book presents gender roles, whether or not you agree with that
depiction and why, ultimately stating whether you would read it to kids you know, and how you
would discuss it with them.
The last sentence of the first paragraph of your paper MUST be highlighted and MUST
state your thesis on how this book presents gender roles to children and whether or not
you agree with the book’s presentation of gender roles, or how you would discuss the
roles with children. In the pages that follow the thesis statement, you must support your thesis
using quotations from the book, the sources we have read/discussed, and if applicable, your
discussion can allude to illustrations from the book. You will post an illustration or quote from
your book on the class website. More details on the presentation will be provided later.
3
4
TRIANGLE OF EMPOWERMENT PRESENTATION/ SIMULATION-Students will sign up to
present in groups of three on the current status of women’s “triangle of empowerment” in one of
10 countries. (Instructor will pass around a list of 10 possible countries early in the semester).
Each student will present on one of the following: women in legislature, women in state
bureaucracy, or women in civil society. We will simulate the Fourth U.N. Conference on Women
in Beijing, 1995. Note: Part of your grade for the presentation will be on the basis of evaluations
provided by your group members.
Midterms and Exams: These are a mixture of Identifications and Essays. For the essay portion,
I will hand out the essay question in advance and you will bring your completed essay to the start
of the class period: typed to my specifications. For the identifications, I give you a list of possible
terms when I hand out the essay questions, and I will choose some from that list on the exam day
that you will be asked to define and provide an explanation of why the term is important to the
course.
Grading Scale
97-100 A+
93-96
A
90-92
A87-89
B+
83-86
B
80-82
B-
77-79 C+
73-76 C
70-72 C67-69 D+
63-66 D
60-62 D59 and below F
COURSE SCHEDULE
2
Date
Topic
Reading Assignment
Jan. 18 Introductions and Class Overview
1. Watch the online Movie:
“Woman’s Kingdom”
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/
2005/07/introduction_to.html
2. use the Blackboard website Message
Board for our class to post what you
think about the Mosuo community from
the Woman’s Kingdom film.
Jan.25
Sex, Gender and Transgender
Nature vs. Nurture
1. “Why Girls will be Girls”-BB
2. “Rethinking Gender”- BB
3. “Don’t Worry Your Pretty Little Head”
http://slate.com/id/2112570/
Jan. 27
First Wave Women’s Movements
One Woman, One Vote video in class
1.Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Feb. 1
Second Wave Feminism
Feb. 3
Third Wave Feminism
Feb. 8
Intersectionality
1.Carol Hardy-Fanta
2.Ange-Marie Hancock
Video: Hip –Hop Beyond Beats &Rhymes
Feb. 10
Intersectionality, continued
Bring printout of your favorite hip-hop lyrics to
class
Feb. 15
Masculinity and Men’s Movements
1.Selections from Iron John by Robert Bly
Feb. 17
Prostitution, Violence against Women,
Women’s Health
Kristoff and Wu Dunn p. 3-148
Feb. 22
Gendered Effects of the Economy
1. Liz Featherstone
2. Nancy Folbre
Children’s Literature Evaluation due Today,
Start of Class
Feb. 24
Gender Gap, Political Recruitment
Campaigns
1.Kay Schlozman
2.Matthew Streb, Barbara Burrell et al.
3.Fox and Lawless
4.Fridkhin-Kahn
Mar. 1
Women’s Participation Worldwide
1.Pippa Norris and Ron Inglehart
1.Playboy Bunny essay by Gloria Steinem
2.The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
3.Feminist Fantasies by Phyllis Schlafly
Students turn in one paragraph about book
you plan to analyze for your children’s literature
essay
1.hooks, bell Feminism is for Everybody p. vii-118
2.“I am the Third Wave” Rebecca Walker
3
chapter
Mar. 3
Women’s Status in Political Institutions:
Critical Mass/Critical Actors
Mar. 8
Effects on Society
Mar. 10
Midterm Exam
Mar. 15/17
SPRING BREAK NO CLASS
1.Rosabeth Moss Kanter
2.Lyn Kathlene; Meg Rincker
Mar. 22
Women’s Rights in Developing World
UN Conferences on Women: Nairobi; Mexico City:
Beijing and Beyond
Mar. 24
Diffusion of Gender Quotas Worldwide:debate
Bicycle Citizens
1. Selections from Georgina Waylen
1. Mona Lena Krook
Mar. 29
Triangle of Empowerment/
What Women Want
1.Nijeholt i Lycklama
2. Meg Rincker
Mar. 31
Professor Presenting at Midwest Political Science Association Conference;
Meet with your group during class time
Apr. 5
Cut from a Different Cloth
Apr. 7
Professor Presenting Out of Town on This Date Kristof and WuDunn pp.167-262.
Apr. 12
Girls of Riyadh
Part I
Apr. 14
Girls of Riyadh
Part II
Apr. 19
Women in Middle East
Pew Survey Report
Apr. 21
East meets West
1.” Gender Trouble at Abu
Ghraib” Timothy Osborne-Kaufman
Apr. 26
Simulation
Groups TBA
Apr. 28
Simulation
Groups TBA
May 3
Simulation/Review/Evaluations
Groups TBA
May 5
Final Exam
During Classtime
Kristof and WuDunn pp.149-166.
4