GEOG. 223:
GENDER & GEOGRAPHY
Spring 2006
KAREN M. MORIN,
Associate Professor
Office: 106 Coleman, 577-1793
morin@bucknell.edu
Office hours: open
Tues/Thurs, 9:30 – 10:50 am
Rooke Chemistry 001
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this course is to develop a critical context for thinking about relationships
between geography (place/space/landscape) and gender (women’s and men’s socially defined roles
and relations). Through this course students will learn how to recognize the processes through which
gender norms are produced within particular spatial contexts, as well as the ways that spaces
themselves are products of those gender norms.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The course provides a broad introduction to key ways in which gender has been integral to
the ways we think about the world and the ways it has become organized. That is, how women and
men often come to occupy quite different ‘places’ in it – both literally and figuratively – or occupy the
same places in different ways. Case studies will focus on this gendering process at different scales –
the body, home, workplaces, neighborhoods and cities, to the national and global scales. Throughout
the course students are urged to think of gender relations and gendered spaces as phenomena that
are constantly created, contested, and recreated. We are therefore looking at women and men as
active agents in the on-going creation and negotiation of their gendered identities ‘in place’.
No previous background in either feminism or geography is required. We begin the course
with an introduction to feminist thought and the ways it has intersected with geographical inquiry.
Following that, the course surveys the main ways that scholars have linked geography and gender.
These include (but are not limited to) the gendering of work and workplaces; gendered architecture
in housing, suburbs, and shopping malls; women’s relationships to nature and environmentalism;
and different experiences of gendered embodiment in and through space. To facilitate understanding
of course content, in addition to three reaction papers, students will be required to apply curricular
insights to a “civic-based” activity of their choosing.
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REQUIRED READINGS
A number of the required readings are available on E-reserves (password “geog”). In addition, two
texts are required:
Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographers Make Sense of the World, Mona Domosh and Joni
Seager (Guildford, 2001.)
Feminist Geographies: Explorations in Diversity and Difference, Women and Geography Study Group
of the Royal Geographical Society (Longman, 1997.)
CLASS FORMAT & ASSESSMENT
This course will be run as a seminar. Because the readings and discussions are the very basis
of this class, attendance is mandatory. To ensure that the classes are successful and interesting,
participants should have completed the readings before each class. Endeavor to read critically,
seeking not only to understand the content but also to evaluate the significance and validity of an
author’s argument and evidence. Every student is required to contribute to the critical discussion of
the readings with thoughtful analysis and prepared questions. Discussion is worth 20% of your
final grade.
NOTE: Attendance is mandatory. More than two absences can result in a 5% reduction (or more) in
your final (cumulative) grade. Late papers or any missed deadlines will negatively impact your grade
as well; for each day late count on a 3% reduction in your grade.
Three reaction papers are required, on any topic that has been covered in class since the
last paper. These papers are intended to extend thinking begun in the class discussions and through
course readings. They present your point of view via a formal, concise, well thought-out thesis or
argument. You have a great deal of latitude to choose reaction paper topics that you personally find
engaging. Papers should be approximately 4 pages in length (typed, double-spaced, with one-inch
margins). Reaction papers are due on the schedule outlined below. Each paper is worth 15% of
your final grade, for a total of 45%.
In addition, two one-page papers reacting to university-wide lectures on gender studies are
required (single-spaced). These are each worth 5% of your final grade, for a total of 10%.
Finally, students are required to complete a civic engagement project worth 25% of your
final grade. This group project will involve researching and studying a particular site as a “gendered
space,” and presenting your results to a public audience of your choosing. Topics might include, for
example, study of domestic violence in rural central Pennsylvania; study of how houses are marketed
to the local community; or study of the effects of Title IX on sports facilities on Bucknell campus. The
ultimate goal of the project will be to educate a wider audience (university or non-university) about
your findings. Possible audiences may be drawn from the Bucknell community – for example, by
organizing a panel discussion, presenting your findings to a fraternity or sorority, producing leaflets
or informational materials on campus – or they may include outreach beyond Bucknell, for example
by educating a classroom of students at the local public school, presenting findings to a community
group, or creating a website. A separate instruction sheet on the project will be provided. Refer to the
schedule below for associated due dates.
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SCHEDULE OF TOPICS, READINGS, & DUE DATES
[subject to change]
DATE
TOPIC
READING ASSIGNMENT
Th Jan 19
Course Introduction
Tu Jan 24
Feminism & Geography
Feminist Geographies, pp. 1-23.
Th Jan 26
Gender-ing Geography and
Ourselves
Feminist Geographies, pp. 49-85.
Tu Jan 31
Mapping Bodies
Film: “Killing Us Softly”
Putting Women in Place, pp. 110-117.
Th Feb 2
Mapping Bodies, cont.
Iris Young, excerpt from Throwing Like a Girl, pp.
141-159. (e-reserves)
Tu Feb 7
Guest Lecture: Laura Keister,
Susquehanna Valley Women in
Transition
Molly Warrington, “I Must Get Out: the
Geographies of Domestic Violence,” Transactions of
the IBG 26: 365-382. (e-reserves)
Th Feb 9
Geographies of Home
Putting Women in Place, pp. 1-34.
M Feb 13
Lecture: Julia Kristeva 8:00 pm
Tu Feb 14
Geographies of Home, cont.
Louise Johnson, “Housing Desire: A Feminist
Geography of Suburban Housing,” Refractory Girl
42: 40-47. (e-reserves)
Th Feb 16
TBA
Reaction paper #1 due
Tu Feb 21
Gender & Masculinities
Film: “Tough Guise”
Peter Jackson, “The Cultural Politics of Masculinity:
Towards a Social Geography,” Transactions of the
IBG, 16, 199-213. (e-reserves)
Th Feb 23
Masculinities, cont.
Michael Kimmel, excerpt from Manhood in America
(1996), pp. 1-10 (e-reserves)
Tu Feb 28
Lecture: Michael Kimmel 7:00
pm
Michael Kimmel, excerpt from Manhood in America
(1996), pp. 291-335 (e-reserves)
Th Mar 2
Gender in Landscape
Janice Monk, “Gender in the Landscape:
Expressions of Power and Meaning,” in Inventing
Places: Studies in Cultural Geography, pp. 123-138.
(e-reserves)
Semester Project Site ID
Tu Mar 7
GROUP PROJECT MEETINGS
No Reading Assignment
Th Mar 9
No Class: AAG conference
Reaction Paper #2 due
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Tu Mar 14
No Class: SPRING BREAK
Th Mar 16
No Class: SPRING BREAK
Tu Mar 21
Gender in Landscape:
Film: TBA
Karen M. Morin et al. “Troubling Spaces of
Mountains and Men” Social and Cultural
Geography 2 (2001), 117-139 (e-reserves); AND Vera
Norwood and Janice Monk, excerpt from The Desert
is No Lady, pp. 1-19 (e-reserves)
Th Mar 23
Gender & Nature
Putting Women in Place, pp. 174-194.
Tu Mar 28
Gender Relations & the
Workplace
Putting Women in Place, pp. 35-66.
Semester Project Proposal due
Th Mar 30
The Workplace, cont.
Geraldine Pratt and Susan Hanson, excerpt from
Full Circles: Geographies of Women Over the Life
Course. Routledge, pp. 27-54. (e-reserves)
Tu Apr 4
Women & the City
Ch. 3, “The City,” Putting Women in Place, pp. 67109.
Th Apr 6
The City, cont
Leslie Kanes Weisman, excerpt from Discrimination
by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made
Environment, pp. 35-66. (e-reserves)
Tu Apr 11
Lecture: Cynthia Enloe 7:30 pm
Cynthia Enloe, excerpt from Bananas, Beaches and
Bases (1989), pp. 1-17.
Semester Project Detailed Outline due
Th Apr 13
Gender & Nation
Film: “Mother Ireland” (maybe)
Putting Women in Place, pp. 156-173.
Tu Apr 18
Global Feminism
Film: “Covered”
Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist
Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” Feminist
Review 30: 61-88. (e-reserves)
Th Apr 20
Global Feminism
Cindi Katz, “Growing Girls/Closing Circles: Limits
on the Spaces of Knowing in Rural Sudan and US
Cities,” pp. 88-106. (e-reserves).
Reaction Paper #3 due
Tu Apr 25
Group Reports in Class
Semester Project Annotated Bibliography due
Th Apr 27
CIVIC EDUCATION DAY
Tu May 2
Course Wrap-Up
Fri May 5
No Reading Assignment
Semester Project Final Report due, 5:00 pm
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