Course overview
Discover how a focus on gender and sexuality transforms our understanding of modern, global history.
Course description
Study historical perspectives on contemporary issues of sex and gender
This course offers you the chance to explore vital historical perspectives on key contemporary issues surrounding sexuality and gender, including the #MeToo movement, campaigns for gay and trans rights, equal pay, and reproductive justice.
Track the history of the #MeToo movement
Whether you’re a curious citizen keen to learn more or you have a vocational commitment to implementing new perspectives on gender and sexuality at work, you’ll trace today’s social justice movements back to 1600, exploring the cultural and legal contexts of sexual abuse, gender-based violence, and bodily autonomy.
Through case studies of modern social justice movements, you’ll develop your understanding of the operation of, and resistance to, patriarchal and heteronormative power in diverse historical and geographical settings.
As you get to grips with sexuality and queer experiences in the modern era, you’ll explore reproductive rights issues like contraception, abortion, surrogacy, and fertility.
Explore key gender equality issues like LQBTQIA rights and the gender pay gap
You’ll study core concepts used in gender history and feminist, queer, and trans studies, including patriarchal equilibrium, hegemonic masculinity, and intersectionality.
Through creative forms of assessment, you’ll develop your skills in applying gendered and sexual approaches to a range of historical materials, such as oral testimony and material artefacts, as well as written texts.
Learn from social history experts at the Centre for Gender History
The course will be delivered by the interdisciplinary team at the Centre for Gender History at the University of Glasgow.
With world-leading expertise in this area, you’ll enhance your knowledge in gendered and sexual history with experts in the field of gender studies.
What topics will you cover?
Week 1:
Gender and Power. How a gendered and sexual approach alters our understanding of the past; patriarchal and heteronormative power and its historical operation and resistance; men, masculinities and #MeToo; the sex and gender binary and beyond; new trans historical and philosophical approaches.Week 2:
Sex and Intimacy. How our bodies and their desires have been understood and regulated in the past; complicating narratives of nineteenth century sexual ‘repression’ and 1960s sexual ‘liberation’; sex, race and Empire; queer stories from history; movements for reproductive rights and justice.Week 3:
Work and Care. Feminist (re)definitions of work and care; gender inequality in pay and conditions; equal pay struggles in history and across the globe, including the 1975 ‘Women’s Day Off’ in Iceland; the historical provision of care, parenting and ‘blended families’; gender history and material culture.Week 4:
Histories of Feminism. Diverse historical and global understandings of feminism; intersectionality, feminist activism and identities of race, class, sexual orientation and disability; gendered citizenship, political rights and transnational suffrage activism; cultural forms of feminist politics.Entry requirements
This course is designed for anyone interested in gendered and sexual history or history and social science more broadly.
However, the inclusion of theoretical material covered in the course and assessments will be useful for heritage, third-sector, educational and media workers, looking to reskill or upskill by enhancing their gender studies portfolio and expertise.
Learning outcome
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Identify and describe the historical contexts of modern social justice movements such as #MeToo, and the campaigns for gay and trans rights, equal pay, and reproductive justice, from. c.1600 to the present.
- Evaluate the utility of key theoretical concepts used in gender, feminist, queer and trans studies, such as the ‘patriarchal equilibrium’, ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and ‘intersectionality’.
- Apply a gendered and sexual approach to historical primary sources, which could include oral testimony, databases, archives, and museum collections, as well as written texts. 4. Engage in lively and well-grounded discussion with fellow students.
Course options
Course Type: Online
Details
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