| This module will critically examine how gender is constructed at the level of society as well as how we engage in the re-creation of gender in our everyday lives. Gender will be explored as an institution and a system as well as how it influences individuals. We will consider sociological approaches to studying gender, including gender as an identity, a performance, and a structuring feature of discourses and institutions; how gender is expressed through configurations of femininity and masculinity, embedded in power relations, and co-constructed and in relation to its intersection with other social locations such as race, ethnicity class, sexuality, age, ability and citizenship. Topics will include gender beliefs and practices; socialization practices that reproduce gender identities and the relationship between gender, power, and social inequality. |