WGST 250
The Politics of Sexuality
Spring 2005
WGST 250
The Politics of Sexuality
Spring 2005
The political nature of personal life is a central critical concept of Women’s and Gender Studies as a discipline. Politics of Sexuality introduces students to implications of this concept through the study of contested topics concerning sexuality, such as gendered sexual socialization, sexual violence, family structures, poverty and welfare, sexual identities, transgenderism, commodification, risky sexual behaviors, AIDS, sexual exploitation, pornography, prostitution, and the traffic in women. Students learn how social norms, political currents, economic practices, and state policies construct their lived realities, governing choices they may have considered natural, private, and individual. They learn to articulate what is at stake in these issues from a variety of standpoints or social locations as preparation for making their own informed judgments.
As a 200-level course, Politics of Sexuality serves both as a Liberal Learning introduction to the critical analysis of gender and as a foundational course for WGS majors. The Liberal Learning--Gender goals of exposure to current issues and analysis of social institutions are basic to the course; these are extended with an emphasis on the following WGS learning goals:
The enhanced course includes a Community Engagement element, addressing the following WGS goal:
Apply classroom learning to personal life, the workplace, the community, and political and civil institutions through involvement in social justice initiatives—service, activism, or community-based research
The central performance goal for students in Politics of Sexuality is to identify, articulate, and evaluate differing viewpoints on controversial issues arising from the intersections between power and sexuality. While the specific assignments through which this proficiency is assessed may vary among sections of the course, all sections include a variety of assignments (e.g. reading response or issue essays, internet and community research projects, in-class essays and quizzes, midterm and final exams, group presentations, and role-playing or storytelling based on research), consistent with the WGS program’s focus on building students’ skills in a variety of media. The enhanced course’s Community Engagement element will be assessed through an Issue Extension Portfolio which will include several components (e.g. a research log, a participant journal, and a closing essay) designed to demonstrate the student’s application of classroom learning and additional research to a fifteen-hour activism or service experience.
Learning Activities/Pedagogy:
The learning activities for Politics of Sexuality begin with knowledge that students already have—their lived experience of gender and sexuality in everyday life—and guide them in contextualizing their experience both empirically and theoretically, expanding their awareness of their location in systems of privilege and power. The enhancement will strengthen the course’s capacity to answer one of the students’ most frequent questions: What can we do? Students gain a foundation for more advanced courses, particularly for Feminist Theory and Gender in Public Policy, and augment their preparation for a variety of professions—from psychology to medicine to law. The enhanced course will also strengthen students’ preparation for the Field Study course required of majors and WILL students, since the new component will put students in touch with a variety of potential internship sites in the community.