SOC 3208 Gender and Society

 

Second Term, 2004/05

Lecture Period/ Venue: W7-8/ CKB UG05

Tutorial Class: TSA

Instructor: Prof. Susanne Choi

 

AIMS
This course takes up gender as the primary object of study and category of analysis. It aims to:

1. understand how bodily sexual differences between men and women are conceptualised by various feminists and the implications of their theorization;

2. understand the process of becoming a woman/ man via the social construction of masculinity, femininity, the female body, and sexuality;

3. the implications of being a woman/man on our lived experience, and the mechanisms that reproduce and maintain the observed gaps between the two sexes in the domain of family, work, and health.

REQUIREMENTS
Students are assessed on the basis of their participation in lectures and tutorials, one piece of written work, and an oral presentation of group project. The requirements are:
1) Class presentation of group project (4 people) (30%)
2) Mid-term paper of 3000 words (50%)
3) Tutorial participation (20%)

SUBSTANTIVE TOPICS
1. Sex and Gender
2. The social construction of Gender
3. Masculinity
4. The Female Body
5. Sexuality
6. Gendering the Family
7. Engendering Work
8. Gendered based violence

KEY READINGS
Jackson S., & Scott S. 2002. Gender: A Sociological Reader. London: Routledge Student Reader.
West, Candace & Zimmerman, Don H. 1987. “Doing Gender”. Gender and Society Vol. 1 (2):125-151.
Wolf, Margery. 1972. Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hochschild, Arlie Russel. 2003. The Second Shift. New York: Penguin Books.
Salaff Janet. 1995. Working Daughters of Hong Kong (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lee Ching Kwan. 1998. Gender and the South China Miracle. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nicole Constable. 1997. Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.