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Gendering Politics: An Intersectional Approach - POL00103M

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  • Department: Politics
  • Module co-ordinator: Mrs. Marie Guest
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
    • See module specification for other years: 2023-24

Module summary

The key question that underpins this course will be: How does paying attention to gender (and interlocking categories of race, class, sexuality and ability) help us to re-evaluate not only the answers to the key political questions, but the concepts and assumptions through which we come to perceive what the key political questions are in the first place?

This module will introduce students to the main approaches to studying political questions through a gender and intersectional lens. Students will be introduced to a range of theoretical approaches to understanding gender, and will gain experience in deploying these frameworks to make sense of political questions. The approaches studied will include intersectionality, discourse and performativity, masculinity, postcoloniality, and social reproduction. The political questions of interest will include the rise of the far-right, militarisation and the post-9/11 wars, parliamentary institutions and political representation (including quotas for women in politics), the welfare state, the family, and debates about multicultural accommodation.

The module will be of particular interest to students enrolled in already existing MA programmes, and in particular, in the MA in International Relations, the MA in Political Theory, the MA in Applied Human Rights, the MA in International Political Economy and the MA in Conflict, Governance and Development. It could also be offered to graduate students in other programmes at the University of York, including those at the Centre for Women’s Studies, the School of Law, the Department of History, the Department of English and Related Literature and the Department of Philosophy. The module could also contribute to future enlargements of our graduate teaching offer.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 1 2024-25

Module aims

Subject content

At the end of the module students should be able to:

  • understand fundamental theories and approaches in gender studies
  • understand how domestic and transnational politics is sexed, gendered, heteronormative and how sexed, gendered and heteronormative structures intersect with race and class in domestic and transnational affairs.
  • draw on gender studies to analyse topical political issues
  • draw connections between theoretical frameworks and empirical case studies

Academic and graduate skills

  • reconstruct and critically appraise arguments
  • engage in reasoned debate over these arguments
  • form and justify independent views, and argue for them by presenting reasoning and cogent argumentation
  • communicate their views and learn how to reply to potential challenges
  • defend their arguments clearly and accurately in written work

Module learning outcomes

Subject content

At the end of the module students should be able to:

  • understand fundamental theories and approaches in gender studies
  • understand how domestic and transnational politics is sexed, gendered, heteronormative and how sexed, gendered and heteronormative structures intersect with race and class in domestic and transnational affairs.
  • draw on gender studies to analyse topical political issues
  • draw connections between theoretical frameworks and empirical case studies

Academic and graduate skills

  • reconstruct and critically appraise arguments
  • engage in reasoned debate over these arguments
  • form and justify independent views, and argue for them by presenting reasoning and cogent argumentation
  • communicate their views and learn how to reply to potential challenges
  • defend their arguments clearly and accurately in written work

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Summative essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

Pass/fail

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Summative assessment		 N/A 100

Module feedback

Students will receive written timely feedback on their formative assessment. They will also have the opportunity to discuss their feedback during the module tutor’s feedback and guidance hours.

Indicative reading

  • Al-Ali, Nadje. "Sexual violence in Iraq: Challenges for transnational feminist politics." European journal of women's studies 25.1 (2018): 10-27.
  • Bassel, Leah and Akwugo Emejulu. Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain, Bristol University Press, 2017.
  • Childs, Sarah, and Drude Dahlerup. "Increasing women's descriptive representation in national parliaments: the involvement and impact of gender and politics scholars." European Journal of Politics and Gender 1.1-2 (2018): 185-204.
  • Fraser, Nancy. Fortunes of feminism: From state-managed capitalism to neoliberal crisis. Verso Books, 2013.
  • Haritaworn, Jin, Kunstman, Adi, & Posocco, Silvia, eds. 2014. Queer Necropolitics. Abingdon/Oxon: Routledge.
  • Harris, Duchess. Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Trump. Springer, 2018.
  • Higate, Paul. "Men, Masculinity, and Global Insecurity." Routledge Handbook of Gender and Security. Routledge, 2018. 70-82.
  • Köttig, Michaela, Renate Bitzan, and Andrea Petö, eds. Gender and far right politics in Europe. Springer International Publishing, 2017.
  • Lépinard, Éléonore, and Ruth Rubio-Marín, eds. Transforming gender citizenship: the irresistible rise of gender quotas in Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
  • Okin, Susan Moller. "“Mistresses of their own destiny”: Group rights, gender, and realistic rights of exit." Ethics 112.2 (2002): 205-230.
  • Piper, Nicola, ed. New perspectives on gender and migration: Livelihood, rights and entitlements. Routledge, 2013.
  • Pratt, Nicola, and Sophie Richter-Devroe, eds. Gender, Governance and International Security. Routledge, 2016.
  • Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times. Duke University Press, 2018.
  • Sjoberg, Laura, and Caron E. Gentry, eds. Women, gender, and terrorism. University of Georgia Press, 2011.
  • Sparks, Holloway. "Mama grizzlies and guardians of the republic: The democratic and intersectional politics of anger in the Tea Party movement." New Political Science 37.1 (2015): 25-47.

Wieringa, Saskia, and Horacio Sivori, eds. The sexual history of the global South: Sexual politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Zed Books Ltd., 2013.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.