Course Description/Outline
Gender Law and Womanism/African Feminism is a course formulated to synthesize and examine the legal approaches to complex issues facing gender and sexual identities from a comparative and global perspective. This course explores the socially constructed norms and frameworks enabling the legal regulation of human sexuality and gender issues including but not limited to family/marriage law, sexual harassment, sexual violence, intersex, pornography, prostitution, global trafficking, LGBT issues, transgender and women’s sexual and reproductive health. By illuminating the legal frameworks, legal cases, and policy background necessary for understanding and analyzing a broad range of gender-related issues in the course, students develop the critical tools required to evaluate a host of legislative and judicial responses to gender and sexuality. We will look at emerging legal approaches from jurisdictions around the world to analyze how certain types of sexual behavior and gender identities are regulated (including transgender identities, intersex bodies, same-sex marriage, new family forms, and the de/criminalization of sodomy).
The course uniquely blends this legal inquiry with the concepts of Womanism and African Feminism. Students will engage in the examination of the cultural, geographical, historical standing, valid experiences, and contributions of Black/African Women. The course encourages students to acquaint themselves with the realities, movements, feminist epistemology, and interests of women from diverse backgrounds and contexts. The fusion of legal inquiry and feminism fosters a distinct interdisciplinary examination in ways that deepen the knowledge of gender politics with social realities and cultural identity.
- Teacher: Jennifer Mike