No units may be counted twice as part of two different disciplines. The importance of gender divisions in key institutions such as family, school, and labour market is considered. Claims that gender is a major dimension of social inequality are assessed.
Attention is paid throughout to the cultural production of femininity and masculinity.
The unit not only considers the main developments in the social science literature on the role and significance of gender in society, but also enables students to formulate their own position in relation to central debates in the sociology of gender. Those beliefs have had an enormous effect on the way we live our lives. The unit examines these issues in the context of persecutions of women as witches and the policing of sexual preference. The unit also considers the way in which feminist perspectives have influenced contemporary thinking on such issues as bioethics, prostitution, justice and the State. The unit also forms semester 1 of ESN771.