WGS 298 - Masculinities

This course surveys the meaning(s) of “masculinity” as this concept has developed in the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly (but not only) in the United States. In so doing, the class seeks to understand how a bundle of disparate forces, values, and norms came to be associated with this term, such that it could be mobilized to justify and/or buttress a wide range of power structures in our society. The course then considers what resources exist within the concept of masculinity - or what resources could be added to it - to better understand, critique, and ameliorate these power structures. WGS 298 thus engages students with questions and texts that explore how social structures systematically advantage and reward some groups and disadvantage others, and the way that individuals and groups have reinforced, resisted, modified, and challenged these structures. It also explores disparities in access, opportunities, or benefits of natural, cultural, social, legal, political, and economic structures, systems or institutions.

Credits 1

Compass Attributes
Structure/Power/Inequality, Taylor and Lane Scholars