The central questions for this course are: (1) “Is being a woman different than a man?” and (2) “How does gender change in modern societies, especially in East Asian countries?”

In this course, we will begin with the understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality and build on this basic framework to explore how gender difference is “essentialized” and lived based on personal, political, and institutional factors. The subject will increase students’ gender awareness and sensitivity. Students will learn the meaning and importance of gender in different aspects of their personal and social lives, including family, education, employment, mass media, body politics, and globalization. It considers gendered relations of power and the articulation of gender with other kinds of social difference & identities such as race, class and sexuality. We draw our discussions on East Asian countries.

A variety of theoretical perspectives, including biological and psychological perspective, sociological theories, historical perspective, cultural studies perspectives and various feminist perspectives will be applied to a number of substantive issues of contemporary concern.