The Gender Studies Programme
Gender - how did it happen to you?
- Gender has far-reaching implications
- Asking questions about difference
- Why study Gender at Otago?
- Topics covered in the core course
Check out this prize winning clip by a couple of our Gender Studies students from the mobile phone video competition: http://www.otago.ac.nz/hums-comp/videos_2011.html#john_golda
Gender has far-reaching implications for the course of our lives
Gender is a complex element of social and cultural existence with far-reaching implications for the course of our lives. It shapes the work we do and how we spend our leisure time, our income, our family relationships and friendships, the value and meanings we attach to other people and activities, what we eat and how we dress, and even how we speak and move.
Asking questions about difference
In the last few decades, theoretical and everyday notions of gender have undergone dramatic changes, influenced both by changes in the organisation of society and by a rapidly expanding field of critical inquiry.
This new field of inquiry concerns broad questions of difference: race, ethnicity, class and sexuality, for example, as well as gender. It is at the forefront of significant critical and theoretical developments in the social sciences and humanities.
Why study Gender at Otago?
We’ll surprise you
You’ll be introduced to different perspectives on things you’ve always taken for granted, while you explore television, film, news media, documentary, public debate, advertising, photography, subculture and fashion as well as scholarly reading.
The staff are enthusiastic!
We work interactively, and involve students actively in their own learning. Students are encouraged to think independently and to relate their academic learning to the world they encounter daily.
“The skills my Gender Studies degree gave me are skills I draw on regularly: critical thinking and the ability to analyse an issue and think about it from a variety of perspectives are crucial in the work I do.”
Georgie Ferrari (BA, Gender Studies, Otago) Chief Executive Officer, Youth Affairs Council of Victoria, Australia
Topics covered in the core programme include:
- biological and cultural explanations of sex and gender
- bodies in popular culture
- cultural construction of sexuality
- consumer culture and work
- family life
- gender in the media
- violence
- changing concepts of what it means to be male or female
- gender sexuality and state power
- reproduction