Gender and Global Inequality II (SOAN*4230)

Code and section: SOAN*4230*01

Term: Winter 2025

Instructor: Lisa Kowalchuk

Details

Course description

What kinds of programs and initiatives devised by development assistance institutions can achieve improvements in gender justice, well-being, and empowerment in disadvantaged communities or disadvantaged groups? What is the impact of grassroots initiatives including social movements, led by members of disadvantaged communities? Can these two types of actions – development programs delivered by specialized organizations, and grassroots collective action – ever connect?

Answering these questions requires understanding how these concepts – gender justice and empowerment – are defined and applied in practise. Since we are also interested in health and well-being, we also pay attention to numerous social determinants of health including the quality and accessibility of health-care, access to means of earning a livelihood, societal norms about femininity and masculinity, and exposure to interpersonal and structural violence.

Themes of the readings and seminar discussion will include: cultural relativism and universalism as philosophical approaches to assessing, intervening, and allying; sexual and reproductive health; interventions with men focusing on masculinities and health; micro-credit programs for women; and colonization, Indigenous health, and gender in Canada. Geographically, about half of the assigned readings and audio-video materials focus on countries of the global south, and the remainder focus on affluent countries of the global north.

The assessment methods – assignments – will include a research paper on a topic related to the major themes of the course.

Required Readings

5. Several chapters in Dworkin, Shari L, Monica Gandhi, and Paige Passanno (Eds.). 2017. Women’s Empowerment and Global Health: A Twenty-First Century Agenda. University of California Press.  (available as an e-book at the University of Guelph library, to be made available online via ARES and Courselink.

5. A set of readings (journal articles and book chapters) and films available online via ARES and Courselink.

Assessments (subject to modification before course starts)

Participation (in class and online)                   15%      

Presentation (individual or paired)                 10%                                                                

Readings analysis (4)                                      40%                

Film review                                                     10%                

Research paper                                              25%

Total:                                                               100%

Syllabus