Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (GEND40003)

This subject surveys recent developments in feminist theory and feminist methodology within a cross-cultural context. It explores issues involved in present-day debates about feminist epistemology and knowledge, including debates surrounding the relationship between western and other feminisms, the contributions of postcolonial feminists and queer theorists. The subject will consider the backlash against multiculturalism, framed largely in terms of the toleration of cultural beliefs and practices that contravene and impinge on the sovereign rights of individual members of particular groups, particularly women, sexual minorities and children.

The issues highlighted in these contexts include religious fundamentalism, the veil, honour killings, and arranged marriage to name a few. Importantly, what do those who are situated at the centre of these controversies, the women and men themselves have to say, both to members of their own groups and to the those who consider them victims or perpetrators of unacceptable cultural practices. These controversies are considered in the context of tensions around secularism, religion, sexuality, the law, the individual and the group, individual freedom and cultural constraint, feminist critics of multiculturalism and multicultural critics of feminism.