Overview of Course

This course explores how gender organizes society across the globe. Throughout the voyage, we will focus on how specific institutions affect individual agency. How does gender, as a social and fluid construct, guide our understanding of social institutions, such as family, economy and education? How, for example, do the media, corporations, and professional organizations influence the social construction of “femininity” and “masculinity”? Why and how is work gendered? How does gender structure individuals’ experiences of health? Taking an intersectional approach, this course will pay particular attention to the intersections of race, class, and sexual diversity as they relate to social and global phenomena across the countries of our voyage. Selected gender issues in port countries on the itinerary will be highlighted including gender and labor, the geographies of parenting, marriage, sex work, reproductive health, and violence.