MPhil Program

Course Credit: 4

MPhil 601

Introduction to Women and Gender Studies: Theories and Contemporary Issues

 

Introduction to the Course

Women and Gender Studies transforms the study of women within disciplines into a process by which women’s own experiences become the referent for examining and analysing the world as well as questioning what we learn. Consequently, this introduction to Women and Gender Studies takes at its starting point the history and development of feminist thought in the context of women’s actual lives both from global and local perspective. The course introduces students to the central texts and debates in the academic and ‘real life’ feminism to provide a theoretical framework for further courses in Women and Gender Studies curriculum and to courses in a wide variety of disciplines.

Specific Learning Objectives

This course aims:

• To introduce the students with the historical development of Women and Gender studies as a multi-disciplinary field of study.
• To introduce students to the different concepts and terms used in studying gender related courses
• To help students’ understanding of the different development models and their relation to gender issues and concerns.
• To focus on the more contemporary issues related to globalisation, ICT, media, unpaid care work, body and sexuality, issue of subordination, inequality and discrimination of women in all spheres of life.

Instructional Strategies

The course instructor will use lecture using white board, multimedia presentation, you tube/video and internet sources, presentation by the students, discussion and seminar, in-class and home exercises, reading and writing assignments, review of movies and documentaries, group and individual presentations, field visits, collection of primary data and information, data management and presentation by the students, focus group and participatory discussion as and wherever appropriate.

 

 

Course Contents

Section 1: Introduction to Women and Gender Studies: History and Development

This introductory section will provide students with an overall idea of women and gender studies as a multi-disciplinary subject. It will focus on history and development of women and gender studies, its content, women’s movement and the interconnection between women’s studies and gender studies  This section will also explore the trajectory of women’s movement, women’s advancement in the global and national scenario, world conferences on women and other contemporary issues will be discussed.

No of Classes: 6 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Smith, G, B. (2013). Women’s Studies: The Basics. Great Britain: Routledge.

 

2. John, E, M. (Ed.). (2008). Women’s Studies in India: A Reader. Penguin.

 

3. Basu. A. (Ed.) (1995). The Challenges of Local Feminism. Oxford: Westview.

 

 

4.  Begum, M. (2002). Nari Andoloner Panch Dashak [Five Decades of the Women’s Movement]. Dhaka: Onnyoprakash.

 

5. Nelson, B, J., and Najma Chowdhury. (Eds.). (1994). Women and Politics   Worldwide. New Haven London: Yale University Press

Recommended Readings

1. Robinson, V., & Richardson, D. (Eds.). (2015). Introducing gender and women's studies. Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Mahtab, N. (2012). Women, gender and development: Contemporary issues. AH Development Publishing House.
3. Chowdhury, N. (ed.). (2005). Protesting Patriarchy: Contextualising Rokeya. Dhaka : Department of Women and Gender Studies
4. Batliwala, S. (2008). Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements. Toronto: Association of Women’s Rights in Development (Awid).
5. Nazneen, S. (2017).Women’s Movement in Bangladesh: A short history and current debates. Germany : Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Section 2:  Understanding Gender                                                

This session will provide the foundation in understanding, analysis and critical thought on the relationship between sex and gender. Emphasis will be given on understanding the different concepts and issues of women and gender, such as meaning and definition of gender, gender identity, gender roles, gender relations, gender needs, gender policy, gender equality, gender equity, empowerment, agency, sexuality, violence, gender mainstreaming, gender analysis, intersectionality, masculinities etc.

No of Classes: 3 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Bhasin, K. (2003). Understanding Gender. New Delhi: Women Unlimited

 2. Bhasin, K. (1993). What is Patriarchy? New Delhi: Women Unlimited.

3.Hazel, R., & Sally, B. (2000). Gender and development: Concepts and definitions. Institute of Development Studies.  Brighton,UK : University of Sussex.

Recommended Readings

1. Pilcher, J., & Whelehan, I. (2016). Key concepts in gender studies. Thousand Oaks , California , USA : Sage publications.
2. Anne, C. F., Wendy, W., Pam, S., & Joan, K. (2003). Gender studies: Terms and debates. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Mahtab, N. (2007). Women in Bangladesh: From inequality to empowerment. Dhaka: AH Development Publishing House

Section 3:  Feminist Theories: Debates and Discourse

This section will introduce the theories of feminism/s and the issues and concepts that feminists theorize about. It will also discuss the major schools and waves of feminist thoughts and approaches in order to shed light into the processes and causes that lead to the subordination of women. This section will also make the students contextualize feminism and its various theories to their own time, context and concerns so that they learn to make links between academia and real lives.

No of Classes: 7 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Lorber, J. (2010). Gender inequality: Feminist theories and politics. Oxford University Press, USA.
2. Tong, R. (2013). Feminist thought: A comprehensive introduction. Routledge. Humm, M. (Ed and introduced). (1992). Feminism: A reader.  New York: Wheatsheaf.
3. Scholz, S.J. (2010). Feminism : A beginner’s guide.  Oxford : One World.
4. Loomba, A., and Ritty A Lukose, (Eds.). South Asian Feminisms. (2012). Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Recommended Reading

1. Kolmer, W. and Bartkowski, F. (Ed). (2004). Feminist theory: A reader. New York: McGraw Hill.
2. Gamble , S. (2000). The Routledge critical dictionary of feminism and post feminism .New York : Routledge
3. Bhasin, K and Nighat, S Khan (1986). Feminism and its Relevance in South Asia. New Delhi: Women Unlimited

 

 

Section 4:  Gender and Development

In this section student will gain an advance level of critical understanding of how gender is a development issue and development is a gender issue. This section will cover gender and development related key terminologies and paradigm shift from Women in Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD) to Gender and Development (GAD).

Part A: This part focuses on a detailed understanding of some definitions and key terms in gender and development. These include: Gender, Culture, Gender Analysis, Gender Discrimination, Gender Division of Labor, Gender Equality and Equity, Gender Mainstreaming, Gender Needs, Gender Planning, Gender Relations, Gender Training, Gender Violence, Intra-household Resource Distribution, feminization of poverty, National Machineries for Women, Patriarchy, Social Justice, Empowerment, Human Rights, Gender Awareness, Gender Roles, Gender Balance, Engender, Sex Disaggregated Data, Gender Gap, Gender Indicators, Gender Sensitivity, Gender Stereotypes, Gender Audit, Gender Budgeting, Gender Policy, Gender Issues in Project Cycle, Access and Control Over Resources, Condition and Position, Development, Globalization, Neo-liberalism, Global restructuring.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Reeves, H. & Barden, S. (2000). Gender and Development: Concepts and Definitions, Report no 55, BRIDGE (development-gender), UK: Institute of Development Studies.
2. Smythe, I. (2007) Talking of gender: words and meanings in development organizations. Development in Practice, 17, 4-5
3. Kabeer, N. (1994). Reversed Realities: Gender hierarchies in development thought. London: Verso.

Recommended Readings

1. Mosse, J.C. (1993). Half the World Half A Change. Oxford: Oxfam

Part B: This part will focus on theoretical and conceptual approaches and transition from WID, WAD and GAD from Bangladesh and Global perspectives. Theories and Debates of gender and development issues will be analyzed from feminist perspectives in this part.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Coles, A., Gray, L., Momsen, J. (2015) The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Development, London: Routledge.
2. Visvanathan, N. (eds.) (1997).  The Women, Gender & Development Reader. Dhaka: University Press Limited.

Recommended Readings

1. Duza, S. and Begum, A. (1993). Emerging new accents: A perspective of gender and development in Bangladesh. Dhaka: Women for Women.
2. Rathgeber, E. M. (1990). WID, WAD, GAD: Trends in Research and Practice.The Journal of Developing Areas. 24: 489 - 502.

Section 5:  Contemporary Issues

1. Globalization and Feminist Critique

This section will focus on the feminist understandings or gender analyses of globalization and global restructuring. The section will be divided into three parts. The first part will define globalization and the neoliberal policies that have accelerated the processes of globalization. The second part will discuss the gendered impacts of globalization and analyze how there is an unprecedented growth of women’s employment in the global labour market on the one hand and widening economic and gender inequalities on the other hand. It will focus on several concepts, including feminization of labor, gender inequalities within labor market, feminization of migration and global care chain. The last part of the section will incorporate a group session which encourage the students to read any article on the topic of gender and globalization and discuss the result with group members and class mates.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Marchand, M. H., & Runyan, A. S. (2000). Gender and global restructuring: Sightings, sites and resistances. Routledge.
2. Benería, L., Berik, G., & Floro, M. (2015). ‘Markets, Globalization and Gender’ in Gender, development and globalization: economics as if all people mattered. Routledge, 93-134

Recommended Readings

1. Hawkesworth, M. E. (2018). ‘Engendering Globalization’ in Globalization and feminist activism, 2^nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, chapter 1, 1-36.
2. Richa Nagar, Victoria Lawson, Linda McDowell & Susan Hanson (2002) Locating Globalization: Feminist (Re)readings of the Subjects and Spaces of Globalization, Economic Geography, 78:3, 257-284
3. Parekh, S., & Wilcox, S. (2014). Feminist perspectives on globalization. [Online]
4. Sarkar, S. (2007). Globalization and women at work: A feminist discourse. In International Feminist Summit,“Women of Ideas: Feminist Thinking of for a New Era”, Southbank Convention Center, Townsville, 17-20 Haziran 2007 (pp. 1-17).

Class participation/ Case Study

1. Hale, A., & Opondo, M. (2005) ‘Humanizing the cut flower chain: confronting the realities of flower production for workers in Kenya’, Antipode, 37:301-323.

2. Gender and New Media Technologies

This sub-section addresses two important issues; firstly, it looks into an important form of communication – the ‘mass media’ with reference to images of women, men and gender relations. Gender representation in advertisement, print & electronic media and cinema will be analysed and understood through a gender lens. The second issue is gender and ICT. The sub-section emphasizes that against the existing and growing digital and gender divide, women’s active involvement in ICTs is essential to ensure gender equity in the information society.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Begum, A. (2008). Magical Shadows: Women in the Bangladeshi Media, Dhaka, Bangladesh: A. H. Development Publishing House.
2. Chaudhuri, M. (2017). Gender and Advertisements: The Rhetoric of Globalization. In M. Chaudhuri (Ed.), Refashioning India. Delhi: Orient Black Swan.
3. “Representation of Gender and Heterosexuality: A Study of Contraceptive Advertisements in Bangladesh – 1971 to 2011” in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Volume 63 (2), December 2018, pp. 205-245.
4. Hall, S. (ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications.
5. Rashid, A.T. (2016). Digital Inclusion and Social Inequality: Gender Differences in ICT Access and Use in Five Developing Countries. SAGE Publications.
6. Nguyen, H. and Chib, A. (2017). Mobile phones and gender empowerment: Negotiating the essentialist – aspirational dialectic. Information Technologies & International Development (Special Section), 13, 171–185.

Recommended Readings

1. Sultana, U.B.F. (2011). The Imageries of Menstruation in Sanitary Napkin Ads: Representation and the Practice of Discourse as a Marketing Strategy. Advertising & Society Review, 11 (4), [Online].
2. Ng, C. & Mitter, S. (2005). Gender and the digital economy: Perspectives from the developing world. New York: Sage.
3. Rush, R.R. and Allen, D. (ed.) (1989). Communication at the Crossroads: The Gender Gap Connection. US: Alex Publishing Corporation.

3. Gender and Climate Change

This section will investigate the global concern climate change through a gender lens with reference to the images of women in climate change discourse, gendered impacts of climate change in different settings and the role of women in climate change adaptation and mitigation.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Terry, G. (ed.) (2009). Climate Change and Gender Justice, Rugby: Practical Action Publishing in association with Oxfam GB.
2. Detraz, Nicole (2017). Gender and the Environment, UK: Polite Press (Chapter 7).
3. Arora-Jonsson, S. (2011). Virtue and vulnerability: Discourses on women, gender and climate change, Global Environmental Change, 21: 744–751. 

Recommended Readings

1. Alston, M. (2014). Gender mainstreaming and climate change. Women's Studies International Forum, 47: 287–294.
2. IPCC (2014). Climate Change 2014: Impact, Adaptation & Vulnerability: Summary for Policymakers. 5th Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

4. Unpaid care work

This section will focus on the conceptual understanding of time pressed and time poverty. It will emphasize gender equality in time to understand issues related time pressed and time poverty to explore women’s working long hours without having any choices.  Gender leisure time will also be discussed here. The role of social institutions and other household gender attitudes will be analyzed in this section.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Beneria, L., Gunseli B., and Maria F. (2015). Gender, Development and Globalization: Economics as if all People Mattered. Routledge.
2. Francine D., and Anne E. Winkler. (2017). The Economics of Women, Men, and Work. New York: Oxford University Press
3. Parrenas, R. (2015). Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work. Palo Alto: University of California Press.
4. Milkman, R. (2016). On Gender, Labor, and Inequality. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

Recommended Readings

1. Glazer, N. Y. (1993). Women’s Paid and Unpaid Labor: The Work Transfer in HealthCare and Retailing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

5. Body and Sexualities:

This sub-section discusses a set of key terms (specifically, LGBTQIA) to explore the significance of these terms in a wider social and political context. It thus, provides a shared language to discuss key issues in gender and sexuality studies and introduces a range of critical issues that are directly related to the politics of the body, gender and sexualities.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required Readings:

1. Jackson, S. (1998). Theorizing Gender and Sexuality. Contemporary Feminist Theories, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
2. Butler, J. (2004). The End of Sexual Difference? Undoing Gender, 174-203, New York & London: Routeledge.
3. Muna, L. (2005). The Social Construction of Masculinity, Femininity and Marriage.  Romance and Pleasure: Understanding the Sexual Conduct of Young People in Dhaka in the Era of HIV/AIDS, Dhaka: UPL.
4. Pereira, C. (2009). Interrogating Norms: Feminists Theorizing Sexuality, Gender and Heterosexuality. Development, 52 (1), 18-24.

Recommended Readings

1. Gagne, P. and Tewksbury, R. (2002). Introduction: Advancing Gender Research at the Intersection of Gender and Sexuality. In Gagne, P. and Tewksbury (ed.). Gendered Sexualities, 6, 1-12, Elsevier Science Ltd.
2. McNay, L. (2004) ‘Agency and Experience: Gender as a Lived Relation’, in Sociological Review, UK & USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
3. Magar, V. and Storer, G. (2006) Good Women Bad Women: Addressing Violence in Women’s Lives by Examining Social Constructs of Gender and Sexuality within CARE, [Online], Available: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20787, [1March 2011].
4. Richardson, D. (2000). Rethinking Sexuality. London, New Delhi: Sage Publication.
5. Scott, J.W. (1986). Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis. The American Historical Review, 91(5), 1053-1075.

6. Gender and migration

This section will examine the relation between gender and migration with a focus on both Bangladesh and global perspective. It will also shed lights on contemporary issues such as sex tourism, the gendered nature of the recent growth in forced migration, people’s displacement due to war and conflict and rising number of refugee, including women and children and increasing violence in recent decades.

No of Classes: 2 classes

References

Required reading

1. Siddiqui, T. (2001) Transcending boundaries: Labour migration of women from Bangladesh. Dhaka: University Press.
2. Ganguly-Scrase, R., Vogl, G. and Julian, R. (2005) Neoliberal globalisation and women’s experiences of forced migration in Asia, paper presented to the Social Change in the 21^st Century Conference, Centre for Social Change Research, Queensland University of Tecfhnology,28 October 2005.
3. Licona, A. C., Eithne, L. (2018) ‘The Regime of Destruction: Separating Families and Caging Children’ Feminist Formations 30 (3): 45–62. https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2018.0037.
4. Brennan, D. (2003). ‘Selling sex for visas: sex tourism as a stepping-stone to international migration’ in B. Ehrenreich; H. A. Russell and S. Kay(eds.) Global woman: Nannies, maids sex workers in the new economy, MacMillan.

Recommended reading

1. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona (eds.) (2014)
2. The Oxford handbook of refugee and forced migration studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Castles, S., R. D. Wise (eds) (2008) Migration and development: perspectives from the South, International Organization for Migration, Geneva.

Course Credit: 4

MPhil 602

Research Methodology: Feminist Perspective and Critical Issues

Introduction to the Course

This course aims to give students an in-depth understanding of social science research, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research methodology. This course will also help the students to develop a critical approach to conventional social science research from a gender lens and understand feminist research. In doing so, the course examines  such matters as the conducting of research, data collection and the critical interpretation and dissemination of results, including a thorough consideration of the way of developing a research proposal, writing reports and scholarly styles of writing bibliographies references from a gender lens. Thus at the end of the course, the students will have learned the language, principles, reasoning and methodologies of both the qualitative, quantitative and mixed method research, their application and dissemination. As part of the course the students will be equipped with the skills of  critical reading of research literature and of  conducting their Mphil research.

Specific Learning Objectives

This course aims:

• To make students gain a methodological understanding of various social researches i.e. quantitative, qualitative; and mixed methods research
• To help students’ understanding of the advance understanding of feminist research methodology
• To introduce students to get a critical review of different methods of data collection (survey research, Interview, FGD, content analysis, case study, participant observation, etc.).
• To enable students to apply his/her understanding of research proposal writing on various issues using gender lens.

Instructional Strategies

The course instructor will use lecture using white board, multimedia presentation, you tube/video and internet sources, presentation by the students, discussion and seminar, in-class and home exercises, reading and writing assignments, review of movies and documentaries, group and individual presentations, field visits, collection of primary data and information, data management and presentation by the students, focus group and participatory discussion as and wherever appropriate.

 

Course Contents

Section 1: The State of Contemporary Social Research

The section helps the students to know the basics of the contemporary social research and to introduce themselves with the feminist critique of social research. This section includes the following topics:

• Types of social research, inductive and deductive research, ethics in social research, sexism and social research, Different ways of interpreting the world (positivism, interpretivism, constructionism, post modernism) .
• Epistemological and ontological issues of social research
• Positivism and criticism of positivism
• Context of development of feminist research

No of Classes: 4 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Sarantakos, S. (2005). Social Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
2. Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2010). The practice of qualitative research. Sage.
3. Hesse-Biber, S. N. (2008). Feminist research. The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods, 339-340.
4. Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Yaiser, M. L. (Eds.). (2004). Feminist perspectives on social research (pp. 209-225). New York: Oxford University Press.

Recommended Reading:

1. Bryman, A (2016). Social Research Methods, UK: Oxford University Press.

Section 2: Varieties of Social Research

This section introduces students will different approaches to social researches, their criticism, comparison and combination. It includes the following topics:

Quantitative research: central criteria of quantitative research; critique of quantitative methodology

Qualitative research: central criteria of qualitative research; critique of qualitative methodology

Mixed methods research: the rationales, nature and challenges of mixed methods research

No of Classes: 4 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Sarantakos, S. (2005). Social Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Babbie, E. R. (2015). The practice of social research. Nelson Education.
3. Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2016). Qualitative research. Sage.
4. Bryman, A (2016). Social Research Methods, UK: Oxford University Press.

Recommended Readings

1. Creswell, J.W. (2003).  Research design.  Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
2. Pope, C., Ziebland, S., & Mays, N. (2000). Qualitative research in health care: analysing qualitative data. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 320(7227), 114.

Section 3: Data collection methods and data analysis

This section provides students with a critical review of different methods of data collection for social science research, particularly on gender issues. This will cover data collection methods and data analysis techniques used in qualitative and quantitative research. The topic includes

• Questionnaire survey; structured and semi structured interview
• Different form of qualitative interviews, Focus group discussion (FGD); different forms of observation, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
• Ethnography and feminist ethnography, content analysis and case studies
• Data analysis: introduction to statistical analysis of quantitative data, thematic analysis, grounded theory.

No of Classes: 8 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Sarantakos, S. (2005). Social Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Reinharz, S., & Davidman, L. (1992). Feminist methods in social research. Oxford University Press.Babbie, E. R. (2015). The practice of social research. Nelson Education.
3. Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2016). Qualitative research. Sage.
4. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101.

Recommended Readings

1. Bryman, A (2016). Social Research Methods, UK: Oxford University Press.
2. Stacey, J. (1988, January). Can there be a feminist ethnography?. In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 21-27). Pergamon.
3. Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2017). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative research. Sage.

Section 4: Feminist research

This section discusses feminist challenges towards social science research with a view to destabilizing objectivity and  includes the following topics:

• Feminist challenges to mainstream social research
• feminist research positions (i.e. feminist epistemology, feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint, feminist postmodernism)
• Objectivity versus strong objectivity

No of Classes: 5 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Harding, S.G (1987). Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues. Indiana University Press.
2. Hesse-Biber, S.N . (2012). Ed. The Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory & Praxis. SAGE Publication Inc.
3. Ramazanoglu, C., & Holland, J. (2002). Feminist methodology: Challenges and choices. Sage.
4. Reinharz, S., & Davidman, L. (1992). Feminist methods in social research. Oxford University Press.

Recommended Readings

1. Sarantakos, S. (2005). Social Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
2. Khanum, R.A. (2015). Emergence of Feminist Methodology: Philosophical Perspective. Empowerment, 22:1-8.

Section 5: Developing a research proposal

This is an applied section that guides students to develop a research proposal based on some agreed topics. Students are guided to apply different steps of standard research proposal.

This section includes the following topics:

• Choosing research topic and title
• Formulation of research objective/questions

Proposal development (Problem statement; Rationale of study, Literature review, Methodology; Tools for data collection, Sampling; Data processing; Data analysis technique, Referencing)

No of Classes: 5 classes

References

Required Readings

1.Wong, P. T., & Psych, C. (2016). How to write a research proposal. Langley: Trinity Western University Langley. Retrieved, 26.

2. Smith, N. L., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2005). How to prepare a dissertation proposal: Suggestions for students in education and the social and behavioral sciences. Syracuse University Press.

3. Sarantakos, S. (2005). Social Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

 

Section 6: Report Writing, Formatting and bibliographic reference

Students will know the process of writing research report/thesis with ethical issues of report writing, bibliography, formatting of report.

• Ethical requirement of reporting
• Different types of reporting
• Types of bibliographic reference
• Formatting of reports
• Writing feminist research

No of Classes: 3 classes

References

Required Readings

1. Sarantakos, S. (2005). Social Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
2. Boynton, P.M. (2005). The research companion: A practical guide for the social and health sciences. New York: Psychology Press. [Chapter 7,8,9]

Section 7: Course Review

No of Classes: 2 classes