This course is designed to convey the scope of gender injustice and the contextual and intersectional factors that contribute to it. It orients students to a cross-national, multicultural approach to women’s studies and summarizes some basic women’s studiesconcepts, and outlines four themes of global women’s studies (gender inequality as a sociocultural, socially constructed phenomenon; activism and empowerment; a multicultural, contextual, intersectional approach; and women’s rights as human rights). It also provides an overview of women’s status worldwide.

Women rights and their relationship to women’s status and power is also the focus of this course. Women’s unpaid and underpaid labor are discussed at length as causes and effects of women’s lower power and status. Women and development is also the focus, with the emphasis on feminist critiques of traditional development approaches and feminist efforts to bring women into the development process. It also explores the ways that globalization has reshaped women’s lives worldwide. This course also presents feminist critiques of religion as well as women’s efforts to reform and reconstruct religions. Although the course to some extent focus on women’s empowerment, it looks more closely at women’s political efforts. It also examines women in national politics, examines women’s gender equality movements, and the transnational women’s human rights movement.