Gender Studies

Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary discipline and it is comparatively a new and exciting field of study that places gender at the center of analysis. The English term "gender" has established itself as the main concept of gender studies. Gender is a critical, sensitive and classifying principle in any society and culture. It is a very strong tool of discrimination in the distribution of labor, care, possession, income, education, organizational qualities or diseases. Gender Studies as a discipline offers students the opportunity to explore traditional disciplines through an interdisciplinary perspective that focuses on the significance of sex as a social construct. Gender Studies describes how biological sex and gender influence the political, social, and cultural construction of gender identities. Gender Studies highlighted the fact that gender is a system of differentiation and domination at the heart of every society. Gender frames how we view and interact with the world. Gender studies focuses on the study of the genders and how representations of masculine and feminine roles change over time and vary across cultures affecting every facet of society. While the immediate goal of Gender Studies is to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to provide new strategies for investigation, the long term goal is to help Davidson men and women function freely and fairly in the world. Gender Studies highlighted the fact that gender is a system of differentiation and domination at the heart of every society. It is not a static discipline. Students get familiarized with the unique contributions of women and men to society, science, humanities, and the arts. Students understand the importance of gender and gender roles in a variety of social and historical contexts. They discover new scholarly methods and theories arising from interdisciplinary study. It describes how concept of ‘male’ and 'female' changes over time and according to cultural and social criteria. Gender studies incorporates a variety of questions, problems, theories, and methods in the analysis of structures, operations, relations, and representations of gender. Gender Studies investigates the actual gender differences between women and men, however it thinks critically about impact of these differences in a socio-cultural context. In gender studies, the tension between the structuring, repetitive, omnipresent aspects of gender and its wide variation and varying importance is a central concept. Gender studies encourages students to examine historical and contemporary representations of women and men in religion, in the arts and literature, in social and political theory, and in the sciences. The discipline uses diverse methodologies, theories, and knowledge that aim to examine gender within a number of interrelated areas and practical case. It fosters scholarly investigation that recognizes gender as an empirical reality.

Origin of Gender Studies

Gender Studies is a relatively a new discipline in higher education. However, it is today considered as a very strong and well established discipline. Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary subject and its subject matter is closely connected to fields of humanities, the social sciences, medicine and natural sciences. Women's Liberation movement of 1970's and after the revolution of the universal suffrage of the 20th Century set the very foundation of the discipline. The interdisciplinary nature of the subject started through the so-called Women’s Studies Centers set up in North America and many European countries. These centers used to gather critical teachers and students who wanted to study gender relations, and women, in particular a common denominator for the development was strong links to women’s movements, activism, feminist ideas and practices.

Since the start in the 1970s, gender research has been inspired by and embedded in many different and sometimes partly overlapping scholarly traditions, such as empiricism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, critical studies of men and masculinities, critical race theory, critical studies of whiteness, inter sectionality and postcolonial theory, queer studies, lesbian, gay, bi and trans studies ,critical studies of sexualities, body theory, sexual difference feminisms, black feminisms, ecological feminisms, animal studies, cyborg theory, feminist techno science studies, materialist feminisms. The field of study has grown and expanded rapidly on a worldwide basis, and given rise to a diversity of specific national and regional developments.

Gender studies and gender theory

The educational goal of this discipline is to study sex inequality practices in past and present cultures, with the emphasis put on explaining the causes of this phenomenon. Gender researchers study how people think, interpret, perceive, symbolize, feel, write, paint, dance, fantasize, wish, experience, define – in other words “construct” – what we normally call sex and what this word means and what it meant in the past. Gender is a specific object of study, but the issues could be formulated with reference to most of the things people do. It is therefore a wide-ranging and complex discipline. All gender researchers cannot know everything about gender, and many of them are not interested in gender studies outside their own subject. Others regard gender theory as a discipline in its own right that finds inspiration in other disciplines.

The epistemological dimension of gender studies does not deny the material, biological aspects. Ideas about the body, for example biological descriptions of the human body, have cultural and social consequences too. Biology is relevant to gender, not as an integral component but as a subject of research. Gender is about sexuality and the labor market, processes and structures, science criticism and gender equality, culture and social organization, what exists and what might exist. It is about power and resources and figures of speech, body and soul, individuals and groups; about whether, and if so how, one gender is superior to the other and how such a situation has arisen and been reproduced.

The purpose of interdisciplinary gender studies is to understand gender from as many different viewpoints as possible. The knowledge obtained from interdisciplinary gender studies can also be used to improve understanding of problems in other disciplines. It is difficult to draw a precise line between interdisciplinary gender studies and gender theory with an interdisciplinary focus. There is also intensive communication and extensive collaboration between the two approaches. Despite the dynamic development of interdisciplinary research, gender studies in Sweden are carried on mainly in existing disciplines and have in the last few decades significantly helped to develop and broaden subject-specific knowledge and theory in some of them.

Characteristics of Gender Issues

Gender Studies deals with a very critical and crucial subject of modern society. Gender studies deals with the issues those are not only crucial to women’s lives, but also to democracy and the future of humankind. The tag of women discrimination on the basis of gender in both private and public sphere is commonly applicable to all the societies. According to feminist anthropologists such as Gayle Rubin, the subordination of women to men originated in early societies in which women were used as tokens of exchange between clans. It is widely, but falsely believed that “natural" characteristics of the female gender are inferior to those of men. This perception of gender inequality is a serious gender issue and the main characteristics of this gender inequality issue are: 

• Women are provided less access to and control of like economic, social, cultural and symbolic resources.

• Women are provided less access to capital, education, reproductive and other health services.

• Women are provided with heavier, multiple burdens such as care of the household, children, spouse, the elderly etc.

• Another curse of the gender inequality is the higher rates of abuse, intimidation, sexual harassment and violence face by women.

• In a male dominated society women get less power to determine and express sexuality.

• Women are provided with lower wages, often for the same amount and quality of work done by men.

• Women get fewer opportunities for equal career development.

• Women have less participation in decision-making processes in the private and public spheres.

Influences in Gender Studies

The study and development of Gender Studies is influenced by many scholarly works and by many social events. Following are some of them.

Sigmund Freud stated that women body is a deform body without the penis and they must learn to accept it. he believed women are mutilated and that is a deformity. However, this idea was rejected by many feminists’ critics. Feminist theorists argued that psychoanalytic theory is vital for the feminist projection and it should be adopted by all women to free it from vestiges of sexism.

Jacques Lacan's theory is known as theory of sexuation . according to this theory feminine side of sexuation is "supplementary" and not complementary. Critics like Elizabeth Grosz accuse Jacques Lacan of maintaining a sexist tradition in psychoanalysis. This theory categorizes femininity and masculinity in different unconscious structures.

The name of Julia Kristeva is associated with the development of the field of semiotics. Julia in her work abjection she structures subjectivity upon the abjection of the mother and argues that the way in which an individual excludes their mother as means of forming an identity is similar to the way in which societies are constructed.

Bracha Ettinger is a theorist and psychoanalyst. Her name is associated with the transformation of subjectivity in contemporary psychoanalysis since the early 1990s. The matrixial feminine difference defines a particular gaze and it is a source for trans-subjectivity and transjectivity in both males and females.

According to Mark Blechner psychoanalytic is the once and future queer science. He expanded psychoanalytic views of sex and gender. His explanation mainly focuses on the gender biasness of the western society. According to him gender of sexual partners is given enormously disproportionate attention over other factors involved in sexual attraction, such as age and social class.

Among the other influences of Gender studies literary theory and Post-modern influence deserves a special mention.

Career in Gender Studies

A degree in Gender and Women’s Studies prepares you for careers in a variety of fields, as well as for professional schools or graduate programs. Graduates can work as consultants, policy analysts, and officers in government and Para-governmental organizations, in business and industry, and in educational institutions. The fields you might enter include employment equity, public administration, health care, work place conditions, personnel relations, publishing and editorial work, and public relations. Gender Studies offers the opportunity to develop a range of skills and knowledge. These include the 

• Application of the principles of critical inquiry and gender analysis in all areas of social life; understanding the politics of knowledge;
• An ability to make sense of the intersections of gender with ethnicity; and Knowledge of social, economic and cultural structures.
• Written and spoken communication skills shown through written work,

• Presentations and informed debate;
• IT skills demonstrated by the presentation of projects and dissertations and through training in research methods and analysis;
• Team working through project work carried out in groups;
• Problem-solving skills developed by regular analysis of case studies and
• Developing strategies to deal with key issues that arise;
• An adaptable and flexible approach from exploring different perspectives and interpretations,
• Time management skills.
• Some of the common job roles associated with Gender Studies are listed below:
• social worker or counselor
• Programme leader
• Community educator
• teacher in elementary or high school
• Social worker
• instructor or professor in university/college
• lawyer, specializing in women's rights, human rights, family law, or other area
• Researcher in a government department
• Project co-ordinator,
• project manager in a non-governmental organization (NGO)
• program coordinator in a women’s center
• Policy analyst
• financial planner, with a focus on women’s finances
• policy analyst in a governmental or Para-governmental organization, perhaps as an employment equity officer or public administrator
• policy analyst in business and industry or in educational institutions
• writer, publisher, or editor
• Filmmaker
• Media/Communication officer
• Human Resource Adviser

Interested students can opt to study at post-graduate level. They can either go for a post-graduation in gender studies itself or they can also choose a different subject. The higher study i the subject will add a degree at Masters and PhD level. Higher studies will also impact on the entry level of employment in industry. Gender Studies graduates willing to join the field of social research should consider a post-graduate qualification in Social Research. Other areas for further study and training that particularly complement gender studies include Development Studies, Law, Economics, Public Policy and Political Science. Many Arts Graduates also do additional training in the areas like Journalism, Management and Teaching.