Gender Under Construction

Discovery Core Experience: I&S Course

genderunderconstruction-(1).jpgB CORE 107A 

60-Second Syllabus: Gender Under Construction - Intersections, Roadblocks, DetoursIndividuals and Societies Icon

About This Course: 

As part of the Discovery Core, we will take time to explore the resources and pathways open to you in the UW Bothell community.  We will take the construction metaphors in the course title and apply them to your own road to and through college.  You will work together to help each other find your own paths, complete with interesting intersections and suggestions for managing roadblocks.

We will explore identities and culture, with focused analysis on gender. Some questions we will consider: What is gender and how does it differ from sex?  How has our understanding of gender changed over time?   How does gender impact our experiences and opportunities? How does gender relate to other aspects of our identities and cultures? What can we do to promote well-being, equity, and social justice tied to gender? Through active inquiry we will develop a set of tools to look at these questions and examine how gender operates in our lives and the spaces we inhabit. 

Our classroom will be playful, curious, and scholarly as we use a variety of texts (written, audio like podcasts, and video) to explore:

  • Gender as a social construction at the intersection of other categories of difference, such as race, class, sexuality, and nationality
  • How gender norms may serve as roadblocks for individuals and groups
  • Cases where people uncover unspoken assumptions that animate and legitimize gender roles and assumptions that we may have accepted as “natural”
    • Examples may include gender and fashion, gender bias in dress codes, gender and sports, and others that emerge based on class interests
  • Detours and new pathways for enacting and reimagining gender

But how will we learn together?  

I am committed to building a classroom that supports you welcoming yourselves and each other each day. Our classroom will be curious, playful, respectful, and scholarly. We will work together to identify questions, build our tools for observation, unpack texts, and reflect on our unique cultures and lived experiences.

Learning Objectives 

At the end of the quarter, you will be able to:

1) Make meaningful and ongoing contributions to a learning community

2) Collaborate effectively with classmates, faculty, and staff

3) Summarize, analyze, question, and critique course texts using tools including:

  • intersectionality
  • the social-ecological model
  • social construction

4) Make connections between course texts, class activities, and personal experience

5) Analyze and articulate how gender is constructed and represented in the spaces you inhabit in your everyday lives, including at UW Bothell

6) Actively reflect on your learning practices, including setting learning goals, making connections across activities, managing work load, and stress management techniques 


Professor Lauren Lichty (She/Her/Hers)

Headshot of Lauren Lichty

About Professor Lichty: 

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"I hope to support each student on their quest to find their scholarly path and voice, fostering creativity, curiosity, and attention to social justice along the way."- Professor Lichty