WGS 343: Masculinity Across Cultures

Course Description

By taking a cross-cultural approach with examples from all over the world, the course aims to interrogate notions of masculinity that have become naturalized in wider American society. Some of the topics of the course may include issues of men and violence, emotion, invulnerability, independence, kinship, the body, trans-sexuality, masculinity and national identity, and rites of passage. The course will examine the relationships between particular masculinities and femininities and gendered hierarchies, power, and inequality in culture and society. Implicit in all these discussions will be the relationships between men and women, definitions of masculinity and femininity, gender, gender roles and expectations, and how factors of race, class, and gender shape definitions and expressions of masculinity. Cross-listed: ANTHRO 343/WG STDS 343.