Beyond Gender Inequalities

Course Objective
Learning objectives:

· Students are aware of the intersectional basis of many of today’s wicked problems.
· Students capture the width and depth of gender inequalities.
· Students are able to work together in a research team, make clear agreements, divide roles and take responsibility.
· Students are able to design a research plan as a team in response to a concrete research question of an external stakeholder.
· Students are able to collect and analyse data in a short period of time using an interdisciplinary conceptual apparatus
· Students can translate the acquired knowledge into relevant insights and/or concrete advice for the stakeholder.
· Students are able to communicate their findings to a broader audience.

Course Content
Despite decades of policies to fight social inequality - including gender inequality - contemporary societies worldwide still struggle with many social, economic, political and cultural inequalities. These inequalities hamper the full participation of members of so-called minority groups, based on their gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, dis/ability, age and other axes of differentiation. In this course, we go beyond seeing gender as a binary between women and men and conceptualise it more inclusively referring to women, men, non-binary people, and other gendered groups. In following, gender equality goes beyond an “add and stir” approach; inferring that to resolve gendered problems more is needed than merely increasing the numbers of individuals from different gender minorities within organisations, institutions, and companies. Hence the approach to gender in this course breaks open binary thinking and proposes an analysis of gendered ‘wicked problems’ through an intersectional and decolonial lens that goes beyond eurocentric, heteronormative definitions and teaches students to approach gender as a site where race, class and other identity markers intersect. This critical approach to gender, while challenging, facilitates an analysis of gender inequalities and gender
injustices in a way that reflects more accurately the situation, positions and experiences of people and communities who are marginalised and excluded. It also enables the possibility to study those in power, included and considered the social norm, both components being necessary to better understand and fight gender inequality.

The main two questions that guide this course are:
1) How does an intersectional and decolonial approach make the wicked gender(ed) problems in our society more understandable and resolvable?
2) How can existing societal and organisational structures and cultures adapt to meet future demands regarding social justice in general and gender equality in particular?

Additional Information Teaching Methods
Lectures, working groups, group work

In the first three weeks of the course, students will follow interactive (guest) lectures and engage with various theoretical and methodological perspectives on gender-related issues and in feminist research. Furthermore, students will engage with interdisciplinary perspectives on gender inequalities. These sessions will provide the students tools to connect theoretical concepts to the wicked problems of the stakeholders which they will work on in the second half of the course.

In the second half of the course (week 4 – week 8), students will work together in groups on a wicked problem presented by one of the stakeholders. Besides working groups, there will also be a Meet&Greet with stakeholders. Students will publish the findings of their analysis of the wicked problem in a magazine or zine that they will present to the stakeholder. This zine/magazine will contain both individually written essays as well as a group-written editorial and afterword. For the zine/magazine, students are encouraged to blend conventional academic writing with less conventional or alternative forms of academic writing.

Method of Assessment
Written assignments and a (maga)zine