PHIL/WGST 275.001 – Moral and Philosophical Issues of Gender in Society

Instructor: Shanna Slank. This course meets MWF 1:25 – 2:15 p.m. in SC 210.

In this course, we will consider how gender shapes our lives. We’ll examine the role that gender norms and gendered institutions play in what we come to prefer, what we come to expect of ourselves and others, what we come to value, and what we come to choose. We’ll ask what gender justice looks like.

The first part of this course will be an introduction to some of the canonical analyses of core feminist concepts such as ‘oppression,’ ‘privilege,’ and ‘misogyny.’ We’ll also read more recent philosophical work on ‘mansplaining’ and ‘gaslighting.’

We’ll then turn our attention to specific gender-centric moral questions. For instance: Has the gender revolution created a crisis of masculinity? Are our contemporary versions of gendered divisions of labor unjust? Is it immoral to consume pornography? Students will have some input into which questions we address during this part of the course.