This Course at MIT

This Course at MIT pages are part of the OCW Educator initiative, which seeks to enhance the value of OCW for educators.

Course Overview

This page focuses on the course WGS.645 Gender, Health and Marginalization Through a Critical Feminist Lens as it was taught by Prof. Chris Bobel, Prof. Silvia Dominguez, and Lecturer Norma Swenson in Fall 2014.

This course used a feminist interdisciplinary lens to look critically at how practices like privatization, shrinking public “safety nets,” deregulation, and the commodification of health services intersect inevitably with gender, race, and class, for both men and women.

This course was part of the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies, which brings together scholars and teachers from nine Boston-area institutions to advance interdisciplinary Women’s Studies scholarship.

Course Outcomes

Course Goals for Students

  • Become familiar with the three analytic frameworks elucidated in the course
  • Be able to utilize and synthesize these frameworks in analyses of a given women and health or gender and sexuality issue

Possibilities for Further Study/Careers

  • Further exploration into health law programs describing legal activism in promoting health rights
  • Public health programs specifically addressing human rights and health, or women and health or gender rights
  • Women’s Studies at advanced levels on specific topics, both historical and contemporary, illustrating and documenting how Intersectionality, feminism, or a health and human rights lens is applied and can be implemented
  • Further study of other fields such as political science, economics, and medical sociology or medical anthropology that focus on structural critiques of capitalism
 

Instructor Insights

It’s impossible to teach in the consortium and not come away thankful for the experience. There is nothing like being among so many feminists. It was humbling, refreshing and nurturing.

—Prof. Silvia Dominguez

Below, Silvia Dominguez, Norma Swenson and Chris Boebel respond to questions about how they taught WGS.645 Gender, Health and Marginalization Through a Critical Feminist Lens.

OCW: This course addresses issues that, for some students, might be sensitive or controversial. What insights do you have about teaching taboo topics?

Norma Swenson: I have been addressing controversial topics in public and in classrooms for so many years. Because such plain speaking is often rare in academic environments and elsewhere, I usually feel a moral obligation to do so. Doing so may mean taking some risks, but I find them to be worth it. Some people may be upset, but being prepared to acknowledge how upsetting the truth and lived experiences may be is simply part of the work. Avoiding such material would diminish the opportunity to enlarge all students’ understanding and development. But it goes without saying that any instructor must feel confident and comfortable before introducing these ideas.

Chris Bobel: I think it's fair to say that all of our teaching material is controversial or sensitive—such is the reality of teaching Gender Studies (and one of the reasons I love this work so very much!). One of the tasks before us is to explore why some material is coded as sensitive or taboo. We pick at the very social construction of the "topics we should not discuss." To this end, I find directness is important. Being direct communicates to students that challenging topics are serious topics and deserve our attention. Also, it is important to allow students ample time to process such material. Students must not feel hurried. Feelings inevitably rush in and they will complicate (and often enrich) the intellectual work we do together. It's important to allow for this and to listen carefully as students engage in this work.

Read More/Read Less

 

Curriculum Information

Prerequisites

Requirements Satisfied

None

Offered

WGS.645 is offered intermittently and is considered a special topics course about “Issues of Representation: Feminist Theory.” The specific topic changes every time it is taught.

The Classroom

  • A classroom with chalkboard, several rows of flat tables for students, and a small table at the front for the instructor.

    Seminar

    The course was taught in a classroom with chalkboards and a video projector. Students moved tables and chairs in advance of each class, so that we created a crude square/circle with the instructors variably sitting among students, separately or together. 

 

Assessment

The students' grades were based on the following activities:

The color used on the preceding chart which represents the percentage of the total grade contributed by class participation. 30% Class participation
The color used on the preceding chart which represents the percentage of the total grade contributed by a research paper and presentation. 30% Research paper and related presentation
The color used on the preceding chart which represents the percentage of the total grade contributed by in-class discussion preparation and facilitation. 15% In-class discussion preparation and facilitation
The color used on the preceding chart which represents the percentage of the total grade contributed by an annotated bibliography. 5% Annotated bibliography
The color used on the preceding chart which represents the percentage of the total grade contributed by an op-ed assignment and presentation. 20% Op-ed and related presentation
 

Student Information

On average, fewer than 10 students take this course each time it is offered.

Enrollment Cap

Each seminar in the Graduate Consortium of Women’s Studies is limited to 20 students.

 

How Student Time Was Spent

During an average week, students were expected to spend 12 hours on the course, roughly divided as follows:

In Class

3 hours per week
  • Met 1 time per week for 3 hours per session; 14 sessions total; mandatory attendance.
  • Student-led discussions of the readings, topics, and questions for the week.
 

Out of Class

9 hours per week

Students spent their out-of-class time completing the weekly assigned readings, preparing discussion questions, or working on assignments.

 

Semester Breakdown

WEEK M T W Th F
1 No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
2 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
3 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No classes throughout MIT.
4 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
5 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
6 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled; assignment due date. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
7 No classes throughout MIT. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
8 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled; student presentations; assignment due date. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
9 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
10 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
11 No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
12 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
13 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled. No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT.
14 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled; student presentations; assignment due date. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
15 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. Class meeting scheduled; student presentations; assignment due date. No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT.
16 No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT.
Displays the color and pattern used on the preceding table to indicate dates when classes are not held at MIT. No classes throughout MIT
Displays the color used on the preceding table to indicate dates when lecture sessions are held. Class meeting
Displays the symbol used on the preceding table to indicate dates when assignments are due. Assignment due date
Displays the color used on the preceding table to indicate dates when no class session is scheduled. No class session scheduled
Displays the color used on the preceding table to indicate dates when students presentations are held. Student Presentations