Subject Area: Australian Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: History; Women's and Gender Studies

This course examines the complexities of gender relations in Australian politics, society and culture, using contemporary and historical case studies and placing Australian developments in their international context. How has gender - in relationship with race, class, religion, age and place - been important in the construction of individual, regional and national identities? What are the historical origins of many of the unresolved issues in gender relations today? What are the sources of contemporary gender stereotypes? Where do current tensions between domesticity and women’s public achievement come from? Why is Australian nationalism associated with a certain male type? Why have indigenous women tended to identify with ‘womanist’ rather than ‘feminist’ movements? Why do women still tend to be judged at either end of a moral continuum?