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

This course considers the nature and impact of feminism over the past century with an emphasis both on differences around the world in struggles for women’s rights and differences in feminist strategies and visions of the future. Feminism/s have long been differentiated, for example, by whether they utilize liberal/reformist or ‘revolutionary’ methods (as in Leftist and post-1960s western ‘radical’ feminism); and these varying styles still resonate in contemporary feminisms such as ‘postcolonial/ Third World’ and also ecological feminisms.

Topics in the course include: women’s suffrage; Leftist feminisms; Women’s Liberation and the Sexual Revolution; lesbian feminisms, from ‘radical’ to ‘queer’; ‘control of our bodies’ or the right to contraception and abortion, and struggle against involuntary sterilization, as well as rights connected with new reproductive technologies; violence against women; women and development; women/gender and nationalism; feminists on religion; ecofeminism; and feminism in popular culture (eg., theatre, Fantasy/Science Fiction writing, and pop/rock music).