Gender Justice

With gender inequities and biases pervasive within and across cultures worldwide, and the global pandemics of gender-based violence and structural violence further intensified by responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, how have individuals, groups, communities, and nations globally fought for (and against) gender justice? How have struggles against gender injustice intersected and conflicted with struggles against racial, ethnic, environmental, health, LGBTQIA+, and other forms of injustice? Gender justice, as is true of justice more broadly, is often discussed in the abstract or as a matter of law, political history, protest movements, enfranchisement, and similar phenomena.

Yet at its core, justice involves individuals and their experiences—both their suffering and their triumphs—most directly accessed through stories.

In this course we explore a range of stories and different forms of storytelling on gender justice, from novels and films to memoirs and personal histories, histories, and creative nonfiction.

In addition to Professor Thornber's recent book on gender justice, we engage with narratives such as: Schuyler Bailar's <i>He/She/They</i>, Margaret Atwood's <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i>, Ito Shiori's <i>Black Box: The Memoir that Sparked Japan's #MeToo Movement</i>, Miriam Toews's <i>Women Talking</i>, Audre Lorde's <i>The Cancer Journals</i>, Cho Nam-joo's <i>Kim Ji-young, Born 1982</i>, and Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa's <i>This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color</i>.

Students are also encouraged to write their own stories on gender and justice.