Women's Studies Syllabus

1 What is Feminism? 15 ch.

1. Foundations and Definitions
2. The First Wave: Suffrage and Legal Personhood
3. The Second Wave: Personal Politics and Systemic Change
4. The Third Wave: Identity, Intersectionality, and Inclusion
5. The Fourth Wave: Digital Activism and #MeToo
6. Major Feminist Theories and Frameworks
7. Feminism and the Body
8. Feminism, Race, and Intersecting Oppressions
9. Feminism and Gender Beyond the Binary
10. Feminism in the Workplace and Economy
11. Feminism and Family
12. Global Feminism and Human Rights
13. Feminism, Media, and Representation
14. Anti-Feminism and Backlash
15. The Future of Feminism

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2 Women's Rights: Centuries of Struggle 14 ch.

1. Before Feminism: Women's Legal Status in Early America
2. The Birth of Organized Feminism: Seneca Falls and Beyond
3. The Long Road to Suffrage
4. Beyond the Vote: First Wave Achievements
5. The Quiet Years and Seeds of Revival: 1920–1960
6. The Second Wave: Women's Liberation
7. Reproductive Rights: The Battle Over Women's Bodies
8. Workplace Equality: Breaking the Glass Ceiling
9. Intersectionality: Race, Class, and Feminism
10. Third Wave and Beyond: New Generations of Feminism
11. #MeToo and the Reckoning Over Sexual Violence
12. Women in Politics: Representation and Power
13. Global Perspectives: Women's Rights Around the World
14. The Current Moment: Progress, Backlash, and Unfinished Business

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3 Women in American Politics 15 ch.

1. Women in Early American Political Life Before Suffrage
2. After the Vote: Why Suffrage Did Not Lead to Political Power
3. The First Women Elected to the United States Congress
4. How Political Parties Have Controlled Women's Access to Power
5. Campaign Finance and the Gender Gap in Political Fundraising
6. How the Media Covers Women Running for Office
7. The Likability Trap: Why Women Candidates Are Judged Differently
8. Women of Color and the Double Bind in American Politics
9. The Glass Cliff: Why Women Lead When Failure Is Likely
10. Women as Governors and Executives in the United States
11. Women on the Supreme Court and the Judiciary
12. Backlash Politics: Organized Resistance to Women in Power
13. Where Gender Parity Exists in American Politics and Why
14. How Other Democracies Achieved Political Parity for Women
15. What Real Political Parity Would Require in the United States

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4 Eleanor Roosevelt 1 ch.

A standalone biographical chapter within the Franklin D. Roosevelt biography, examining Eleanor Roosevelt's life, activism, and legacy on her own terms.

1. Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Her Own

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5 Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Biography 15 ch.

1. Brooklyn, Class, and the Forces That Shaped a Future Justice
2. Harvard, Columbia, and What It Meant to Study Law as a Woman in the 1950s
3. Motherhood, Career, and the Double Burden That Became a Source of Argument
4. The ACLU Women's Rights Project and the Decision to Change the Law Case by Case
5. The Thurgood Marshall Model: How Ginsburg Built a Legal Strategy of Incremental Persuasion
6. The Cases That Changed the Law: Reed, Frontiero, Weinberger, and the Architecture of Equal Protection
7. From Advocate to Judge: The DC Circuit and the Shift from Arguing to Deciding
8. The Clinton Appointment and What It Took to Put a Women's Rights Litigator on the Supreme Court
9. Judicial Philosophy: How Ginsburg Approached the Constitution, Precedent, and the Pace of Change
10. Majority Opinions That Moved the Law: VMI, Ledbetter, and the Reach of Equal Protection
11. The Dissents That Became Her Legacy: Shelby County, Hobby Lobby, and Speaking to the Future
12. One of Nine: Gender Dynamics on the Supreme Court and What Changes When Women Are in the Room
13. Notorious RBG: How a Legal Strategist Became a Pop Culture Icon and What That Visibility Accomplished and Obscured
14. Critiques, Limits, and the Cost of Incrementalism: What Ginsburg's Approach Could Not Reach
15. What Ginsburg Changed, What Remains Vulnerable, and What Her Strategy Teaches About Law as a Tool of Social Change

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6 Intersectionality: Race, Gender, and Power 15 ch.

1. Why Single-Axis Feminism Fails to Explain Real Women's Lives
2. How Kimberlé Crenshaw and the Combahee River Collective Built Intersectional Theory
3. Black Women and the Origins of Double Exclusion in America
4. Latina Feminism and the Politics of Language, Labor, and Citizenship
5. Indigenous Women, Erasure, and the Feminism That Colonialism Forgot
6. Asian American Women and the Stereotypes That Render Power Invisible
7. How Class and Economic Stratification Divide Women Against Each Other
8. Disability, Gender, and the Body That Feminism Overlooked
9. Immigration Status as a Tool of Gender Control
10. How Policing and Criminalization Target Women at the Intersection of Race and Gender
11. Healthcare Disparities That Exist Only at the Intersections
12. Media Invisibility and Who Gets to Represent Women's Experience
13. Why Policy Built on a Single Axis Fails the Women Who Need It Most
14. How Intersectionality Has Been Co-opted, Diluted, and Weaponized
15. What Building a Genuinely Inclusive Feminist Movement Would Require

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7 Queer Feminism and Gender 15 ch.

1. Sex, Gender, and the Distinction That Changed Everything
2. Feminism and LGBTQ+ History: Shared Roots, Divergent Paths
3. Lesbian Feminism: The Movement That Challenged Heterosexual Assumptions Within Feminism Itself
4. Trans Feminism: What Happens When Feminism Takes Gender Self-Determination Seriously
5. Queer Theory: Destabilizing the Categories That Organize Power
6. TERFs, SWERFs, and the Policing of Feminist Boundaries
7. Identity as Strategy: How Categories That Liberate Can Also Constrain
8. Legal Recognition: Marriage, Gender Markers, and the Limits of Rights-Based Inclusion
9. Healthcare Beyond Gatekeeping: Trans Medicine, Reproductive Justice, and Bodily Autonomy
10. Visibility and Its Discontents: Queer Representation in Media and Culture
11. Queer Youth, Schools, and the Battle Over Who Children Are Allowed to Be
12. Global Queer Movements: Solidarity Across Radically Different Legal and Cultural Contexts
13. Coalition Without Erasure: Building Solidarity Across Difference
14. The Anti-Gender Movement: How Opposition to Queer and Trans Rights Became a Global Political Strategy
15. What Feminism Becomes When It Stops Policing Gender

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8 Women and the Workplace 16 ch.

1. How Women Worked Before Industrialization Changed the Economy
2. Factories, Exploitation, and the First Women Who Fought Back
3. How Office Work Became Women's Work and Lost Status Because of It
4. Women in World War II and the Forced Return to Domesticity
5. The Myth of Meritocracy in the American Workplace
6. Occupational Segregation: Why Entire Professions Lose Value When Women Fill Them
7. The Motherhood Penalty and How It Shapes Women's Careers
8. The Gender Pay Gap: What the Data Actually Shows and What It Hides
9. Harassment, Power, and the Structures That Protect Abusers at Work
10. Care Work and the Invisibility of Labor That Holds Society Together
11. Corporate Feminism and the Limits of Leaning In
12. The Manosphere and Organized Backlash Against Women in the Workplace
13. How the Gig Economy Creates New Forms of Gender Inequality
14. Remote Work and Whether It Helps or Hurts Women in the Workforce
15. Why Unionization Has Always Mattered More for Women Workers
16. What Structural Reform of the American Workplace Would Actually Require

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9 Women in Science and Technology 15 ch.

1. Who Was Allowed to Do Science: How Women Were Systematically Excluded from Knowledge Production
2. The Women Who Were Erased: Hidden Contributions That Built Modern Science and Technology
3. How Computing Went from Women's Work to Boys' Club — and What That Reversal Reveals
4. The Meritocracy Myth: How Objectivity Rhetoric in STEM Masks Structural Bias
5. The Pipeline Metaphor and Why It Misdiagnoses the Problem of Women Leaving STEM
6. How Classrooms Teach Girls They Don't Belong in Science Before They Ever Reach a Lab
7. Hostile Climates: Sexual Harassment, Isolation, and the Culture That Pushes Women Out of STEM
8. The Pay Gap, the Patent Gap, and Who Gets Credit for Scientific and Technical Work
9. Tech Bro Ideology: How Silicon Valley Built a Culture of Exclusion and Called It Disruption
10. How AI Systems Encode and Automate Gender Bias at Scale
11. Venture Capital, Startup Culture, and Why Women's Ideas Are Systematically Underfunded
12. Global STEM Access: Who Gets to Do Science When Education and Resources Are Unequally Distributed
13. Women Who Built Their Own Networks: Resistance, Mentorship, and Alternative Institutions
14. What Policy Interventions Actually Work — and Which Are Performative Gestures
15. What Science and Technology Would Look Like If the People Building Them Reflected the People Using Them

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10 Motherhood, Family, and Gender Roles 15 ch.

1. The Myth of Maternal Instinct and Why Biology Does Not Dictate Who Cares for Children
2. The Family Has Never Been One Thing: How Households Have Changed Across History and Culture
3. Marriage as an Economic Contract: What the Institution Was Actually Designed to Do
4. The Disappearing Self: How Motherhood Is Expected to Replace Rather Than Expand a Woman's Identity
5. Why Fatherhood Is Optional and Motherhood Is Mandatory: The Asymmetry That Shapes Everything
6. Single Mothers and the Political Mythology of the Broken Home
7. Parental Leave, Childcare, and Welfare: How Policy Punishes Mothers While Claiming to Support Families
8. Why the Work of Raising Children Is Not Valued as Work — and What That Reveals About Whose Labor Counts
9. The Invisible Shift: Emotional Labor, Household Management, and the Work That Never Appears on a Resume
10. The Myth of Choice: How Economic Pressure, Social Expectations, and Policy Failures Make Motherhood Feel Inevitable
11. The Good Mother Myth: How Media, Religion, and Culture Police What Motherhood Is Supposed to Look Like
12. Whose Family Is Normal: How Race Has Shaped Which Families Are Supported and Which Are Punished
13. Queer Families and the Proof That Caregiving Has Never Required a Mother and a Father
14. The Other End of Caregiving: Why Elder Care Falls on Daughters and What It Costs Them
15. What Families Could Be If Society Stopped Pretending There Was Only One Right Way

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11 Women and Violence 15 ch.

1. What Gender-Based Violence Is and Why It Must Be Understood as Structural
2. Domestic Violence: The Myths That Keep the System Failing
3. Sexual Assault: What the Data Actually Shows Versus What People Believe
4. Why Sexual Violence Is About Power and Control, Not Desire
5. How Law Enforcement Fails Victims of Gender-Based Violence
6. Courts, Credibility, and Why the Legal System Is Built to Doubt Women
7. Economic Dependency and Why Women Cannot Simply Leave
8. Trafficking, Exploitation, and the Violence Hidden in Plain Sight
9. Online Abuse and the Digital Escalation of Gender-Based Violence
10. Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War and State Control
11. How Culture Normalizes Violence Against Women Before It Happens
12. Which Women's Violence Counts: Race, Visibility, and Whose Harm Is Ignored
13. What Actually Prevents Gender-Based Violence Before It Occurs
14. Survivor-Centered Justice and Alternatives to the Criminal System
15. What Real Accountability for Gender-Based Violence Would Require

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12 Women's Health and Body Politics 15 ch.

1. How Medicine Was Built Around the Male Body and Why Women Still Pay the Price
2. Why Women's Pain Is Dismissed, Undertreated, and Disbelieved by the Medical System
3. The Bodies They Experimented On: How Medical Progress Was Built on the Exploitation of Women
4. The Medicalization of Reproduction: How the Healthcare System Took Control of Women's Bodies
5. Who Controls Childbirth: How the Medicalization of Birth Removed Women from Decisions About Their Own Bodies
6. Who Controls Contraception: Research, Access, and Why There Is Still No Male Pill
7. From Hysteria to Overmedication: How Psychiatry Has Pathologized Women's Emotions and Experiences
8. Why Black Women Die: Maternal Mortality, Pain Dismissal, and the Racial Architecture of American Healthcare
9. How the Economics of Healthcare — Insurance, Cost, and Access — Affect Women Differently Than Men
10. Disabled Women and the Medical Paternalism That Controls Rather Than Serves
11. Weight, Eating Disorders, and the Medical System's Role in Policing Women's Bodies
12. Trans Healthcare and the Politicization of Gender-Affirming Medicine
13. Bodily Autonomy Beyond Abortion: Forced Cesareans, Pregnancy Policing, and the Law's Claim on Women's Bodies
14. Menopause, Aging, and the Medical System That Loses Interest in Women After Reproduction
15. What Healthcare Designed for Women Would Actually Look Like

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13 How Abortion Became a Political Wedge 9 ch.

1. Before the Partisan Divide
2. How the Parties Chose Sides
3. The Courts as Battleground
4. Single-Issue Voting and Electoral Impact
5. Money, Mobilization, and Activist Networks
6. The War of Words: Framing and Messaging
7. Media Coverage and Public Opinion
8. How Other Democracies Handle Abortion Politics
9. The Polarization Feedback Loop

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14 Gender, Media, and Representation 15 ch.

1. How Media Constructs Gender: The Stories That Shape What Women Are Allowed to Be
2. The Male Gaze and Who the Camera Has Always Served
3. Early Film and the Gender Archetypes That Still Define Hollywood
4. Advertising, Objectification, and the Commercial Value of Women's Bodies
5. How News Organizations Frame Women as Subjects Rather Than Sources
6. Why Women Are Rarely Quoted as Experts and What That Absence Teaches the Public
7. The Sexualization Trap: Why Authority and Attractiveness Are Treated as Opposites for Women
8. Race, Representation, and Which Women Get to Be Seen in Media
9. How LGBTQ+ Women Have Been Portrayed, Erased, and Reclaimed in Media
10. Reality Television and the Gendered Spectacle of Reward and Punishment
11. Who Controls Production: Ownership, Gatekeeping, and the Business of Representation
12. Social Media Algorithms and the Automated Reinforcement of Gender Stereotypes
13. Influencer Culture and the New Economics of Performing Womanhood
14. Violence Against Women as Entertainment and What Audiences Are Being Taught
15. What It Would Take to Build a Media-Literate Society That Sees Through Gendered Representation

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15 Global Women's Rights 15 ch.

1. Universal Rights Versus Cultural Context: The Central Tension of Global Women's Rights
2. Why Girls' Access to Education Remains the Most Powerful Predictor of Gender Equality
3. Child Marriage: Where Poverty, Tradition, and Gender Inequality Converge
4. Reproductive Autonomy Around the World: Who Controls Women's Bodies and Why
5. How Global Supply Chains Depend on the Exploitation of Women's Labor
6. War, Displacement, and What Happens to Women's Rights When States Collapse
7. Secular, Religious, and Customary Legal Systems and How They Define Women's Legal Personhood
8. Religion and Women's Rights: Oppression, Liberation, and the Debate Within Every Tradition
9. Western Feminism's Blind Spots and the Damage of Assuming One Model Fits All
10. Grassroots Women's Movements That Succeeded Without Western Funding or Permission
11. NGOs and the Development Industry: When Help Becomes Its Own Form of Control
12. Migration, Gender, and the Specific Vulnerabilities of Women Who Cross Borders
13. Climate Change and Why Its Worst Effects Fall Disproportionately on Women
14. International Law and Whether Legal Frameworks Like CEDAW Actually Protect Women
15. Solidarity Without Saviorism: What Genuine Global Feminist Partnership Would Require

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