WGST 321.01 Women, Globization, & Migration
CRN 16273, Online with Scheduled Online Meetings, Thursdays 4PM-6:45PM
Dr. Malia Womack
Women are vulnerable to poverty and commonly lack access to adequate social, cultural, institutional, and material resources necessary for survival. The collective identity “woman” comprises more than half of the world’s population yet is regularly marginalized in local, transnational, and global economies. The collective identity “woman” is also internally diverse. Many women endure compounded oppression (which makes them more vulnerable to impoverishment) related to identity traits including but not limited to sexuality, gender expression, sex, race, skin color, languages, age, geographic location, education, familial relationships, and gender-based violence. This course explores the experiences of diverse and intersectional women in an increasingly globalized world and in various geographic locations. In this class students will consider how gender discrimination, intersectionality, migration, economies, and globalization are deeply and intimately related. Students will reflect on their own positionality within global power hierarchies and will engage in the course material in a self-reflexive and investigative manner.
WGST 321.02 Latin American Feminists & Human Rights
CRN 16278, Online Exclusively
Dr. Malia Womack
International human rights are designed based on the ideology that all people deserve basic rights because of their shared humanity. However, Latin American feminists commonly argue that the international human rights processes are rife with inequalities at the local, transnational, and global levels, are not effectively enforced, are resources for Western imperialism, and are Western and male centric. This class problematizes human rights failures. In particular, the class explores how human rights treaties and operations (in their present form) cannot adequately address the complexity of lived experiences, diversity, and intersectionality. This course documents how feminists throughout Latin America have mobilized against colonialism, poverty, gender discrimination, and other inequalities by engaging in domestic as well as transnational activism around international human rights. Latin American feminists have unrelentingly promoted equality and are transforming how human rights are understood throughout Latin America and the world.