Gender, Rights, and Power in History

This subject introduces students to key issues in the history of sex, gender, race, power, and identity. It explores how ideas about masculinity and femininity, race and ethnicity, and sexual identity and desire have changed over time and across cultures. The subject will adopt a global and comparative approach, surveying changing norms about gender, race, sex in different regions of the world over time. Throughout the subject, students will be introduced to the major themes and questions in gender history, including but not limited to: the relationship between science, economics, law and ideas about sexual difference, the intersection of race, class and sex in the construction of identities, and the role of religion, politics, law and the economy in shaping gender hierarchies and sexual norms. Finally, working with a range of primary sources, students will consider how ordinary people have shaped, negotiated and challenged gender, sex and racial identities over time.