This is a highly engaging, discursive Master seminar on the relationship between gender and politics/public policies from a comparative perspective. The seminar in English mainly focuses on empirical studies of gender and politics, but touches upon the normative regularly. The approach is to be as comparative internationally as possible, but - out of lack of time - it will be centred on European studies with considerable outreach to other regions of the world. Fridays, 14.15 to 15.45 on campus in LK053. First meeting 13 October 2023.

We will use a broad, inclusive approach towards gender including all groups. The course will not be about sexual orientation or sexuality, even though these topics will be touched upon in passing.

 I am excited to be teaching this course. It grew out of two experiences, from a few sessions on gender and political psychology last year and from my 2-year stint as an expert in a commission on the future of gender studies in Germany for the Wissenschaftsrat. Occasionally, gender is also central to my own research. I am fascinated by the multiple relationships between gender and politics because it pervades all spheres of the political and because gender is such a salient topic in contemporary discourse.

 The seminar is capped at 30 participants. Please register by sending an e-mail to goerres-lehre@uni-due.de by 12 October the latest. It is open to all students in political science Master programmes (IBEP; DevGov, PM, Tuv), PhD students and international exchange students. Students from other disciplines can request individual admission.

There is no component of remote teaching, only on-campus teaching. Students have to attend every session and must not take part remotely. Active preparation for and participation in class discussions on campus are part of your credit load. Whenever you miss one session, you have to excuse yourself in advance with an acceptable reason and submit an alternative task substituting for your missed class participation within 14 days. Occasionally, we will have drop-in talks by experts and activists via Zoom into our on-campus session.

 Questions that we will deal with

• Which concepts of gender are politically relevant?
• Why are some public policies gender-neutral in design, but gendered in uptake?
• Which welfare regimes treats gender groups most equally and why?
• Why do voters on the right want to believe in binary gender only?
• Can legislation push back discrimination by gender?
• Why are paths to political office gendered?
• Who engages for gender rights and why?
• Should women politically represent women, men men and non-binary non-binary?
• In advanced industrial democracies: why were women on the right of men in the 1960s and are on the left of men in the 2020s?
• The gender asterisk: why do discourses about politically correct language exist around how to use gender-sensitive language?
• Why are parts of gender studies so politicised?

Learning outcomes

At the end of this course, students will be able to

• write an English text dealing with a complex issue to a given format and demonstrate critical thinking
• express their own thoughts and review others’ in English discussions
• identify the main concepts, theories and problems in the comparative study of gender and politics
• Prepare, present and critically assess scientific posters

Students are expected to work either 150 hours (5 ECTS), 180 hours (6 ECTS) or 210 hours (7 ECTS). The load depends on the regulation of your programme. It is not possible to take part in the course for less than 5 ECTS. All students must attend all classes or provide alternative pieces of work (24 hours), read the allocated readings each week (about 4 hours per week, 48 hours), prepare a poster presentation for one week (14 hours) and read student thinkpieces for the thinkpiece conference. Those with 5 credits write two thinkpieces, those with 6 credits three thinkpieces, those with 7 credits three larger thinkpieces.