WGS 3290 - Women and Business

Credits: 4

This course will explore the nature, scope and development of women’s relationship to the business world from an interdisciplinary perspective. The goal is to demonstrate the ways in which gender norms and ideals have historically influenced business practices and opportunities and continue to do so. Using a feminist analysis, students will study how business itself has been historically gendered and socially constructed, how job categories become defined as male or female, how groups attempt to redefine the nature of work and the professions, and the strategies used by women, immigrants, differently gendered people, and people of color and different sexualities to enter the corporate world despite obstacles that may seek/have sought to bar them. The class will explore the dialectical relationship between female workers/entrepreneurs and the economy. While the course’s focus will be largely on the U.S., it will address the impact of the global economy on the nature of work across gender, sexuality, race and class.
Fulfills: Social Science distribution requirement. SOSC requirement and D in LS Core.