WGS 3290 - Women, Gender, and Business

Credits: 4

This course will explore the nature, scope, and development of women’s relationship to the business world from an interdisciplinary and intersectional perspective. The goal is to examine how business practices and behavior have been shaped by gender norms and ideals, as well as by the experience of, and biases based on, race, ethnicity, class, and gender/sexual identity. Using a feminist analysis, students will study how business has been historically and socially constructed in gendered ways, how job categories became defined in gender and racial terms, as well as the strategies used by women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people of color to resist and overcome obstacles and biases. We will also look at the ways in which entrepreneurship serves as a form of economic activism and a vehicle for marginalized people to provide for themselves economically. Course topics include occupational segregation; the gender pay gap; the glass ceiling, glass escalator, and glass cliff; sexual harassment; Title VII, and affirmative action.
Fulfills: SOSC and D in LS Core.