GS40060 Reproductive Justice and Sexua

Academic Year 2018/2019

The focus of this course is the gendered body and the way in which historical, social and political meanings have been attached to sexuality and reproduction in the human body. This course examines the relationship between gender, sexuality and reproduction as developed within feminism and gender theory and as understood in the Irish context. Theories of the body and reproduction will be explored as well as debates on reproductive technologies and disability and different gender studies and feminist theories will be examinedWhile the link between gender and reproduction has been the focus of significant theoretical and analytical work in the Irish and global contexts, the importance of powerful discourses on sexuality has received less attention. An exploration of how dominant norms about sexuality are reflected in gender relations is critical to understanding contemporary society. This class will explore what we assume to be 'normal' women's and men’s sexuality and how the construction of gender changes, and is changed by, new socio-cultural contexts.

Focusing on sexuality and reproduction in the context of 'bio-politics' highlights the interrelationship between gender roles and gender identities. Categories of motherhood, and the ways in which representations of maternal and reproductive bodies are constructed, will be examined. We will consider how women's experiences in their bodies are mediated by changes in medical theory and practice, by modern technological developments, and by recent transformations in family structure, social function and by changes in access to politics, education and work outside the home. Using feminist and gender theories, cultural constructions of the body will be examined, and in particular, discourses and ideologies of women’s embodiment, as well as issues of power and authority, in the context of the gendered body, will be interrogated.