his course aims to
introduce you to contemporary theorising and debates around sex, gender,
intersex and transgender. You might
think you already know most of what there is to know about these things, so this
course aims to surprise you – to make you think more carefully about some of
the ideas most of us take for granted. So you’ll be asked to think critically about common sense
(hegemonic) ideas that there are just 2 sexes - male and female. You will hear from South Africans who are neither male nor female but who are forced to live as one or the other. You will also be asked to think critically about hegemonic ideas that there are just 2 genders - men/masculinity and women/femininity. We will explore societies in which there are 3 or more genders, and you will hear from South Africans who see themselves as transgender and transsexual.You’ll be asked to consider how gender roles change over time, and how
to make sense of this change. If gender is ‘natural’ then how can it change?
And how can gender be different in different societies?
