Gender can be defined as the socially and culturally produced ideas that are built on perceived differences between females, males, and other identities in a particular society (what anthropologists call a culture’s gender ideology). Although these differences can often be based on a society’s essentializing interpretation of assumed physical sex differences, sex and gender are intertwined in complex ways.

Grounded in anthropological approaches to the study of gender, we will discuss the value and limitations of gender as an analytical category. We will undertake a cross-cultural comparative analysis of the social construction of gender and the multiplicity of masculinities, femininities and non-normative identities that exist within and between cultures, including Yukon Indigenous gender role changes over time. We will focus on evolutionary understandings of sex and gender, interrogate the sex/gender binary, examine gender fluidity, and discuss gender in relation to cross-cultural kinship variants. Through an intersectional framework that focuses on identities and experiences in varied cultural contexts, we will examine the impact that colonialism, sexism, racism, religion, globalization and the state have had on people’s gender roles and identities in parts of the global North and South. Different theoretical approaches to sex and gender will be highlighted and applied to case studies.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of one of the following: ANTH 140, ANTH 210, ANTH 312, FNGA 200, FNGA 209, FNGA 240, PHIL 230, POLI 230, SOCI 203, SOCI 209, or SOCI 227.