402020 Women, Gender and Health (V) (WiSe 2011/2012)

Course Description
This course is an introduction to scholarly debates on the role of gender in the promotion and maintenance of health, as well as prevention and management of disease. Students will learn about gender inequalities in both industrialized and industrializing countries and its intersection with health politics and allocation of health resources.

This course is designed to provide substantive knowledge in major areas of general and reproductive health (e.g. fertility, use of contraceptives, pregnancy, abortion, etc.) with reference to culture-specific social construction of gender. Broadly, the course will illuminate the relationship between the concepts of gender, sexuality and patriarchy in the context of health, human rights and social development. The students will understand how gender inequality is built into the structure of societies, how societies actively construct the system of gender relations in day-to-day life, and how gender inequality interacts with other forms of social inequality and consequent health inequality.

Students' learning objectives:
The course will help the students to:
• identify relationship between gender and health in a particular population;
• differentiate how a particular health development program/intervention might impact different gender groups differently in a particular society;
• evaluate a health development program/intervention along gender dimensions; and,
• produce a gender analysis of a population and construct a health-promoting intervention that will both promote health and gender equity.

Requirements for participation, required level

No

Bibliography

Will be suggested in the class