[V1001] Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies

I think Prof. Kessler-Harris is one the best professors I've ever had. Yes, it's a lot of reading and writing. Get over it. Why would you go to Columbia if you couldn't handle hard work? Honestly, I learned so much!

Also, it is clear that she loves the topic. She also know so much about it. She is not just rambing on about a bunch of facts. The title of the course does not come off with that tone most people assume is annoyingly feminist and male-bashing. But it's not like that. It's about giving recognition to women from all sorts of backgrounds (nationality, age, race, etc) by showing they do have a voice. It's amazing to see how much has changed/how little has changed over the years.

Also, keep in mind the course is called women and gender, so towards the end of the course you also talk about the difference between sex and gender. One of the things I found most interesting is how our laws are worded to carefully pick and choose who gets which rights... rights that should be human rights.

Every class I left, I left in awe as to what I had just heard. If you are ready for a challenging semester, but one that leaves you amazed time after time, definitely take her class.

On a final note, for all the guys out there, would you please also get interested in this course? Thanks.

I disagree with the other review of Fall 2008's Intro to Women and Gender Studies. Perhaps because I did agree with many of the topics, I never felt pushed to adhere to a particular opinion. I felt that Professor Tadiar, Professor Kessler-Harris and the many TAs brought very different perspectives to the class. Both of these Professors are incredibly experienced in this field and offer great insight from very different background: Kessler-Harris from the history of the movement, and Tadiar about the more recent, international movement of Feminism. Despite their accomplishments, I found the lecture somewhat boring at times, but it was enhanced when I did the readings on time. My discussion section could be incredibly frustrating at times, but also enlightening because we did have a lot of debate. My TA (Minnie Chiu) was unbelievably available outside of class, and she talked me through my large essays. She also wrote back two pages typed responding to one of my essays. Although we did hop around to various topics, an Intro class on such a broad topic probably necessitates that. This class truly changed the way I see everything, and sparked a deep interest for me in Women's Studies and Feminism.

I entered this class expecting to learn about the feminist movement... typical women's studies stuff. Instead, we ended up with a jumble of different lessons on really random topics. I'm not saying that I didn't learn anything useful, I just felt that the class had such potential and that the professors focused on the wrong things instead of teaching the basics. The reading was HEAVY and, I felt, highly theoretical most of the time, which did more to obscure what we were talking about than to enlighten us, making whatever the topic was much less relateable, as if feminism is something only accessible to the hyper-intellectual. In addition, I felt that the entire course worked under the assumption that everyone in the room held the same very liberal political beliefs-- there was very little room for dissension in that respect. For me, this kind of defeated the whole point of being able to openly discuss/debate, etc. I feel like there was a lot of capitalist bashing, etc, and if we wanted to get good grades on our papers, we had to pretend to adhere to more socialist ideas. Overall, I left the class feeling more confused and frustrated than I was going in-- they could have done a MUCH better job. It's a shame.

Also, Kessler-Harris was strict about laptop usage (even though we couldnt get wireless in the classroom), so we had to take all notes by hand.