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| This course is not
about women only nor is it only about sex. Rather it
is about the cultural and legal
attributes that have come to be associated with the
biological facts of sexual identification. The course
explores legal rules and practices that make classifications
both on an individual's sex (whether one is a man or woman)
and also on the social consequences of sex - that is
gender. The deeper one gets into the sex-gender
distinction, the more problematic the assumed independence
of the terms seems to be. Much about sex that is taken
for granted as biologically determine turns out to have
social dimensions hidden from view. Moreover, even
when the state refers in its laws unambiguously to men, or
women, its decision to do so are political or cultural
acts. These acts both reflect and cultivate certain
gendered understandings and relationships. The course is really about these
decisions. |
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