WMST3011 The personal is political: Governing marriage and marriage-like relationships

2016

4.5

1 x 8-day intensive workshop per semester

1 of WMST3007, WMST7029, WMST9019 has been successfully completed

As a third-level topic in the Women's Studies major sequence, this topic assumes a familiarity with the kind of knowledge, conceptual understanding and skills that would be acquired by the completion of at least 9 units of second-level topics from the Women's Studies major sequence.

Associate major: Women's Studies

'The personal is political' is one of feminism's most enduring catchphrases, and expresses the idea that personal life involves political choices and responses. This topic considers the trajectory of society's key institution of private life: marriage. In feminist thought--and perhaps more generally--marriage has symbolised relations between the sexes. If we look at how marriage and marriage-like relationships have been characterised and criticised over time, we see a number of historically specific 'snapshots' of gender relations. In this topic, students will develop a detailed understanding of where we stand, at the start of the 21st century, in relation to a social institution which presents itself as timeless. Areas to be investigated include historical and contemporary legal aspects of bona fide or 'certified' marriage; de facto relationships; transsexuality and intersexuality in marriage; 'mixed' or 'interracial' marriage; same-sex marriage and civil unions, 'covenant' marriage, and more.

The topic aims to offer students the opportunity to survey, analyse and evaluate a range of historical and contemporary issues concerning the regulation of 'private life', particularly in relation to affective personal relationships.

Upon successful completion of this topic, students should be able to:

• summarise, identify and differentiate a range of feminist approaches to theorising 'private life' both within and across disciplinary fields
• describe and analyse conjugality (marriage and marriage-like relationships) as an arena of feminist enquiry involving relations of gender, sex, 'race', and religion
• debate the effects of regulating relationships in various ways
• improve their research and communication skills (written and oral) in collaborative, independent, and ethical ways