Reproductive Justice

Curriculum guideline

Effective Date:
Return to Course
Print Guideline
Course
GSWS 3101
Discontinued
No
Course code
GSWS 3101
Descriptive
Reproductive Justice
Department
Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies
Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Credits
3.00
Start date
End term
Not Specified
PLAR
No
Semester length
15 Weeks
Max class size
35
Contact hours

2 hours lecture/week

2 hours seminar/week

Method(s) of instruction
Lecture
Seminar
Learning activities

The course will employ a number of instructional methods to accomplish its objectives, including some or all of the following:

  • Small and large group discussions
  • Audio-visual materials
  • Internet exploration
  • Interviews
  • Seminar presentations
  • Instructor’s comments on students’ written work
  • Lectures (including guest lectures)
Course description
Reproductive Justice explores ongoing struggles to define, medicalize, technologize, and/or constrain reproductive bodies. It examines representations of reproductive bodies in North American political, social, and cultural contexts, and takes an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach to narratives, issues, practices, and arguments regarding reproductive justice. Topics may include contraception, abortion, fertility, normative kinship, childbirth, child rearing, loss, age, familial environment, and access. Multi-media representations and portrayals of reproduction will be researched and investigated with attention to race, gender, heteronormativity, and social activism.
Course content

A sample course outline may include the following topics.

Note: Content may vary according to the instructor’s selection of topics.

  • Introduction to Reproductive Justice
  • Reproductive Histories
  • Theories of Reproduction
  • Social Determinants of Health
  • Reproductive Loss
  • Birth
  • Parenting and Normativity
  • Opting Out
  • Reproduction and [Dis]ability
  • Reproduction in Science Fiction
  • Age
  • Post-Reproductive Life
  • Geographies of Reproduction
  • Reproductive Activism
Learning outcomes

During this course successful students, will develop the ability to:

  1. Engage in critical debates in reproductive health from intersectional, queer, and feminist theoretical perspectives
  2. Interpret social, cultural, economic, and political changes within reproductive justice movements
  3. Analyse structural barriers to health and wellness in relation to reproduction
  4. Locate, examine, and engage in intersections of gender, race, and [dis]ability in health-related social activism locally and across the globe
  5. Apply interdisciplinary approaches to research in issues of reproductive health
Means of assessment

Evaluation will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy and will include both formative and summative components. Evaluation will be based on some or all of the following:

  • Journal reflection
  • Participating in class discussion
  • Essays
  • Research papers
  • Oral presentations (individual and/or group)
  • Community life research
  • Collaborative creative projects
  • Exams

A sample evaluation scheme may include:

  • Course contribution 20%
  • Oral presentation 15%
  • Research Proposal 15%
  • Term Paper 30%
  • Final exam 20%
  • TOTAL: 100%

 

Textbook materials

A list of required texts and materials is provided on the instructor’s Course Syllabus, which is available to students at the beginning of each semester. An instructor’s course reader may be required.

 

Textbooks may include:

 

Tanya Saroj Bakhru, Reproductive Justice and Sexual Rights: Transnational Perspectives (UK: Routledge 2019).

 

Stephanie Paterson et al. (eds.), Fertile Ground: Exploring Reproduction in Canada (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s 2014).

 

Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. (New York: WW Norton and Company, 1985).

 

Loretta J Ross and Rickie Solinger. Reproductive Justice: An Introduction. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017).

Prerequisites

Two GSWS courses (six credits) or permission of the instructor