New Courses For A Gendered Geography: Teaching Feminist Geography At The University Of Waikato

Abstract

An argument for a transformative feminist geography rather than a less radical gender geography anchors a discussion of two undergraduate courses developed at the University of Waikato. It is suggested that a consideration of gender in geography marginalises feminist scholarship, fosters a goal of androgyny and a politics of equality. As a result, putting gender into geography could well just add ‘women's concerns’ into an unaltered discipline and deflect the feminist focus on women's oppression and patriarchal power. The challenge then, is to create a geography which has feminism at its centre, to formulate an alternative discourse which critiques but also reconstructs the theories, concepts, subjects, politics and pedagogy of the discipline The second year course ‘Women in Australasia: Gendering Space’ and the third year course ‘Feminist Geography: Critique and Construct’ are attempts at creating such a feminist geography.

Curriculum redevelopment: medical geography and women's health

“…prerequisites for, and the implications of, ''engendering the curriculum' (see Johnson, 1990;McDowell, 1992). There is much to be worked out with respect to the need for such curriculum change and the manner in which it takes place.…”

“…The experience reported on below and the institutional context at UCLA suggest that there is strong support for a gender geography. Six faculty from the Department of Geography participated in the seminar and each presented a revised curriculum which leaned more toward an integration of gender in geography than the transformation of geography informed by feminist discourse sought after by Johnson (1990). With respect to the revised and developed medical geography courses (which, by definition, are specific), it is perhaps of no surprise that the more explicitly feminist course (the new/developed course) was offered at the graduate level, while the gendered courses (revised courses) were aimed at undergraduates.…”