Course Highlight: Gendered Resistance, Riots, and Rebellions
Brand new to Chatham this fall is a course called Gendered Resistance, Riots, and Rebellions that is as exciting as its name. I (Abigail Kneuss ‘22), a student currently in the course, sat down with the instructor, Dr. Jessie Ramey, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Director of the Chatham Women’s Institute, to highlight a few of its great features. Check them out below—
Dr. Jessie Ramey, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Director of the Chatham University Women’s Institute
(she/her)
What is this course about?
This is a brand new class. It’s never been taught at Chatham, and to my knowledge hasn’t been taught anywhere in the United States. What we’re really doing is taking a look at riots, rebellions, and revolutions and thinking about them as forms of resistance through a gendered lens. We are taking a romp through history and looking primarily at late 20th and early 21st century efforts addressing systems of inequality. So, we look a lot at inequality and how people have responded to it.
How did this class come about?
I’m really interested in the history of social movements and you really can’t tell the history of social movements without talking about women or gender-diverse people. They fill the ranks of nearly every social movement throughout our history. Thinking about that through an intersectional lens, we try to understand the intersection of gender with other systems of power and the way that people have resisted through social movements. It’s really a big interest of mine and why I wanted to think through this with students.
What makes this course so unique?
I think that there are history classes that try to take a look at the history of revolutions and rebellions, but they haven’t looked at it through a gendered lens. Also, since this class is new, the students and I are truly building it together. Each student takes turns leading the class for a day and they’ve really made that aspect of the course their own. Including students in the design of the class is also a form of resistance in itself to the typical way that courses are developed. We are also studying a couple of brand new monographs from historians in the class that were published in the past year. Our students have had the chance to speak with two of the authors of our texts and they are currently working through a piece of scholarship in the form of graphic nonfiction.
What do students gain from this class?
I hope that students will gain some appreciation of history and the way that it can help us understand our current moment and contemporary movements to address systems of power. [I hope they’ll also gain] an understanding of the role of gender in these movements, particularly how gender intersects with other identities.
How does this course embody Chatham's values?
This class highlights how you truly can’t study this kind of thing without looking at women leaders because women leaders are everywhere in movements for change. We tackle women’s leadership head-on by looking at individual women and their leadership within social movements. We also look at gender equity by looking at how gender is socially constructed and the efforts that have been done to reach gender equity.
What is your favorite aspect of the course?
I have so many favorites! One of the things that I am really enjoying is reading these new books with students. Right now, we’re wrestling with a piece of graphic non-fiction and that kind of thing doesn’t usually have a place on my syllabus as a historian. I’m really enjoying thinking about how to teach that and how students are handling something that’s not typical for this kind of a classroom setting.
Students should take this course if…
We are hoping to offer this course on a regular basis through the Women’s and Gender Studies program and students should take this class if they’re interested in inequality, where inequality comes from, and what to do about it.
To learn more about Chatham’s commitment to promoting Women’s Leadership and Gender Equity, go here. For more information about the Women’s and Gender Studies program, go here.