“The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren’t any other kind, and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.”
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

What is feminist leadership? How do the dynamics of race, gender, and class impact how we think about and practice leadership? How do we work collectively in the unjust present while moving toward utopia? How do we imagine new worlds and bring them into being? WGS 351: Leading Feminism explores these questions to consider feminist leadership from the inside out, enabling students to identify their own core leadership values and cultivate ways of living and working in alignment with those values. Together, we’ll explore leadership as a location of power and an everyday practice, driven by politics, principles, values, and infrastructure. We’ll also discuss the individual, social, and structural challenges that feminist leaders may face.

While the course will focus on leadership in the context of social justice, political advocacy, and community organizing, students will have the opportunity to explore their leadership interests through experiential learning and independent assignments. In addition to assigned readings and weekly discussion participation, students will engage in experiential learning through working with a mentor or sponsor, creating a political platform, or engaging in policy advocacy, the arts, or community organizing. Course materials will include theories of leadership, leader autobiographies, feminist self-empowerment, manifestos, poems, and fiction. The instructor will arrange several guest speakers, and topics may include DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), conflict resolution, organizational structures, leadership styles, and vulnerability.

Intended Audience:

Women's and Gender Studies majors, Gender and Health majors and minors. Students who have taken at least one WGS class.