WGST 2050: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this Peabody Award-winning documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the highest office in the land. Shunned by the political establishment and the media, this longtime champion of marginalized Americans asked for support from people of color, women, gays, and young people newly empowered to vote at the age of 18. Chisholm's bid for an equal place on the presidential dais generated strong, even racist opposition. Yet her challenge to the status quo and her message about exercising the right to vote struck many as progressive and positive.

Launching its first trailblazing issue in 1972 and still publishing today, Ms. magazine revolutionized the feminist movement, igniting provocative conversations about issues that impact women, from politics to harassment, race, sex, and abortion. A three-part film directed by filmmakers Salima Koroma, Alice Gu, and Cecilia Aldarondo, Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print selects iconic cover stories to explore the complexities of creating a magazine that was unafraid to wrestle with challenging, and often polarizing, issues.

The struggle for Muslim women’s emancipation is often portrayed stereotypically as a showdown between Western and Islamic values, but Arab feminism has existed for more than a century. This groundbreaking documentary recounts Arab feminism’s largely unknown story, from its taboo-shattering birth in Egypt by feminist pioneers up through viral Internet campaigns by today’s tech-savvy young activists during the Arab Spring. Moving from Tunisia to Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, filmmaker and author Feriel Ben Mahmoud tracks the progress of Arab women in their long march to assert their full rights and achieve empowerment.

Kim was uncomfortable in his own skin when he was young. Raised a girl, his childhood was full of traumatic experiences. Later in life, he thought he might be gay, but the lesbian community didn't feel right. After diving headfirst into all sorts of queer reading material, Kim came to the ultimate decision that he was meant to be a man, and began the transformation process. Interweaving insightful interviews with LGBTQ activists like Carmen Carrera ("RuPaul's Drag Race"), Buck Angel (a famous female-to-male adult entertainer), and Dan Savage, Finding Kim follows our titular character through his day-to-day life to his eventual life-changing surgery as he becomes who he always felt he was under the surface. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Nashville Film Festival.

Nerdy women - the "hidden half" of fan culture - open up about their lives in the world of conventions, video games, and other rife-with-misogyny pop culture touchstones. While geek communities have recently risen to prominence, very little attention is paid to nerdy women. Filmmaker Gina Hara, struggling with her own geek identity, explores the issue with a cast of women who live geek life up to the hilt: A feminist geek blogger, a convention-trotting cosplayer, a professional gamer, a video-game designer, and a NASA engineer. Nominated for Best Documentary at the Fantasia Film Festival. Official Selection at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

In Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, the Vida/Sida Cacica Pageant brings together members of the Puerto Rican community to celebrate its transgender participants. I Am the Queen follows Bianca, Julissa and Jolizza as they prepare for the pageant under the guidance of Ginger Valdez, an experienced transgender from the neighborhood. These trans women share stories of their transition, their relatives’ varying reactions, and how they find support from within the community. Official Selection at the Chicago Latino Film Festival

In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on the South Side of Chicago where seven women who were part of a clandestine network were arrested. Using code names, fronts, and safe houses to protect themselves and their work, the accused had built an underground network for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions. They called themselves "Jane." Offering first-hand accounts from the women at the center of the group, many speaking on the record for the first time, The Janes tells the revelatory story of a group of unlikely outlaws.

The Mask You Live In follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity. Pressured by the media, their peer group, and even the adults in their lives, our protagonists confront messages encouraging them to disconnect from their emotions, devalue authentic friendships, objectify and degrade women, and resolve conflicts through violence. These gender stereotypes interconnect with race, class, and circumstance, creating a maze of identity issues boys and young men must navigate to become “real” men.

Like drawing back a curtain to let bright light stream in, Miss Representation uncovers a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see. Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the film exposes how mainstream media contributes to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel powerful herself.

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World is a 2021 Swedish documentary film about Björn Andrésen and the effects of fame thrust upon him when he appeared in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film Death in Venice. Andrésen was just 16 when the film came out and was unprepared for instantly becoming an international celebrity. But the nomination as ”the most beautiful boy in the world” became an epithet that has come to haunt him for the rest of his life. He became an icon all over the world, and just like his role figure Tadzio, the object for men who desire young boys. Today, almost 50 years later, Björn is struggling with addiction and questions like why he never loved himself.

Three young women face seven years in a Russian prison for a satirical performance in a Moscow cathedral. But who is really on trial in a case that has gripped the nation and the world beyond, three young artists or the society they live in? Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival and the SXSW Film Festival.

A compelling documentary about lesbians who discriminate against other lesbians based on gender roles. Director Nneka Onuorah takes an in-depth look at the internalized hetero-normative gender roles that have become all too familiar within the African American lesbian and bisexual community. This film features many queer celebrities, including actress Felicia “Snoop” Pearson from the critically acclaimed HBO drama The Wire, and Lea DeLaria from Orange Is the New Black, living daily with opinions about how identity should be portrayed.

In this award-winning documentary, Cecilia Fire Thunder, the first female President of the Oglala Sioux tribe, defies a proposed South Dakota law criminalizing all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest, by threatening to build a women's clinic on the sovereign territory of the reservation. She ignites a political firestorm that sets off a chain reaction in the lives of three young Lakotas on the Pine Ridge Reservation, forcing each of them to make choices that define who they are and the kind of adults they will become.