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What is Gender? 

From Second Wave Feminism to Anti-Queer Backlash

The concept of gender, as distinguished from biological sex, initially emerged to articulate the feminist view that patriarchy results from socially constructed rather than innate differences between men and women. While precipitating a transformative shift in normative gender roles and cultural acceptance for LGBTQ people, the emergence of gender also destabilized our collective understanding of family, identity, and bodily autonomy. This lecture will equip attendees with the history and terminology to navigate current debates around gender with a focus on recent Iowa legislation restricting both LGBTQ rights and reproductive freedom.

Faculty Member: Clara Montague, English, Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS)
Discussion Date: Thursday, March 14, 2 p.m. CT

Meet Clara Montague

Clara Montague

Clara Montague is a lecturer in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at Grinnell College as well as a doctoral candidate in Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her dissertation project, Women’s Studies Worldwide, examines the transnational history of this interdisciplinary field through digital cartography, literary analysis, and archival research. Working at the intersection of transnational feminisms and feminist pedagogies, Clara teaches classes at Grinnell including Intro to GWSS, Critical Race Feminisms, and Queering Digital Humanities. Her other interests include critical theory, art activism, writing pedagogy, and abolitionist feminisms. She previously worked as a copyeditor for the journal Feminist Studies and spent the 2013-2014 school year as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Turkey.

Clara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies and English from Grinnell College (2013) and earned her Master of Arts in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland (2017).


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Thursday March 14
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
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