Course Description: This course explores the impact of urban environments in the United States on women from 1890 to the present. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which cities facilitate and constrain opportunities and roles for women.

Course Prerequisites: WS 110 or WS 150 or AACS 150

Course Objectives:
· to emphasize the current status of scholarship about women in urban studies
· to understand methods of gender analysis as they apply to urban studies
· to facilitate the study of the historical and social construction of gender with particular regards to the ways in which difference among women have impacted women's roles and opportunities

Student Learning Outcomes
· To acquire skills in feminist analysis
· To understand feminist research methods as they apply to urban studies
· To become familiar with women's role in urban policy and community development
· To explore women's current efforts to impact urban environments

Topical Outline of the Course Content
· Introduction: Women and the City
· Issues in Housing: The Architecture of Equality?
· Out of the Dollhouse?: Neighborhoods & Community Building
· Did Women Save the City?: Women in Politics and Public Reform
· Women's Work
· Sex in the City: Women on Their Own
· Feminist Visions for the Future

Teaching Methods and Student Learning Activities
· Student Presentations
· In Class Discussion
· Online Discussion Board
· Research Project

Student Assessment (of student learning outcomes)
· Oral Presentations
· Written Papers
· In class Examinations

Suggested Readings and Texts
· Sarah Deutsch Women and the City: Gender, Power and Space in Boston, (London: Oxford University Press, 2000).
· Mary Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Angeles Neighborhoods. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
· Daphne Spain. How Women Saved the City. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2000).
· Kristine Miranne and Alma Young ed. Gendering the City (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing , 2000)
· Dolores Hayden, Redesigning the American Dream: Gender, Housing, and Family Life (forthcoming 2002).

Additional Bibliography (Supportive texts and other materials)
· Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987)
· Christine Stansell, City of Women : Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987)
· Catharine Stimpson, et al. Women in the American City. ((Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1981)
· Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution (Boston: MIT Press, 1982)
· Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place (Boston: MIT Press, 1997)
· M Christine Boyer, The City of Collective Memory (Boston: MIT Press, 1996)
· Michael Sorkin, ed, Variations on a Theme Park : The New American City and the End of Public Space (New York: Noonday Press, 1992)
· Nancy Naples, ed. Community Activism and Feminist Politics: Organizing Across Race, Class, and Gender (New York: Routledge, 1997)
· Nancy Naples, Grassroots Warriors : Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty (New York: Routledge, 1998)
· Alisse Waterston, Love, Sorrow, and Rage : Destitute Women in a Manhattan Residence (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999)

Preparer's Name and Date: Michelle Moravec, Ph.D. January 17, 2002

Original Departmental Approval Date

Reviser's Name and Date

Departmental Revision Approval Date