The Sociology of Gender: What I Taught & What I Learned

 Gülşah Şenkol

I am a historian, sort of fickle-minded, as most historians are, especially when offered the opportunity to teach topics outside of our usual areas of expertise. It is an occupational hazard. I wonder whether our discipline can sometimes get rather tedious or if we, as historians, struggle to maintain our primary field of interest. It’s probably both. Some of us were formerly engineers or economists, and others were literary scholars before becoming historians—such a welcoming field! But also unforgiving for conventional scholars who expect you to shed your skin to become a historian. I did not shed mine. Instead, layer by layer, I have become an interdisciplinary scholar, particularly in my teaching more than in my research. Therefore, when my dear colleague and friend Murat (Ergin) offered me the chance to teach the Sociology of Gender (SOCI 211) last Fall, I accepted without hesitation. It would be a nice break, I thought, from everything I needed a break from. However, the more courses I taught in Sociology and Literature, the more I found myself drawn back to History. It provides a stable ground to dig in and out of other related disciplines, giving us enough room to explore while minimizing the chances of getting lost.

SOCI 211 is a course that is relatively easy to teach but very difficult to teach exceptionally well. For obvious reasons. Firstly, it encompasses a diverse body of scholarship, and the field is growing exponentially with new cutting-edge research. This rapid growth means constant updates to the curriculum and a yearly revision of the syllabus to ensure that our students have a solid foundation while staying current with the latest developments in the field. Therefore, students not only read the classics, such as the works of Judith Butler, Adrienne Rich, or Saba Mahmood, but also more recent publications of Amia Srinivasan, Evren Savcı, or Rene Almeling, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the subject material.

Second, developing a balanced, comparative, and transnational geographical focus in the curriculum is equally challenging. While students are well-versed in classical sociological theories, they lack familiarity with topics related to the historical sociology of the Middle East. Many sociology majors are unfamiliar with the works of influential sociologists such as Şerif Mardin and have a limited understanding of Middle Eastern history. For example, while students can grasp the intersectionality theory when presented with examples from US history, explaining the theory using examples from feminists such as Sabiha Sertel is more complicated. To address this, I introduced students to Sabiha Sertel by presenting her articles in Cumhuriyet newspaper from 1935, which showcased one of the earliest examples of the theory of intersectionality, predating Kimberlé Crenshaw’s coining of the term by almost 60 years. Additionally, when discussing Silvia Federici and the Wages for Housework campaign, I assigned articles from Ev-İş magazine to provide students with a better understanding of the history of the gendered division of domestic labor in Turkey in the 1940s. The heavy reading load was designed to create a comprehensive and comparative curriculum enriched with the latest secondary scholarship and some primary sources. The students were actively engaged and demonstrated clear interest and understanding, particularly when the focus shifted to the Middle East and incorporated primary sources. This positive feedback has inspired us to consider launching a course on “Women and Gender in the Middle East” in the upcoming semester.

Dynamic, Interactive Seminar Series Featuring Distinguished Guest Scholars from Around the World

The field of Gender and Sexuality Studies in Türkiye’s higher education institutions is mainly located within the humanities and social science departments. Research and teaching in this area are mostly confined to established disciplines such as history or sociology, with limited collaboration among faculty members, resulting in the compartmentalization of the field. Recognizing the increasing need for a new interdisciplinary approach to the curriculum design, students at Koç University have expressed a desire to go beyond discipline-based inquiries and instead embrace an integrative pedagogical approach. I have responded to this need.

In the academic year 2023-2024, SOCI 211 took an interdisciplinary approach to examining the social forces that shape gender ideologies and disparities. To facilitate this, we held 14 additional Zoom seminars in the evenings, alongside our regular daytime classes, featuring distinguished scholars from different fields and regions. This provided our students with a unique opportunity to directly engage with the authors of the books they were studying, thereby enriching their classroom experience. The scholars we hosted represented a diverse range of perspectives and institutions, including Gülşat Aygen (Northern Illinois University), Evren Savcı (Yale), Marcia C. Inhorn (Yale), Anne Fausto-Sterling (Brown), Rene Almeling (Yale), Özgür Öktem (Koç University Medical School), Meg Gibson (University of Waterloo), Andrea O’Reilly (University of York), Anna Carastathis (Feminist Center for Autonomous Research, Greece), and Selen Gülün (Bilgi University). Evren Savcı, Anne Fausto-Sterling, and Anna Carastathis kindly visited the course twice, accommodating students in both the Fall and Spring semesters. Their commitment serves as an inspiration, demonstrating how invested scholars can be in the education of the new generations at a foreign institution, a stark contrast to the time constraints many scholars at our own institutions in Türkiye often complain about.

The seminars provided students with a unique, interdisciplinary learning experience not often available in higher education institutions, especially at the undergraduate level. For instance, during the Fall semester, we hosted Marcia C. Inhorn, a distinguished professor of Medical Anthropology from Yale, to discuss her book Motherhood on Ice, which explores egg freezing and the medicalization of reproductive aging in the U.S. The following week, Özgür Öktem, a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the School of Medicine at Koç University, joined us to provide an in-depth perspective on the judicial-medical status of the egg freezing practices in Türkiye. In the following semester, we hosted Rene Almeling, a professor of Sociology again from Yale, to discuss two award-winning books: Sex Cells, which examines egg and sperm donation programs in the U.S, and GUYnecology, which addresses the “systematic inattention” to male reproductive health. The students who had enrolled in the course during the fall semester participated in the spring seminar with Rene Almeling, adding to the richness of their learning experience. These sessions with Professors Inhorn, Öktem, and Almeling, each a leading figure in their respective fields of medical anthropology, reproductive medicine, and sociology, provided profound insights and a fresh interdisciplinary perspective on what Rene referred to in her book as the “making and non-making of biomedical knowledge about reproduction.”

Another remarkable seminar was with Anne Fausto-Sterling, an Emeritus Professor of Biology and Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University. Anne joined the course as a guest speaker to discuss the latest edition of her groundbreaking classic book Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. Her expertise in biology, gender studies, and the history of science provided fresh insight into the politicization and the construction of sexual identity, particularly in “the standard medical literature.” Her sessions were fascinating for students in the humanities, social sciences, medical school, and molecular biology and genetics. We had an eye-opening discussion comparing the portrayal of “medical ‘management’ of sexuality” in anatomy books in US medical schools and Türkiye. When two molecular biology and genetics students asked Anne more specific questions about epigenetics, sex determination, and behavioral variation, Anne kindly provided them with articles and a reading list following the meeting. These sessions highlighted the interconnectedness of gender studies, biology, and medicine, bringing together students from diverse backgrounds on a shared platform. Consequently, some medical school students have enrolled in the gender track program after these meetings.

Throughout the semester, students took an active role in shaping the curriculum, demonstrating their deep engagement with the course material. For example, in a recent seminar, we had the privilege of hosting Andrea O’Reilly, a professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. Andrea is widely recognized as the founder of “motherhood studies,” a term she coined in 2006. The seminar focused on her latest book, In (M)other Words: Writings on Mothering and Motherhood, 2009-2024, a collection of her works published over the past sixteen years. Following the seminar, a student from the Sociology Department proposed a discussion on an article about queering motherhood, a topic we overlooked in the previous session. We were fortunate to have the author, Meg Gibson, a Social Development Studies and Social Work professor at the University of Waterloo, agree to join our discussion the following week. With Andrea and Meg, two prominent scholars from Ontario, we explored the burgeoning field of motherhood studies, especially the growing body of work on non-heteronormative paths of motherhood. It was crucial to involve students from my ASIU 117 course, as the readings for the course were centered on motherhood. To foster a connection between my sociology and literature courses, I carefully aligned the themes and works covered in both SOCI 211 and ASIU 117, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of our discussion and the interconnectedness of my teaching endeavors.

We adjusted the schedule to accommodate the time difference between the US, Canada, and Turkey and scheduled these sessions at 7:00 PM. One of the seminars, featuring Gülşat Aygen, a Professor of Linguistics from the Department of English at Northern Illinois University (NIU), focused on sexism in language. The seminar lasted for three hours and was attended by 240 students enrolled in SOCI 211 and ASIU 117. Before the meeting, we collected nearly a hundred questions from the students. Gülşat Hoca and I organized the questions thematically to address them effectively. There were some unique and thought-provoking ones. For example, one student asked whether “language functions as a tool that reveals our thoughts on inherent gender inequality” or if “our thought processes are influenced by the inherent gender inequality embedded within language.” Another student asked if “it is possible to unlearn the internalized patriarchy found in lullabies, fairy tales, and other storytelling,” and questioned if “efforts to remove sexist language from these stories are justified, even if it may potentially diminish their aesthetic value.” Toward the end of the meeting, we set aside half an hour to discuss Gülşat Hoca’s advice for the younger generation. The dedication of our students was truly remarkable, as some joined the sessions from the Alibeyköy bus station right before catching their bus home, causing a moment of stress for everyone 🙂

Our casual conversations with guest speakers can have a significant impact on the career choices of students, especially when they are inspired by the speaker and their academic work. The two sessions with Professor Evren Savcı, during which we discussed Evren’s influential book Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics under Neoliberal Islam, had a similar effect. The book integrates queer studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and critical translation studies to offer a comprehensive understanding of contemporary sexual politics within a “neoliberal Islamic” framework, the two structures which Evren argues are “diametrically opposed” in queer studies. Evren’s scholarly approach and communication style, which strikes a rare balance between professional distance and a friendly demeanor, have earned her a small fan club among students. In fact, some students from this fan club have been inspired to pursue graduate studies in gender politics, demonstrating the book’s profound and wide-ranging impact.

We concluded the academic year with an in-person meeting with Selen Gülün, an exceptional composer, pianist, vocalist, and scholar. During the meeting, we explored Selen’s edited volume, Women and Music in Turkey, and she shared her experiences on how gender influences her work as a jazz composer and pianist. Selen has a diverse teaching background, having taught Piano Performance, Music Theory, and Composition at Istanbul Bilgi University’s Music Department, and lectured at the Berklee College of Music, The New School, and the Malmö Academy of Music. In 2017, she launched Project Kadınlar Matinesi (The Women’s Matinee), a concert series featuring the works of women composers in Turkey. This seminar, the first of its kind at SOCI 211, aimed to bridge the gap between academia and the arts, two often isolated fields that need to be connected.

After the seminars, we planted a tree for each guest as a token of gratitude. The trees were planted in the 7 Trees Forest Program, initiated by the Foundation for the Protection and Promotion of the Environment and Cultural Heritage (ÇEKÜL). After four years of teaching at Koç and hosting around fifty guest speakers in my courses, we have now established a small forest of gratitude in İvrindi, Balıkesir.

Moving Forward…

These fourteen sessions with scholars worldwide created a strong sense of belonging to a larger academic community. Through SOCI 211, we were able to establish connections with prestigious institutions like Yale and Brown and stay updated on the latest research and the resources available to support it. As a result of these meetings, a few students became aware of the joint Ph.D. programs in Women’s and Gender Studies with Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and History and began making plans to pursue them.

My colleagues cautioned me against investing too much in undergraduate students or undergraduate courses, believing that such a commitment may need to be more feasible and sustainable. However, many well-resourced higher education institutions have successfully organized seminars, lecture series, colloquiums, and work-in-progress talks linked to university courses. For example, “The Critics and Her Publics,” an undergraduate course at Wesleyan University taught by Prof. Merve Emre, was connected to the inaugural Shapiro Speaker series, “The Critic and Her Publics,” featuring interviews with literary critics from publications such as the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Yale Review, and more. The series, open to enrolled students, graduate students, faculty, and the public, and available as an Apple Podcast, has expanded the dissemination of knowledge and inspired similar initiatives.

These initiatives have the potential to transform the way we conceptualize and teach humanities. By fostering deeper interaction among faculty, students, and the public, and by promoting interdisciplinary academic exchange on campus, we can introduce similar programs at our higher education institutions.  Through funding collaborative projects that leverage our research to improve our teaching, we can expand these programs across the entire campus with institutional support, and ideally hold them in person.

Where else should we invest if not in our students?

A Co-Curricular Workshop:

Gender Diaries: A Journey Through Everyday Reflections

Many universities in Türkiye do not have specific undergraduate or graduate programs in gender studies. While humanities and social sciences offer courses in this field, there is a significant lack of gender perspectives in STEM and medical sciences disciplines. A limited number of universities offer undergraduate track programs or gender studies certificate programs, but the available courses do not fully meet the high demand from students interested in pursuing a minor or major in this field. Consequently, students may need to extend their studies by a semester or a year to fulfill the requirements of a gender track or certificate program due to a shortage of diversity in the classes being offered.

Feedback from students who took this course indicated a high level of interest in the topic. They suggested that SOCI 211 be taught in two successive sessions over two consecutive semesters: SOCI 211 (1) in Fall and SOCI 211 (2) in Spring. Despite having 14 extra seminars held via Zoom in the evenings on top of the scheduled daytime classes, they felt more time was needed to thoroughly cover all the subjects. Currently, the sociology curriculum does not allow the organization of two successive sessions. However, to meet the students’ demand, on May 3, 2024, we organized a co-curricular activity titled “Gender Diaries: A Journey Through Everyday Reflections.”

This workshop was a collaboration between the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CSSH), the Gender Equality Office (GEO) at Koç, and the Koç University Office of Learning and Teaching (KOLT). The workshop was intended for students who had taken SOCI 211 in the Fall and Spring semesters, and other interested faculty members. It was designed and facilitated by two of my former students, Sueda Esen and Buğra Durmuş.

The workshop aimed to provide a safe space for students and faculty to share their experiences and insights about gender dynamics in everyday life. The facilitators used non-formal education (NFE) methods such as simulations, performances, and interactive exercises to encourage active participation and engagement. These methods prioritize “experiential learning” and deep “emotional engagement,” as opposed to more conventional teaching methods that often rely on lectures or other forms of hierarchical knowledge dissemination. The workshop was designed to be non-hierarchical and inclusive, emphasizing ‘facilitator-participant’ and ‘participant-participant’ interaction. Sueda and Buğra used NFE methods to deconstruct gender as a subject and reconstruct it as a lived experience, aiming to enlighten the participants about the significant, often overlooked role of gender in our daily lives beyond the traditional classroom setting.

Upon completion of the workshop, participants received a certificate of participation from the organizing institutions. Since this was a pilot meeting, the workshop was conducted in Turkish. However, we plan to hold future bilingual meetings.

Poster and Photo Credits

Rene Almeling
Personal photo: Courtesy of Rene Almeling
Anna Carastathis
Personal photo: Courtesy of Anna Carastathis
Image: Canva, Free Media Licence
Selen Gülün
Personal photo: Courtesy of Selen Gülün and photograph by Tolga Ünsün
Marcia Inhorn
Personal photo: Courtesy of Marcia Inhorn
Frozen Eggs Photo: Dan Saelinger
Özgür Öktem
Personal photo: Courtesy of Özgür Öktem
Egg Freezing: Getty Images, Science Photo Library
IVF: iStock Images, Credit: wildpixel
Andrea O’Reilly
Personal photo: Courtesy of Andrea O’Reilly
Anne Fausto-Sterling
Personal photo: Courtesy of Anne Fausto-Sterling
Gülşat Aygen
Personal Photo: Courtesy of Gülşat Aygen