Gender, Technology and Society

The manner in which gender is conceptualized and performed is foundational to the understanding of human social relationships. Gender identities are not fixed or determined purely by physiology; their social construction affects ideas of masculinity and femininity or other sexual identities. Besides understanding how sex and gender are interrelated, we will look at how gender intertwines with societal areas of economy, technology, polity, religion and demography. The important role played by social structures and institutions such as caste, kinship, family, marriage, ethnicity, religion and class in structuring gender and vice- versa will be brought out. Technologies associated with population and biological sciences have transformed and are continuing to transform society and human relationships in particular directions. The course will examine these transformations at the global and local levels and consider their impact on individual lives. Challenges posed to intimate human relationships and identities by new reproductive technologies such as invitro-fertilization, surrogacy, sex selection will be explored. What does the emergence/ institutionalisation of new social forms - such as same sex marriages and parenthood by surrogacy - tell us about the possibilities and limits of human relationships?