Women in Politics and Policy

This is an upper-level elective that treats gender not as a side topic in politics but as a lens for understanding how power, representation, and policy actually get produced — looking at why women's pathways into office, labor markets, and family life are shaped the way they are, and what quotas, media coverage, and backlash do to those pathways. Expect weekly reading questions, a midterm, a final, and a group policy brief built around your own research question, so the work is as much about formulating empirical claims as absorbing the literature. It pairs naturally with comparative politics and public policy courses, and is most useful if you're heading toward research, advocacy, or government work where representation and policy design intersect.