Rethinking Female Aggression
Institution: The New School for General Studies, New York
Department: Social Sciences, Bachelor’s Program
Course level: Advanced undergraduate course
Format: Seminar
Description: This course reviews research on women’s aggression (Bjoerkqvist/Francek/Lindfors), feminist psychoanalyses that engages with female aggression (Benjamin/Fast/Chodorow), and newer feminist scholarship on women’s aggression, rooted in postmodern and interactionist theory (Grossmann, Leeb). We also analyze representations of aggressive women in film and popular culture (including Hart). We answer the following questions: How do these works define and explain female aggression? What is the theoretical basis upon which they base their arguments? Do their arguments enhance or impede our understanding of women and aggression?