Course description
Thirty years after the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on Women, the year 2025 will be significant for reflecting on and assessing progress, achievements, and shortcomings in gender equality and women's empowerment. In this context this semester's course will focus on forms and practices of political participation from a gender perspective, examining interactions between political actors, institutions involved in policy-making as well as grassroots movements and collective efforts to advocate for rights.
The course provides students from various disciplinary and geo-cultural backgrounds with the opportunity to learn, reflect, and discuss the impact of gender inequalities on political participation in all its forms, globally and locally and trans-locally. It also invites students to explore how these issues can be addressed and analyzed, in different geo-cultural contexts and at different levels.
Thanks to the co-teaching modality, hence building on the expertise of two teachers, and alongside a common critical and decolonial approach and methodology, the course adopts a trans-disciplinary trajectory and engages students in theories, analyses and practices of political participation in diverse areas, such as: housing, climate change, health care, social issues, fight against violence, communication and digital developments.

In particular the course will offer insights on the following:

a) Issues related to political participation through grassroots movements, mobilizations, and uprisings from a gender, transfeminist, and decolonial perspective. In recent years, the landscape of feminist and transfeminist movements has been evolving, particularly in Latin America and Europe. These movements are increasingly shaped by key concepts such as decoloniality, transfeminism, and intersectionality. A decolonial perspective has emerged as a powerful critique of Western feminism, challenging its assumptions and proposing alternative frameworks. Community feminism, for instance, has gained traction in countries like Bolivia and Guatemala, offering a more localized and culturally specific approach to gender issues. From the transfeminist perspective, one of the most significant developments in recent times has been the #NiUnaMenos movement, which originated in Argentina, but has since spread across Latin America and even into Western countries. This movement exemplifies how feminist struggles can transcend borders and unite women across diverse contexts. Intersectionality has become a crucial lens through which these struggles are understood and fought. Afro-Latin American feminism, for example, addresses the unique challenges faced by women at the intersection of gender and racial discrimination. Similarly, LGBTQ+ movements have forged important relationships with feminist movements, recognizing shared goals and challenges. Increasingly, feminist movements are also engaging with broader societal issues such as the right to the city, climate change, and the global debt crisis. These struggles have given rise to innovative political practices. The lessons in this section will be accompanied by a comprehensive bibliography of texts for discussion and specific research, presented as case studies. Students will be required to write two reaction papers on designated topics.

b) issues of diversity and inclusion in the media, communication and digital challenges in different societies, framing media inequality issues within the reflection of democratic quality and political participation. Issues of media un/equal representation, unfair/exclusive language and use of images in news stories, professional practices of news making and political reporting, harassment and violence against women in politics and public life, will allow students to gain a good understanding of intersecting axes of power and privilege, such as race, age, sexual orientation, that play a role in media operations, and their implication for political participation. Furthermore the role of advocacy in promoting diversity and inclusion in the media and communication at the local, national and supranational level. This part of the course builds on a number of international projects and available resources, including from the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2025 edition and the EU-funded project (DG Justice, CERV-2022-24) titled "Rewriting the Story. Gender, Media and Politics” coordinated by the International Federation of Journalists. Students will have access to a set of international resources which are now accessible through the AGEMI Platform.

Course modes and materials
The course offers a broad perspective of the nexus between gender and politics in a comparative perspective with a global outlook: this will allow students from different disciplinary and geocultural background to follow the classes, acquire new knowledge but also to share in class their experiences and knowledges.
During the course on occasions international experts will be invited to participate and contribute to class discussions connecting from remote (depending on class topics and invitees availability) or themed video recorded lectures will be proposed to activate class discussion. In fact, plans are made to organize a Round Table with Italian and international experts on media and gender issues around the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2025 edition. Plans are also made to meet the coordinator and participants in the EU-funded project “Feminist movements revitalizing democracy in Europe” (FIERCE).
Students at VIU Globalization Program will have the possibility to access and explore a variety of materials – including video, lectures, activities, students’ projects, collection of good practices, and tools; to reflect and discuss gender issues and participatory practices from a global-to-local perspective; and to contribute themselves towards further enriching the group’s understanding through class activities and discussions. Students will develop small projects, involving research and advocacy, to be presented to participants in the Globalization Program at VIU at the end of course.

Teaching activities
● presentations by the teachers
● readings, screening videos and class discussions
● interactive sessions through online learning tools such as Wooclap and Padlet or physical cards, learning diaries, reaction papers
● group activities, and project work and collective restitutions of the work done
● research-to-advocacy design and planning and/or research to policy and advocacy brief drafting: building on the acquired knowledge, students will be invited to develop (small) projects which may include policy and advocacy briefs. Thus students will have an opportunity to contribute in making change in participatory practices in their own contexts from a comparative perspective, and to foster women's engagement in politics and public life around specific themes and in specific settings.

Learning outcomes
Through the course students will acquire:
● knowledge about scholarly works and scholarly communities that are engaged with the course topics, with contributions from different contexts, including theoretical and practice oriented;
● a good understanding of the democratic un/development and democratic principles of access, inclusion, participation, pluralism, and equality;
● elements to support gender critical analysis of contemporary realities, such as analytical frameworks and methodological competences for investigating different realities that characterize knowledge and network societies in relation to course topics;
● a grounded gender-aware perspective through which participation processes and practices can be understood, particularly about stereotyped, discriminatory, unbalanced representation of women and men in politics and public life, why this inequality affects women disproportionately, and related implications and possible ways of addressing building on good practices;

Transversal competences will also be acquired through interactive learning, engagement with peers, group work, international exchanges:
● autonomous judgement
● critical rethinking of knowledge development and sharing
● decolonial approach to political analysis
● communication abilities & public speaking
● collaborative modes for the production of new knowledge

Course evaluation
All activities carried out during the course constitute elements of evaluation and contribute to the final grade. Final evaluation takes into consideration:
● the overall participation of students in class discussions and activities (30%);
● individual reading and writing assignments, such as posts in Padlet and reaction papers (30%);
● commitment, autonomy and creativity in conducting themed group research work (design, elaboration and presentation of group work activities, including policy and advocacy briefs) making use of the knowledge and transversal competence acquired during the course (40%).

Required preliminary knowledge
No specific preliminary knowledge is required. Students are expected to be ready to engage in multi-vocal discussions, open to novel topics and innovative modalities in teaching. They should have basic understanding concerning the transformation, role and social implications of democracies in todays’ context; curiosity for the global dimension of mobilizations for social justice; interest in research work, including group work, and critical discussions. Good knowledge of the English language is also required.

Schedule of course

8-12 September 2025
Orientation week

15 & 17 September 2025 (Claudia Padovani & Lorenza Perini)
Introduction to course and participants presentation, exploring the field, positioning ourselves

22 & 24 September 2025 (Claudia Padovani & Lorenza Perini)
Political participation from a gender lenses: institutional frameworks, agencies and policies; feminist mobilization histories and current developments

29 September & 1 October 2025 (Claudia Padovani)
Diversity, inclusion in media and communication and democratic participation

6 & 8 October 2025 (Claudia Padovani)
The GMMP 2025 & Rewriting the Story
Round table with special guests: Italian participants in GMMP 2025 and European coordinator

13 & 15 October 2025 (Claudia Padovani)
Mobilizing glocally around media, communication and digital developments
Reaction paper 1

20 & 22 October 2025 (Claudia Padovani)
Students to develop projects to foster equality, inclusion and participation across the media ecosystem

27 - 31 October 2025
Midterm week (no classes)

3 & 5 November 2025 (Lorenza Perini)
Into the decolonial trans-feminist and intersectional perspective in political participation: theories and problems

10 & 12 November 2025 (Lorenza Perini)
Focus on the movements in Latin America and Europe: practices and cases - part I

13 November 2025 (Claudia Padovani & Lorenza Perini)
possible field trip to Laguna Libre to meet FIERCE coordinator

17 & 19 November 2025 (Lorenza Perini)
Focus on the movements in Latin America and Europe: practices and cases - part II

24 & 26 November 2025
Reaction paper 2

1 & 3 December 2025
Students to develop projects to connect to intersectional struggles from decolonial perspective

9 & 10 December 2025
Finalising students’ projects and connecting issues. Preparing for final presentation
Wrap up of course themes and issues and moving forward

16 & 18 December
Exam week and Closing Ceremony
Students’ presentation of projects to Globalization Program participants (and organizers)

Bibliography
Caravantes, S. & Lombardo, E. (forthcoming 2025). “Gender Mainstreaming as Democratic Innovation”. In S. Jacquot, P. Ahrens, S. D’Agostino, S. Palmieri, G. Zaremberg (Eds) Research Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming, Elgar publishing.
Padovani, C. (2023). “Gender Dimensions of Communication Governance. Perspectives, Principles, and Practices”. In M. Gallagher and A. Vega Montiel (Eds.), The Handbook of Gender, Communication, and Women’s Human Rights. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Padovani, C., Belluati, M., Karadimitriou, A., Horz-Ishak, C., Baroni, A. (2022). “Gender inequalities in and through the media: a threat to democracy?”. In Josef Trappel & Tales Tomaz (eds) Success and Failure in News Media Performance: Comparative Analysis in the Media for Democracy Monitor 2021. Gothenburg: Nordicom, University of Gothenburg.
Tomaz, T. & Trappel, J. (2021). "Democracy at stake: On the need of news media monitoring". In J. Trappel & T. Tomaz (Eds.), Success and failure in news media performance. Comparative analysis in the Media for Democracy Monitor 2021. Gothenburg: Nordicom, University of Gothenburg.
Silvia Federici, "Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation" (2004) ID, "Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons" (2018)
Françoise Vergès, "Un féminisme décolonial" (2019) ID, "The Wombs of Women: Race, Capital, Feminism" (2020)
María Lugones, "Toward a Decolonial Feminism" (2010) ID, "The Coloniality of Gender" (2008)
Verónica Gago, "Feminist International: How to Change Everything" (2020) ID, "Neoliberalism from Below: Popular Pragmatics and Baroque Economies" (2017)

Further suggested readings, video and learning resources will be accessed through themed sections in the AGEMI Platform and will be proposed by the teacher following class discussions and emerging interests.

Last updated: June 9, 2025