Abstract
This chapter highlights the power of comics in the field of higher education with a focus on teaching for diversity and inclusion, particularly United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Examples are drawn upon pedagogical exercises explored in the university classroom. In the context of a course aimed at sociology undergraduate students, Argentinian Maitena Burundarena's (b. 1962, Buenos Aires) work is used to explore diverse contemporary family issues and the related ever-changing gender roles. At the end, humor is used to provoke strangeness with a relatively close behavior, thus applying the sociological principle of “turning the familiar strange” and, consequently, achieving reflexivity regarding the topics under analysis.
TopIntroduction
We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice. – John Berger (Ways of Seeing, 1972)
This chapter explores the power of comics and humor in the university classroom, with a focus on teaching for diversity and inclusion, particularly United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York in September 2015, “provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future” (United Nations, 2022a). The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose enunciation is now part of the international lexicon of countries, were established upon the founding idea that ending poverty and other deprivations existing in both developed and developing countries must go together with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth, all while tackling climate change and working to preserve the sustainability of oceans and forests.
Sustainable Development Goal 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Specifically, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015, p. 18) expects this goal to:
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End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
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Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
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Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
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Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
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Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
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Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences
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Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
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Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
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Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels
Key Terms in this Chapter
Sociology: The study of the human societies. Specifically, sociology intends to explain how the relationships between people living in groups is determined by a certain sociocultural context, and, simultaneously, the ways such relationships contribute to construct a particular society in time and space.
Ethnocentric: The socio-cultural belief that one's own culture is superior to other cultures. It opposes to sociocultural relativism.
Comics: Any print or digital, magazine or book format that contains a set of stories told in pictures with a small amount of writing considered to be funny and making you want to laugh.
Family: A group of people who are related to each other by ties of consanguinity or kinship, characterized by close relationships, which last over time.
Humor: A certain state of mind of an individual, whose intensity represents the degree of disposition and psychological and emotional well-being. Expressions of humor vary according with time, space, and culture, as there are social norms surrounding what is accepted and interdicted. Humor follows sociocultural trends of customs and currents of thought.
Socialization: The ongoing process, but mainly occurring during childhood, by which individuals internalize social norms and learn appropriate ways to behave in each culture, that is, to act in accordance with the expectations of others. The main agencies involved in the socialization process are the family, the school, and the media.
Kinship: The relationship made of blood or social commitment that links different people as members of the same family.
Family-Centricity: The attitude of considering the family, family members and family issues as central to the well-being of individuals, thus prevailing over other aspects of life, namely work, leisure or self-investment.