HSE removed the word “gender” from the name of the course

The Higher School of Economics removed the word “gender” from the title of the course on gender studies. Now on the website of the university, the course is called “Introduction to Male and Female Studies”. HSE has not yet answered what the renaming is about.

In addition, in the new academic year, the course will be taught for 64 academic hours, instead of 80, as before. Mentions of some terms, such as feminism and childfree, have disappeared from his description.

Gender studies is a multidisciplinary field of knowledge that includes information from sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and political science. She examines the perception of sex and gender (socially acceptable behavior of men, women and non-binary people) in society, politics and culture, as well as the history of changes in this perception in different societies.

At HSE, the gender studies course has been taught since 2019.

• In recent years, the leadership of HSE regularly carries out reforms that, in one way or another, correspond to the course of the Russian authorities. From the university, which was previously called the most liberal in Russia, teachers who disagree with the leadership are fired and employees of the pro-Kremlin mass media are hired. So, last year, HSE teacher Alyona Vandysheva, who cooperates with the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International, sociologist and columnist Idel.Realy Iskander Yasaveev, as well as the head of the historical research sector, associate professor Dinara Gagarina and associate professor of the School of Cultural Studies Ilya Inyshev, who took an anti-war position, were fired. In parallel with this, the media department of the university’s Faculty of Communications, Media and Design was headed by the pro-Kremlin TV journalist Ernest Matskiavichyus.