Surprisingly this class was extremely interesting! Lectures are recorded, so you don't need to go to class. Professor Quadlin is amazing at teaching and actually cares for her students. The class consists of 2 midterm online finals based on lecture and weekly readings, and an option to write a final paper for a grade boost. Very easy to get a good grade if you collaborate with other students to make a study guide. She has a 0.5 round up on your final grade. Could not recommend this class more!

I took this class because of all of the good reviews from 2021. I read a review by another peer and while I do not want to discredit anyone, that was really overdramatic. I think sometimes (esp. during week 10) people forget that Professors are people and having a bunch of undergrads question you as a sociologist is a bit much. The GroupMe in this course was insufferable; literally, the biggest crybabies I have ever seen in my life. I think the students got really comfortable with complaining to one another and made up the narrative that this professor was crazy. Respectfully, this is an upper div at UCLA - if this 5-page paper is your breaking point, reconsider higher education.
Now onto the professor - she is nice and well-spoken. I saw a review that this class ignored the Black feminist/non-Western experience - that is false. We had theories literally dedicated to this topic and more than one reading by Black people further explaining the Black feminist experience. Quadlin's lecture is well organized and if you attend office hours/actually try to understand the material - this course is easy. I think her 2 midterms are unnecessarily long and if she sees this I hope she strongly reconsiders the length of the test; it is unrealistic to complete properly in 120 minutes. I am in the process of writing the final paper and have talked to the TA (who is really helpful). Qualin's review session for the second exam was super ineffective and she was really vague - I understand that she wanted to not give away answers but then she should not hold a review session. This course was based on the connection of concepts; if you will not share which concept is correct - just do not hold a review session. Release a study guide and leave it at that. The final paper is 5 pages long and is about the course concepts connected to a movie of YOUR CHOICE. I am not sure how much more elementary it can get. Take this course at your own discretion if you are good with lengthy midterms and decent amounts of reading. OUTLINE READINGS - WRITE SUMMARIES - TAKE NOTES - ACT LIKE YOU ARE IN COLLEGE AND ATTEND UCLA

If you're looking for an easy class, take this. But if you want to learn anything useful, interesting, or even vaguely thought-provoking, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS.

I signed up for this class because a sociology professor in a previous quarter piqued my interest in gender and gender studies. And based off of Quadlin's reviews on here, I thought I was set – easy A, good lecturer, interesting content. But I was greatly misled by these reviews and it actually makes me upset how inaccurate some of them are. This is one of the last classes I'm taking for my sociology major, and I was greatly disappointed that I wasted 4 units on this course when I could have taken a much more interesting class with any other prof.

I will first preface this by saying that she seems like a really nice person and I did not talk about these issues with her (mostly because I kept hoping the course would get better as time went on, but this did not happen) so maybe if I did, these would have been resolved. But I don't have high hopes for that either. But I'm not saying that she's a demon professor who's out to get you/ indoctrinate you with BS. Instead, my issues with Quadlin and her content are solely based on my expectations of upper div sociology classes at UCLA and more specifically, my expectations of a gender class at UCLA. I think that being able to take a class about gender is already extremely privileged (think about how the penalty for open queerness in other countries like Dubai is a death penalty; how there are many countries without laws against domestic violence). At a diverse and elite higher-ed institution like UCLA, I really was expecting the course to be unique and stimulating; and the professor to be passionate about what they're teaching and challenge students with new information that they wouldn't have the opportunity to learn elsewhere. Unfortunately, I would not use a single one of these to describe Quadlin's course.

I enjoy classes at UCLA not simply if they are easy; but if the professor is passionate about what they are teaching, stands for something (not politically, just academically/ displaying academic interest in their subject matter), and challenges me (doesn't mean a harsh grader, this just means teaches me things that I actually find fascinating and complex). Quadlin did not do any of these. I found her content very bland and her as a person the most classic white feminist professor I have ever had at UCLA.

Quadlin's class is structured is based around theoretical standpoints, which can be super interesting if done right, but in my opinion, I do not think she succeeded in doing so. She would assign readings that she wouldn't talk about in class and absolutely REFUSED to talk about in midterm review sessions. In fact, her midterm review sessions were quite literally the least helpful review sessions I've ever had in my life because students would ask about whether or not Theory X or Y applied to Article 1, and she would simply respond to EVERY STUDENT: "Reread the discussion section and think about it." How is this helpful at all? ChatGPT could have told me to reread it. As a professor holding a review session, I expect there to be something to be actually reviewed – not just a reminder that readings are required. The midterms ask you to categorize readings into theoretical standpoints, which I didn't really mind doing and was not too difficult; but again, I did not understand the point of this.

As a woman of color whose experience of gender is clearly different from that of a white woman, I did not feel like my voice or perspective was heard. Of course, I do not expect all my professors to be advocating for my minority group in all my courses; but this was especially disappointing in a GENDER class. Gender is an intersectional topic that should be taught from an intersectional viewpoint, but I feel that Quadlin did not think this was necessary because from what I see, she has never had to experience gender intersectionally as a privileged heterosexual cis white woman. I felt like she didn't talk about WOC perspectives enough. In fact, she assigned one SINGULAR reading by a woman of color (bell hooks), but this proved to be surface-level and performative because she refused to tell students whether or not it was Black feminism in fear of giving out a test answer during a midterm review session. I don't see how this is constructive, educational, or remotely sociological if a professor does not want to explore the way that feminist/ gender theories are applied in the real world because of a test answer. But you know what –– it does make sense for Quadlin, because in the first half of the term, she assigned multiple readings by old white men that were EXTREMELY sexist, saying that women's only power was their sexuality/ bodies; that women should withhold the power to be pregnant in order to eliminate sexism. She assigned these readings to demonstrate a "structural functionalist" viewpoint (one of the theories she tested on). But she made no critique, discussion, or even mere MENTION of these readings in lecture. She did not say that the viewpoints in these articles were very dated and very messed up. Rather, she stayed silent and moved on. Albeit she didn't endorse these stances and say that they were good, but I felt that her silence and negligence to address how backwards these ASSIGNED READINGS were exposed her privilege as a white woman.

Quadlin may have thought it was implied that these readings are grossly misrepresentative of how one approaches gender. But personally, I found it appalling that these totally messed up readings were required, tested on, and then wholly ignored by the professor. If she wanted to apply theories to these readings, she should have just mentioned them in class briefly in conjunction with the theories at hand and moved on. Assigning it and testing on it was very unnecessary mainly because she didn't really condemn any of what they were saying.

Moreover, the class is based in ENTIRELY WESTERN perspectives. The only time she addresses gender in other countries is in one lecture when talking about transnational feminist theory, where she talks about burqas and sex categories in India. I was even more greatly disappointed by this – the class is not called "Sociology of Gender in the U.S.," it is "Sociology of Gender." So why are we only learning about white American/ Euro-centric perceptions of gender? I felt like this class would have been a great opportunity to talk about how gender is perceived in other countries and how culture plays a role in these ideas, since we as UCLA students operate within a predominantly Western institution. Sadly, she didn't take advantage of this opportunity to really make a change. Maybe Quadlin should change the name of the course if she only wants to talk about what's relevant to Americans.

Also, I'm not forgetting the fact that she mentioned queer people less than 5 times, which is crazy in a class about GENDER. If she wanted to only talk about feminist theory, then maybe she should go make her own class called Sociology of (White) Feminism. In Week 2 or 3, she briefly mentioned misgendering and using the wrong pronouns and guess what example she used to demonstrate how common misgendering is? She brought in her dog. Yup, her DOG. White woman in love with dog says that her dog gets misgendered for male all the time, when in fact the dog is female (and has a gender-neutral name!!! Wow!!! So feminist!!!!!!!). And people were so distracted by the fact that she brought in her dog that it wasn't really processed until later how crazy it was what she did.

Moreover, there was one reading in Week 1 written by a trans woman talking about their experiences with gender/ misgendering, with an ultimate emphasis on the undoing of gender categories and challenging of the binary (reading was called "What It Means to Be Gendered Me" by Betsy Lucal). When Quadlin referenced the reading on the study guide/ midterm, she said that we NEEDED to be able to categorize the trans author into a gender, sex, sex category, and gender identity. We were being GRADED (8-10 points on the test) on how we categorized this trans individual whose writing explicitly stated that categories/ labels are restrictive and deeply reductive to their personal identity. Not kidding – the question was pretty much "What are Lucal's gender/sex/ sex category/ gender identity? Explain your answer for each one..."So if that doesn't speak to how tone-deaf and white feminist Quadlin is, I don't know what more to tell ya.

I will agree that Quadlin's lecturing style is simple and easy to follow which helps you get that easy A (if that's the only thing you care about, then good for you!). But to me, it contained no interesting or substantive content of any kind, often making it hard for me to stay awake in class. The references she uses are very dated to when she was growing up in the 90s/00s, which was especially disappointing because gender is a dynamic construct that changes rapidly over time –– using examples from 20-30 years ago does not allow for a comprehensive analysis/ understanding of gender as we experience it today as UCLA students in 2024. The way Quadlin lectures and puts together material for the class seemed like she was just going through the motions and was very unorganized. She bases her class on theories that she doesn't even fully flesh out, tries to find readings that vaguely could relate to the theories, and calls it a day. This class just didn't seem like an upper div sociology course at UCLA at all – disappointing.

I came into this class wanting to learn about gender, and now the quarter is essentially over and I feel that I have learned absolutely nothing of substance. I genuinely think that Quadlin believes she is a great professor and is teaching gender in the most titillating, fascinating manner ever. And I see why she thinks that – she is (I don't know how many times I can say this) a privileged white woman who can exist and even benefit from ignoring intersectionality, so she has never needed to be challenged for what she says about gender because she still belongs to a broadly hegemonic group (white ppl).

I hope that my review helps at least one person out there who is thinking of taking this class. Just consider your choice more carefully, and think about what you want more in a college course – getting an easy A or actually learning something.

Class breakdown:
- Weekly readings, no discussion
- Attendance not required bc recorded
- Two midterms, online with MC and essay
- One final paper about a movie of ur choice relating it to gender

Course material was very easy to understand, especially considering that I'm not a sociology major. Quadlin was very lenient and understanding, only assigning open-note quizzes and a couple of essays for the entire course.

Absolutely loved taking Professor Quadlin's course! Just wish I was able to take it in person. She is clear and concise when giving lectures and teaching new material. I never thought I would be this engaged in an asynchronous course. The readings she assigns are interesting and very important to know for the midterm and final and she also held review sessions that were helpful. I would sign up for another one of her classes in a heartbeat

Please take Quadlin if you get the opportunity to do so. As a first year transfer, having a professor like her was the best experience. Her lectures are never boring and she always finds ways to be as clear as possible. The midterms were also very clear! She did not try to trick us like some of the professors I've had. She goes straight to the point and doesn't circle around things.

In terms of the workload, all you do is readings. They can be a lil dense sometimes but they are very engaging. I often found myself excited to read them. I would also like to add that you have to be very knowledgable of all the material to preform well on the midterms. DO THE WORK! You'll definitely learn A LOT!!