If you are actually interested in really digging into Gender Studies, absolutely take a course with Professor Basarudin. She always comes prepared with well laid out slides, and she artfully directs discussions, really giving students the opportunity to think through texts together. She is incredibly kind, and it is clear that she truly cares about the well being of her students.

Hardest class ever under gender studies, especially if it is a 185 class. She is expects so much from you; a hard grader, she is especially picky with essays. I recommend going to her office hours and raising your hand in class. She has favorites and only likes students who speak in class using her form of jargon. Do not take it.

This class was very tough for me due to me being a slow reader. We would get about 4-6 weekly readings. It took me about 3-5 hours to get them done to be honest. That was because I finished each reading. In reality, the professor only covered about 3 of them in class. We had two one page essays that counted as quizzes in which we discussed an important topic that one of the author's of the readings for that week discussed about. We had 3 separate essays. The first one, my quarter, was discussing how sex, gender, and sexuality are disciplined by a social institution. The second one was the midterm in which we described our positionality in a specific situation, such as "air travel while being Arab" or "Navigating as a dark-skinned disabled person". The third and final essay involved cooperation with another student on the issue of taking away one's voice from issues affecting them specifically and the issue of the white savior complex. There was no "final" for this class. Basarudin seemed strict as first since she would call out students who arrived late and even did not let a student in once for being 10 minutes tardy but over the quarter, she showed us that she just wanted us to be respectful of the effort teachers put into teaching as well as respectful of other students taking the initiative to arrive on time. She is very funny and very knowledgeable. Sometimes it felt like if you had a perspective different from hers that she would regard it as wrong though, but the TAs assured us that we were ok. This class was difficult for me personally since I wanted to complete each reading and took a while doing so. But the TAs were understanding of how we each learn differently and how the knowledge from the past still carries on with us today. I would say the essays were graded easily; for me, much better than I thought I would receive.

Engaging lectures, interesting material, helpful professor and TAs.

However, I am saying this as someone who is genuinely interested in the course material.
Do not take this class just because you think it will be an easy A.

Take it because you want to learn more about intersectionality and various feminist theories. Take it because you realized that you don't know enough about the many topics covered in this class

If you take it thinking it will be an easy A and you don't put in effort, the professor will be able to tell and it will reflect on your grade.