Women & Gender Studies, Minor

Sponsoring departments: American Studies; English; Psychology; Sociology

Director: Jacqueline Emery, English Department

Women and Gender Studies is a multidisciplinary field that examines the creation, reconstruction, and perpetuation of asymmetrical sex and gender systems, as well as their connections to other systems of power and inequality. It explores the ways in which gender intersects with women’s and men’s personal identities, health and well-being, social and cultural arrangements, economic and political systems, and our ways of knowing and understanding the world.

The minor examines how ideologies of sex and gender have influenced and been influenced by culture and society; literature and the arts; law and public policy; and health, science, and technology. It closes gaps in traditional higher education resulting from the exclusion of women and other marginalized groups from many fields of study.

This program of study empowers students through a feminist critique of social, cultural, and institutional structures that enables them to think more critically about their own lives and that inspires them to work as active citizens for social justice. The knowledge and skills attained from the Women and Gender Studies minor are valuable in such fields as education, social work, art, literature, business and human resources, scientific research and the health professions, law and public policy, media production, nonprofit advocacy, psychology, and information technology.