Gender Studies – Minor

The goals of the Gender Studies program are:

• To examine gender as a system of ideas defining masculinity and femininity, delineating differences between the sexes, and regulating expressions of sexuality.
• To provide a rich understanding of gender as a social construction that intersects with class, race/ethnicity, age, nationality, sexual orientation, and sexual identity.
• To integrate insights about gender from the social and behavioral sciences, humanities, and the arts, and to use gender as a way to interrogate the boundaries between these existing bodies of knowledge.
• To examine the lives and experiences of groups which have been underrepresented in traditional academic work — e.g., women, ethnic and religious minorities, gays and lesbians, the poor and working class.
• To acquaint students with the fundamental methodologies of women’s / gender / sexuality studies.

• Encounter ideologies that have been used to explain women’s and men’s natures, roles, and societal functions
• Be exposed to new scholarship, to feminist theory, and to critiques of feminism
• Let your coursework in Gender Studies revise and redefine scholarship in the traditional academic disciplines

Help further your career goals:

• Receive useful preparation for training in the professions: education, law, health sciences, social work, policy studies, or management
• Enhance your opportunities to pursue postgraduate training in the social sciences and the humanities
• Be well-prepared for employment in management, human resources, public service and sales

Foster your personal growth:

• Encounter a rich and flexible liberal arts education which integrates knowledge across traditional academic boundaries
• Enhance your awareness of the subliminal messages you receive about gender in the media, in everyday conversation, in your personal relationships, and in social and educational institutions