Program Overview

Women’s and Gender Studies B.A.

About this Program

The women’s and gender studies major integrates theory and practice with the aim of transforming social relations, representations, knowledges, institutions and policies. Through interdisciplinary and comparative approaches, students study gender intersectionally and transnationally as a means of understanding the complex ways that ideas and practices about gender, past and present, shape the world around us. Issues of justice and power among women and gender-nonconforming populations are central at each level of study. The curriculum emphasizes race, ethnicity, nationality, class, age, sexuality and different abilities as categories of analysis.

Program Information

• Degree Type: Major
• Outcome: B.A.
• Modality: In-person
• College or School: College of Arts and Sciences
• Career Path: Humanities and Languages, Social Sciences

Curriculum

The women’s and gender studies major integrates theory and practice with the aim of transforming social relations, representations, knowledges, institutions and policies. Through interdisciplinary and comparative approaches, students study gender intersectionally and transnationally as a means of understanding the complex ways that ideas and practices about gender, past and present, shape the world around us. Issues of justice and power among women and gender-nonconforming populations are central at each level of study. The curriculum emphasizes race, ethnicity, nationality, class, age, sexuality and different abilities as categories of analysis.

Student Learning Outcomes

• Apply interdisciplinary multiracial, intersectional and transnational feminist theories and methods to investigate how gender relations and practices are embedded in and shaped by diverse social, political, material and cultural realities.
• Recognize, interpret and analyze issues of power, oppression and injustice, and social, economic and epistemic violence.
• Identify histories and contemporary forms of feminist agency and resistance, social movements and collective action.
• Integrate feminist theory and practice to challenge social relations, representations, knowledge, institutions and policies.
• Engage and employ multiple modes of knowledge, including conventional texts as well as creative work, activism and popular culture.
• Model feminist competencies for collaborative learning and teamwork.

Sample Courses

• Women, Gender and Violence in a Transnational Context
• Feminisms, Sexualities, and Human Rights in Middle Eastern Societies
• Trans Genders and Sexualities
• Women, Rap and Hip-Hop Feminism
• Indigenous and Feminist Thought and Theory

Extracurricular Opportunities

• Study abroad opportunity: London Summer Session
• Student organization: The OutCrowd
• Student organization: Qolor Collective
• Student organization: SASSE: Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment

Related Programs

• African American Studies B.A.
• Health Humanities B.A.
• Law, Society and Policy B.A.
• Psychology B.S.
• Sociology B.A.