What is Women's and Gender Studies?

Women's and Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary program that aims to build an awareness of the multitude of ways in which bodies and identities are culturally constructed. While many of our individual courses deal directly with women and gender, they are more largely concerned with considering and questioning the ways in which sex, gender, race, class, sexualities (and a host of other identity categories) have been used as mechanisms of both oppression and empowerment within and against certain populations. Taught from a feminist theoretical perspective and taken by both women and men, Women's and Gender Studies courses are designed to give students the tools to engage their critical thinking skills, to enable them to dissect the mechanisms of power that are central to culture, and to understand and challenge the worlds in which they live.