The Women’s and Gender Studies minor is a 32-unit interdisciplinary course of study that takes as its central object of study gender in culture and society. This minor draws upon the traditions of feminist scholarship in a wide variety of disciplines, from the natural and social sciences through the humanities and arts. Although the field of women’s studies has always looked at the construction of gender and gendered roles and representations, the use of “gender studies” makes the focus both general and specific: students critically analyze gender in the contexts of class, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, and explore gender as an instrument of power, as a set of cultural meanings to be interpreted, and as a set of bodily performances.

Liberal Studies students who take the Option I concentration in Women’s and Gender Studies are ineligible for the minor. Students from any other major (including Liberal Studies majors who chose other concentrations, depth areas, or options) may elect to minor in Women’s and Gender Studies in order to understand the ways in which gender affects their other fields of study. Courses that comprise the minor must be selected with the approval of a Women’s and Gender Studies adviser.