Women’s and Gender Studies, Minor
Program Coordinator:
Laurel Elder (Political Science)
Major
N/A
Minor
Women’s and Gender Studies
About
Over the past several decades, a distinct body of scholarship on gender has developed in almost every academic field. This scholarship raises basic questions about gender and society, which transcend disciplines and challenge traditional ways of teaching and conducting research. The feminist framework informing Women’s and Gender Studies addresses the following issues with respect to gender:
- It challenges the androcentric bias in thought, language, and social and intellectual systems.
- It rethinks the central western dualisms—e.g., mind/body, subject/object, thinking/doing.
- It involves a critique of all forms of oppression including class, race, sex, sexual-affectional preference, developed world and developing world, violence, militarism, ecological destruction, political inequality and hierarchies of power.