The minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, housed in the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department, is designed to give students an opportunity to explore issues of gender and sexuality in an interdisciplinary and cohesive way. The minor is a rich complement to any of the majors offered at the college because it gives students a strong background in perceiving the structural issues of gender and sexuality in articulation with race, ethnicity, (dis)ability and other socially meaningful categories. In this way, the minor enhances the college’s commitment to issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. Students in the minor are engaged in stimulating debates on the role of gender and sexuality in varied societies from a variety of perspectives as a way to help them discover their own voices within these debates. The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies minor assists students in preparing to navigate an increasingly diverse and complex global society.

As a result of successfully completing program requirements, students should be able to:

• identify the intersections between gender and sexuality and other socially meaningful categories, such as race, class, and (dis)ability;
• understand and use the vocabularies, both conceptual and theoretical, as well as the research methods central to the analysis of gender and sexuality; and
• discuss (orally and in writing) the diverse experiences of women, in their own and other cultures, and the meaning of gender as a socially constructed category.