Program Overview

Students undertaking this minor examine how gender and sexual ideologies, practices, and politics impact their own lives, intimate and family relationships, art and literature, the creation of knowledge, and economic opportunities, as well as large scale social institutions like education, government, and religion. To facilitate this broad examination, Gender Studies minors take classes from a variety of academic disciplines and professors.

In addition to classes, students also develop independent studies that allow them to focus on a gender or sexual issue that they find particularly interesting. For example, students have received credit for independent research on reproductive rights, media images of masculinity/femininity, gender dynamics in literature, and the politics of homosexuality. Students are encouraged to do internship-based research projects that enable them to explore, through direct experience, various topics of interest.

Program Requirements

Twenty to twenty-four hours of coursework as follows:

1. Required Courses (six-eight hours)
   • SOC 202: Sociology of the Family
   • SOC 354: Sex & Gender in Society
2. Electives (at least twelve hours) chosen from the following courses:
   • ECON 324: Labor Economics
   • ENGL 301: Literature and Culture II
   • FREN 402: Gender and Sexuality Studies in the Francophone World
   • FREN 408: Postcolonial Power and the Rape of the Atlantic World
   • HIST 334: Readings in European Women's History
   • PHIL 202: Ethics
   • BIO/PHIL 212: Bioethics
   • PSY 369: Human Sexuality
   • FLNG/ENG 391: Sex and Shame in Caribbean Literature
   • PSC 208: Intro to Law
   • PSC 356: The Politics of Constitutional Rights and Liberties
   • PSC 395: Women, War, and Peace
   • PSC 395W: Race, Class and the Politics of Identity
   • PSC 395S: Human Security
   • REL 332: Gender and Family in Early Christianity
   • REL 415: Women and Religion

Students may use up to eight hours credit from their majors toward the Gender Studies Minor. Students are also strongly encouraged to take courses in at least three academic disciplines. Up to eight hours of coursework in any department may be added from outside this elective list, subject to the approval of a Gender Studies advisor. Such additions might include internships or special topics courses whose subject matter includes a strong focus on gender issues. Courses may also be approved in cases where a student is completing a significant project on gender issues within a course that is not on the elective list. Additionally, a student may include up to three hours of Independent Study in any department, subject to the approval of a Gender Studies advisor, for research and work on some aspect of gender studies.