Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies: Self-Designed Major, Concentration 

Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies is a multidisciplinary program that explores the many facets of gender and sexuality.  We encourage our students to examine and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, explore and honor marginalized experiences and perspectives, and question power at personal, interpersonal, social, structural levels. 

Students in the program pursue critical questions from a range of academic disciplines and learn how activism can promote social change.  We challenge students to consider how complex social identities such as race, social class, age, and ability intersect with gender and sexuality to shape the world in ways that are all at once personal, political, local, and global. Our concentration is an appropriate supplement to any academic major. 

GSWS Statement on The Overturning of Roe v. Wade

June 27, 2022  -  Read the full statement 

Program Highlights

  • 15-20 classes offered per semester and in a range of disciplines 
  • Opportunities to work closely with faculty on groundbreaking research and activist projects  
  • Events on a wide range of topics throughout the year 
  • The capstone experience — an independent project that can take the form of a research paper, an art or performance piece, or an action campaign  
students and a professor in a classroom
Mission

Learn about the guiding intellectual principles and activist practices that inform our work.

Students at a computer
Research

Under the guidance of a faculty member, students conclude the concentration with a capstone experience in their fourth year.

Students in a classroom
Opportunities

From internships to study abroad to the DC and NY Semester programs, opportunities for hands-on learning abound.

Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies News

Katie Bowles '18 overlooks the Poas Volcano in Costa Rica while studying abroad. Bowles will be serving in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica for the next two years.
For and With Others: 17³Ô¹ÏÍø Students Choose the Peace Corps for Post-Grad
Many students come to 17³Ô¹ÏÍø wanting to make a difference in the world. Four graduating seniors — Katie Bowles, Marie Therese Kane, Clare Orie, and Colleen Brady — are leaving the Hill ready to do just …
Image
Intro to Neuroscience: New Course Offers Innovative, Integrative Exploration of the Brain
Neuroscience is a field that requires its scientists to integrate knowledge and thinking from many disciplines. 17³Ô¹ÏÍø has a long history of offering elective courses related to neuroscience, but with the establishment of a new interdisciplinary minor in the …
Image
Washington Semester Award Winner to Discuss Impact of Gender in Political Elections
The Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the 17³Ô¹ÏÍø has selected Caitlin Daniels ’18, a political science major with a concentration in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, as the Maurizio Vannicelli Washington Semester Program award recipient for …