Gender Studies (GNDST)

Gender studies majors cultivate the habit of asking how gender through its connections with other forms of powershapes bodies, lives, texts, institutions, and worlds. Gender studies is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural in its approaches. The goal is to provide students with multiple angles of vision that enrich their learning in and beyond the major.

At Mount Holyoke, gender studies grew out of women's studies, with its commitment to uncovering the realities of women's lives, understanding the nature of women's oppression, and charting paths to significant social change. Building on this foundation, gender studies encompasses investigations into the very nature of gender; its intersection with other forms of difference and power such as class, race, nation, and sexuality; and its intimate connection with myriad forms of knowledge and social practice, from scientific investigation to artistic creation and performance.

Majors are introduced to the foundations of the field in courses on women, feminist theory, global power relations, and methodology. Drawing on courses offered across the Mount Holyoke curriculum and in the five colleges, majors then develop concentrations in areas of particular interest. Possible areas of concentration include, but are not limited to: womens literary and artistic production; gender in imperial and postcolonial contexts; feminist anti-racism; womens health; women and labor; violence against women; feminist science studies; queer studies; men and masculinity; transgender politics; U.S. women of color politics; women immigrants and refugees; transnational feminisms.

First-year students may consider enrolling in: