Women's & Gender Studies Minor

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program provides an interdisciplinary, critical, and cross-cultural exploration of the issues related to women’s rights, sex rights, and gender justice, in the global context. Focusing on the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies fosters the generation of knowledge about human subjects in all their gender and sexual diversity, and encourages the critical interrogation of traditional academic disciplines.

Using cross-cultural and transnational perspectives, the program pursues the exploration of:

• women’s lives, labor, and arts
• structural violence, social justice, and gender activism in the global context
• the politics of sexuality
• the intersectional and historical meanings of gender
• the history of gender roles and performances
• representations of various genders in different media
• the impact of gendered analysis on the sciences
• the gendered formation of knowledge

The Women’s and Gender Studies program encourages its majors and minors to engage in community service, either independently or through Community-Based Learning courses. 

Georgetown College offers both a major and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, and the School of Foreign Service offers a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies.  Interested students should contact the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program, Professor Nadia Brown, or the Associate Director of the program, Professor You-me Park, as early as possible in their sophomore year to plan a program of study.

Requirements for the Minor

The minor in Women’s and Gender Studies requires a total of six courses:

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
Foundational Courses
WGST 1140	Intro Women's/Gender Studies	3
or WGST 1141	Intro to Sexuality Studies
WGST 2200	Feminist Thought I	3
or WGST 2201	Feminist Thought 2
WGST 4970	Senior Capstone	3,4
Select three WGST electives		9
Total Credits		18-19

Minors are encouraged to take the Women’s and Gender Studies Senior Capstone, but are allowed to substitute it with another elective. 

We encourage minors to participate in either fourth-credit options or Community-Based Learning (CBL) courses geared to volunteer efforts in women’s organizations or one in which the student uses feminist principles and skills. We also urge minors to consider issues of diversity when constructing their curriculum.