Minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies
Arcadia’s Gender and Sexuality Studies minor will encourage you to explore gender, sexuality, and women’s issues through the lens of different disciplines. Through courses informed by varied feminist paradigms—in both the social sciences and humanities—you’ll analyze and examine how gender and sexuality affect our everyday lives, including at the intersections of race and class.
Featured Courses
Introduction to Gender Studies
Required Course
In this course, you’ll survey the effects of cultural values and social institutions on peoples lives. Additionally, you’ll analyze sources of gender inequality—especially in terms of the social construction of gender and sexuality—and examine the intersections of race, class, and sexuality for women. The course draws heavily on student participation to integrate personal gender experiences with a base of knowledge about women.
Sex and Society
Elective Course
Explore the multiple ways that social processes and culture construct sexuality. You will study social science research on human sexuality, the meanings of sex and gender from a sociological perspective, and the cultural mythologies that shape and inform our emotions, behaviors, and attitudes.
Feminist Theory
Elective Course
Examine feminist theories from an analytic and sociological viewpoint, including how feminist thinkers have conceptualized gender in society and these ideas have evolved over time and within particular sociopolitical contexts. Study definitional and political issues inherent in “feminism” and what it has come to mean in society. The theories studied include liberal, Marxist, psychoanalytic, and radical feminism. Throughout the course, you will learn how these theories are evaluated along the intersections of race, class, and sexual orientation.
