Department: Women and Gender Studies

Overview

Women’s Studies at Hunter was established in 1975 in response to the women’s movement of the sixties, which asked that higher education integrate the study of women and gender into the curriculum. Our classes focus on the critical examination of gender, class, race, dis/ability, sexuality, and nationality as intersecting dynamics of social and identity formation. Through our own and cross-listed courses, our students are able to explore topics such as Bathroom Politics; Women and Film; Gender, Sexuality and History; Masculinities; Gender and Human Rights; Gender and Migration, and Transnational Feminism.

Our mission is to:

  • Educate students about the principles, theories, and concrete applications of these critical analyses.

  • Encourage students to examine the complex ways in which the social formations of sexuality, gender, race, class, national origin, dis/ability, and sexual orientation shape human experience and produce structures of power and inequality.

  • Re-examine in curriculum and scholarship the historical record to make visible the experiences and contributions of disenfranchised groups across historical and social locations.

  • Connect academic work with social and political realities outside the university; enhance students’ understanding of and resistance to structures of inequalities; and link research, teaching/learning, and activism.

Our faculty is an interdisciplinary group of scholars whose research, teaching and advocacy work focuses on the relationships between these forces, drawing from women, gender, and feminist studies; ethnic and critical race studies; LGBT and queer studies; disabilities studies; as well as the study of nationalism and class.

What can I do with a Women and Gender Studies Major?

Through the interdisciplinary study of gender and its relation to other identity markers such as race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, nation, and religion, Hunter College builds a foundation for its Women and Gender Studies majors to move on to professional work in government, public service, research, and education. Our majors also have an academic background that makes them ideal candidates for pursuing professional degrees and graduate studies in a variety of fields, including social work, policy, health, and law.

Administration

Gideon Soule, Administrative Assistant
Hunter West 1717
(212) 772 5680
GIDEON.SOULE66@myhunter.cuny.edu

Web site: http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/wgs