Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Minor

The minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) is an 18-unit interdisciplinary minor housed within the Department of Gender, Race and Identity (GRI). Students in the minor study women, gender, and sexuality in historical and contemporary contexts and global and local settings. The minor is grounded in an intersectional perspective, attending to the interrelationship of gender and sexuality with other forms of identity, difference, and power that include race, class, Indigeneity, ethnicity, citizenship, nationality, religion, ability status, and other categories. The course program critically analyzes the construction of gender and sexual identities and experiences in global and local contexts; examines sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and feminisms; and addresses key theories in studies of gender and sexuality. The minor provides an expressly interdisciplinary environment for learning, drawing widely on academic traditions in the social sciences and the humanities. Students gain tools to critically analyze and engage our world and to enact change in their communities and professions.

The Women’s Studies minor is not open to students pursuing a major in Gender, Race & Identity with a specialization in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. It is, however, open to students in the general major in Gender, Race and Identity or the major in Gender, Race, and Identity (Ethnic Studies Specialization), as well as to other majors in the CLA and at UNR.

The minor was previously named Women’s Studies and many courses retain the prefix WMST.

https://www.unr.edu/gender-race-identity/degrees