Minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Northeastern offers an undergraduate minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, though students need not be enrolled in the minor to take WGSS standalone, cross-listed, and affiliated courses.

The undergraduate program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) offers a wide, interdisciplinary range of courses for students who wish to explore gender and sexuality and its relation to other axes of power and identity, including race, class, ethnicity, dis/ability, and other vectors of identity. WGSS covers a variety of theoretical and empirical scholarship both within traditional disciplines and in cutting-edge, interdisciplinary frames. Our goal is for students to learn about approaches to gender and sexuality in the Social Sciences and Humanities and through frameworks that bridge traditional fields.

Minoring in the interdisciplinary WGSS program complements and deepens a variety of majors. Combining WGSS with your major field of study will open up new ways of thinking, bringing gender and sexuality studies to bear on important social and intellectual questions.

What sets WGSS apart is the freedom to take courses from across the university to complete your requirements. Students take one introductory course, providing an interdisciplinary framework for their studies. They then take three electives from a pre-approved list and two of the three must come from at least two different departments. In addition, one of these electives must be taken at the 2000 level or above. Our wide range of interdisciplinary course offerings give students the chance to explore gender and sexuality and their relation to other axes of power and identity in a variety of contexts. (Note: Students are not limited to the course list in the catalog: many times, special topics courses will have a focus on feminism, gender, or sexuality and may be reviewed for exception by the program director.)