Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Gender, Sexuality, and Women鈥檚 Studies: Self-Designed Major, Concentration聽

Gender, Sexuality, and Women鈥檚 Studies is a multidisciplinary program that explores the many facets of gender and sexuality.聽 We encourage our students to examine and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, explore and honor marginalized experiences and perspectives, and question power at personal, interpersonal, xxx直播, structural levels.聽

Students in the program pursue critical questions from a range of academic disciplines and learn how activism can promote xxx直播 change.  We challenge students to consider how complex xxx直播 identities such as race, xxx直播 class, age, and ability intersect with gender and sexuality to shape the world in ways that are all at once personal, political, local, and global. Our concentration is an appropriate supplement to any academic major. 

GSWS Statement on The Overturning of Roe v. Wade

June 27, 2022  -  Read the full statement 

Program Highlights

  • 15-20 classes offered per semester and in a range of disciplines 
  • Opportunities to work closely with faculty on groundbreaking research and activist projects  
  • Events on a wide range of topics throughout the year 
  • The capstone experience 鈥 an independent project that can take the form of a research paper, an art or performance piece, or an action campaign  
students and a professor in a classroom
Mission

Learn about the guiding intellectual principles and activist practices that inform our work.

Students at a computer
Research

Under the guidance of a faculty member, students conclude the concentration with a capstone experience in their fourth year.

Students in a classroom
Opportunities

From internships to study abroad to the DC and NY Semester programs, opportunities for hands-on learning abound.

Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies News

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Student Organizers Challenge Campus to Critically Explore Issues of Diversity During Unity Week
For this year鈥檚 annual Unity Week, the two student chairs 鈥 Co-Officers of Diversity for the Student Government Association Mithra Salmassi 鈥19 and Manuel 鈥淢anny鈥 Trejo 鈥19 鈥 wanted to honor intersectionality while leaving space for exploration and introspection. So 鈥
Lorelle Semley stands in front of the O'Kane doors
Holy Cross History Professor Wins Prestigious National Book Award
Lorelle Semley, associate professor of history, has been named a co-winner of the World History Association鈥檚 prestigious Bentley Book Prize for her recent book, 鈥淭o be Free and French: Citizenship in France鈥檚 Atlantic Empire鈥 (Cambridge University Press, 2017). The prize 鈥
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Ten Students and Recent Alumni Receive Prestigious Grants and Scholarships
This spring, College of the Holy Cross students and alumni have won an impressive array of awards from prestigious organizations, including the Fulbright Program, Critical Language Scholarship and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. These accolades speak to the curiosity, intellect and 鈥