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Women’s and Gender Studies, B.A.

Objectives

The mission of Women’s and Gender Studies at Loyola Marymount University is to engage students in a critical understanding of the complex ways gender shapes the world around them, particularly in relation to race, sexuality, class, and other social factors. Women’s and Gender Studies invites students to participate in a vibrant interdisciplinary program of study that places women at the center of traditional disciplines. It encourages the critical examination of academic fields such as the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and the arts, as well as the gendered assumptions that underwrite them. Further, Women’s and Gender Studies proposes not only that we ask different questions of academic disciplines from the perspective of women but also that we transform those fields and ways of knowing through the innovative theoretical tools and new methodologies that have been developed by feminist scholars and activists over the past thirty years. As a department committed to transformation through education, the mission of Women’s and Gender Studies is to call attention to the androcentric nature of society, propose alternatives and strategies that honor women’s human rights, and promote a vision of society where gender hierarchy, as well as other forms of social injustice, are eliminated. Grounded in feminist pedagogy, Women’s and Gender Studies courses provide students with a broad understanding of the asymmetry of gender relations within diverse historical and cultural contexts. Our mission is to foster a vigorous intellectual environment where students can develop their analytical thinking skills and conceptual tools for social change.