Gender Studies - Who we Are

The Gender Studies Department at Queen’s University teaches feminist, anti-racist, and queer theories and methods that centre activism for social change. Gender Studies is an innovative interdisciplinary field that investigates social life and creative works by examining gender, our key category of analysis, through its interdependence with race, nationality, class, sexuality, disability, religion, colonization, and globalization. Gender Studies draws from and contributes to the social sciences, humanities, arts, and natural sciences, as well as such fields as education, law, business, applied science, and medicine, by creating critical intellectual linkages among them. Gender Studies is committed to engaging academic work in everyday life, including in community-based work for social change; students often apply their education by engaging with their own local and global communities. As a department historically-identified as Women’s Studies, Gender Studies at Queen’s centrally engages the histories of women’s and feminist theories and movements. In particular, debates among feminists over their racialization, sexualization, and global location teach us to pursue anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-homo/transphobic feminist work that critically engages the political, economic, and social realities of a colonial and globalizing world.

Brief History of Women's Studies at Queen's University

Thank you to Reena Kukreja for the photo