Gender and Women's Studies Minor

This course will introduce you to major theories of feminism as well as key issues in contemporary feminist thought. Students will have an opportunity to advance their own feminist thinking through engagement with a diversity of theoretical perspectives on gender.Fall

Prerequisites: none

This course examines fundamentals of feminist research and the relationship between theory and practice. Students will engage philosophical and methodological questions about the production of knowledge; learn concrete research skills; and complete individual research/action projects.Spring

Prerequisites: none

This course explores an advanced topic in women's and gender studies.Spring

Prerequisites: GWS 110 or GWS 220 or consent 

This course familiarizes students with the field of Gender and Women's Studies. It focuses on major questions and approaches to understanding gender alongside race, class, and sexuality, among other identity categories.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course familiarizes students with the field of Gender and Women's Studies. It focuses on major questions and approaches to understanding gender alongside race, class, and sexuality, among other identity categories.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will examine women's lives and activism, past and present, throughout the world. We will explore and evaluate individual and collective efforts to achieve social justice in the context of interlocking systems of oppression. Fall, Spring, Summer

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-08, GE-09

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will examine women's lives and activism, past and present, throughout the world. We will explore and evaluate individual and collective efforts to achieve social justice in the context of interlocking systems of oppression. Fall, Spring, Summer

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-08, GE-09

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Being American Indian and being woman creates a unique situation for women who have been directly influenced by the differences of gender roles from two intersecting cultures. This course will focus on how those differences have affected American Indian Women.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Kinship is the most basic principle of organization for all human societies. The course analyzes the main theories and methods of studying social organization, and explores cross-cultural variations in kinship, marriage and family systems.

Prerequisites: none

Major anthropological theories of gender relations are read, discussed, and applied to a variety of contemporary ethnographic case studies.

Prerequisites: ANTH 101, ANTH 230, or consent 

Historical survey of the representation of gender with comparison of the artistic efforts of males and females and examination of art used to present gender-based issues including homosexuality, feminism, censorship and pornography.

Prerequisites: ART 261 or consent 

An introduction to biological topics of special interest to women with emphasis on anatomic and physiologic changes over the course of a woman's lifetime. Designed for students not majoring in science. Presents fundamental biologic concepts within this specialized context and provides opportunity to collect, evaluate, and analyze data.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-03

This course focuses on the experiences of women in the criminal justice system--as victims, offenders, and professionals. Women's involvement in this system (whether they were a defendant, an attorney, an inmate, a correctional officer or a crime victim) has often been overlooked or devalued. The goal of this course is to bring the special needs and contributions of women in the criminal justice system into sharper focus.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Selected topics course on literature about gender and gendered experiences

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Examines the effects of sexism and racism on women of color and provides an understanding of the significant contributions they have made in their struggle against oppression.

Prerequisites: ETHN 400, or consent 

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Prerequisites: none

This course is designed to provide an overview and analysis of the historical experiences of the family in the United States from earliest settlement to the present in order to aid students in understanding the contemporary situation of the family in American society.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

A history of women from Classical Greece and Rome to the modern era. An analysis of the changing concepts of gender relations within a study of women as individuals and as members of socio-economic, ethnic, kin, and religious groups.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course is designed to provide a survey and analysis of the historical experiences of women in the United States from earliest settlement by indigenous peoples to the present in order to aid students in understanding the contemporary situation of women in American society.

Prerequisites: none

This course explores current issues, controversies and concerns affecting women's health. Relationships between social, cultural, psychological, environmental and physical factors of women's health status are examined.

Prerequisites: none

This course utilizes a broad multi-disciplinary approach in examining the forces, theories, and popular beliefs that influenced the restriction and eventual acceptance of women in the policing profession. Included in this course are perspectives from the social, historical, biological, political, and social-psychological sciences.

Prerequisites: none

Study of philosophy done from a feminist perspective in areas such as metaphysics, epistemology or ethics.

Prerequisites: none

Politics impact on women: women's impact on politics and governance; primary focus on United States but some comparative considerations.

Prerequisites: none

A critical examination of current psychological approaches to the study of women's behavior and experience. The course will emphasize empirical ways of knowing and address psychological questions of central concern to women. Development of gender differences also will be explored.

Prerequisites: PSYC 101 

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Explores the social construction of sex and sexuality, including the organization of human bodies and activities into particular categories such as female and male or homosexual and heterosexual. How this is done in specific institutional settings like the law, media, and science is a primary focus. The effects of such practices and their associated meanings, as well as resistance to them, are also investigated.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Description and analysis of sex/gender systems, interpersonal power, language and communication, the role of gender in social institutions such as the family, work, and politics, and the role of social movements in creating change in gender relations.

Prerequisites: none

Various forms of family violence including dating violence, spouse abuse, and child abuse; social theory, empirical research and social policy on family violence; social context, responses and solutions.

Prerequisites: none

Applies sociological theories of identity to the experiences of women being released from prison. Taught at the women's prison in Shakopee, Minnesota and integrates Minnesota State University, Mankato, students with students drawn from the educational program within the women's prison in Shakopee.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Gold

Course provides an overview of intimate partner violence from a theoretical and evidence-based, social work perspective. Students learn about intervention strategies from direct practice to advocacy and policy change. Multiple systems are explored. The intersection of gender, class, sexual orientation, age, and culture with intimate partner violence is covered.

Prerequisites: none