Minor Highlights: Women and Gender Studies

Women and Gender Study minor.
Photo Courtesy of concord.edu

Concord University offers a wide range of majors but many students are unaware of the array of choices when it comes to the minors offered.

    The Women and Gender Studies minor, currently headed by Dr. Jill Nolan, is one of the less widely known around campus. Relatively new, it was created about four years ago. It incorporates classes from a variety of departments.

    Dr. Alecea Standlee, a Professor of Sociology at Concord University, states that students in the program “study issues like women’s issues but also issues around men and masculinity as well as issues of sexuality and sexual orientation.”

    A student does not have to be a sociology or Psychology minor in order for the WGST minor. Receiving this minor  can be incredibly beneficial, says Standlee. “It’s a supplement to a lot of courses of study. It is really customizable. Students who are in the social sciences like sociology or RTM or social work, who want to work with families, men, violence prevention, can take it. But if you’re an art major and you feel like your art is addressing issues of gender and women’s studies, if you’re an English major and you want to study the history of women’s writings,or the representation of LGBT people in literature, you might take it.”

    She points out that it has enormous benefits “for people who have a particular interest in working in those fields after graduation. A psychology student who wants to work in a rape crisis center, or maybe somebody who’s interested in sociology and wants to work at a prison trying to do rehabilitation for men in the prison.”

    Any student with any major can easily relate it back to their course of study. Standlee says, “we even have people from physical sciences like sports and public health. If a student is interested in working with pregnancy or aging, or something like that, they might take it. I’ve got a Computer Science major, I’ve got an English major, all of them find something useful in the course and in their enrollment.”

    Students enrolled in the program grapple with issues surrounding women and gender in society, and society’s perception of those people. The Concord University Women’s and Gender Studies website points out that enrolled students will be able to relate their studies to history. “We argue that all disciplines, because of their history, are historically about men,” Standlee points out.

    “Women have largely been ignored in terms of understanding their contributions to society, beyond reproduction. Men and women, gender non-conforming people, LGBT people, women of color, men of color, all of these groups are part of our society, part of our world, and we should be paying attention to them and their contributions much as we do to what Isaac Newton or Socrates said. There are other smart people who made major contributions to our society, but didn’t get acknowledged because of their gender or their race. So it allows you to get a better understanding of not only the history, but also how that informs contemporary issues.”

    The WGST minor may also help students that are interested in having a family of their own. “Understanding the pressure we put on girls and boys both to conform to gender roles is really useful. This is one of those minors which gives you insight into the world in a way that’s beneficial in the workplace and the career. Because understanding, for example, that one of the reasons women are paid less is because we’re less likely to ask for raises, and the reason we’re less likely to ask for raises is because women are trained to be a little less aggressive than men.” Understanding this, she argues, “Might make us a little stronger at the negotiating table, which has long term benefits. So it can help us in our careers, it can help us when working with children, or with men and women, with people.”

    As of 2017, the minor only has approximately 30 graduates. “Our current class has both men and women in it. It has people from the U.S., [and] it has people from other parts of the world,” reports Standlee.

    In the four years of the program, students from all disciplines have completed capstone projects, including “Representation of Women and LGBT People in Video Games,” which explored “The kinds of language we use when we talk about them in online chat,” according to Standlee.

    Some others were studies on sexual assault on campus, the differences in parenting techniques employed by men and women, and the representation of bodies in art, which was done by an art student. “Everyone finds their little niche,” Standlee says.

    Currently, the program is supervised by several faculty members across multiple disciplines. For more information, students can visit http://www.concord.edu/women-gender-studies/.