Women's Studies

Marilyn Cohen, Director

 

Women’s Studies at Saint Peter’s includes a minor, certificate for evening

Dr. Cohen celebrating Women in Baseball

students and focused courses. It is an interdisciplinary cross/cultural program. It provides interested students with an in-depth knowledge of the social construction of gender, the significance of gender in structuring human social life and women’s contributions to history and culture. Women Studies emphasizes the link between the personal and the political and using knowledge to create community-based agendas for social change to eliminate gender based inequality.

 

The 18 credit Minor in Women’s Studies has two required courses and draws on existing courses as electives offered by the various academic departments. Since the program is interdisciplinary students should not take more than two electives in any one discipline.

 

The 12 credit Certificate in Women’s Studies is open to evening students consisting of two required courses and electives.

 

 

The Minor and Certificate programs have two required courses (6 credits). These are:

 

So/Ws 140 Introduction to Women’s Studies

 

This interdisciplinary course introduces students to the broad subject matter of women’s studies. It draws on a combination of information sources including texts, films and students’ experiences. The course covers a definition of feminism and the roots of women’s studies in the second wave feminist and civil rights movements, the construction of gender in society and culture giving special attention to the media and social institutions, and forms of gender inequality in the family, social relationships, language, workplace, religion, healthcare, media and violence. The key premise of the course is that the meaning of sexual difference (gender) is culturally and historically constructed and not fixed in biology.

 

 

This course introduces students to the history of feminist ideas that have focused on   analysis and explanation of gender inequality. It includes the legacy of western feminists along with the ideas and concerns of feminists around the world. (prerequisite So/Ur 140)

 

Electives: Existing Courses (12 credits for Minor, 6 for Certificate)

 

Ar425 Women in Art

As/So 353 Sociology of the Black Family

Ec/As357 The Economics of Human Resources

El349 Women and Literature I

El350 Women and Literature II

Hp244 Women and Film

Cc/Hs358 Women in Antiquity

Hs307 Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Hs345 Women in Modern History

Pl340 Women’s Ways of Knowing

Po310 Feminist Political Theory

Ps170 Marriage and Family

Ps410 Psychology of Gender

So/Ur 460 The Sociology of Intimacy: Sexuality, Marriage and the Family

So/Ws 309 Women in the Changing Urban World

 

Electives: New Courses

 

So/Ws 326 The Anthropology of Gender

This course is a cross cultural, comparative and historical examination of the different constructions of gender (masculinity and femininity). It includes the symbolic meanings of sexual differences and how these meanings influence life cycle rituals, the gender division of labor, social structure, marriage and kinship, power relations and anthropological perspectives on global feminist issues.