What is Women’s Studies?
As an academic field, Women’s Studies…
- Explores feminist activism and the way organizations are using feminism in the real world
- Explores the issues surrounding gender and sexuality, especially where feminism is concerned
- Provides information on various women's health topics
- Documents and chronicles important benchmarks in the history of Women's Studies
- Covers a variety of academic topics concerned with feminism and women's studies
- Covers a variety of academic topics concerned with feminism and women's studies
In addition, the Women's Studies Program at Fresno State…
- Encourages students to reflect on and discover their own voices on central concerns in their lives
- Examines the gendered, raced, and classed meanings of events, ideas, and institutions for both women and men
- Combines rigorous academic investigation (theory) with practical questions (praxis)
- Interrogates and challenges issues of privilege, power, stereotypes, and discrimination
- Celebrates and makes visible the diverse viewpoints and contributions of over half the world's population, women!
Three principles guide the Women’s Studies Program at Fresno State…
- Principle 1: Learning outside the classroom
- The program provides a creative and active academic life outside the classroom by coordinating, sponsoring, and co-sponsoring the Feminist Teaching Symposium; lectures by renowned national and international speakers, such as Carol Gilligan and June Jordan; course credit for community service; and fundraising.
- Principle 2: Helping others
- Students, faculty, and staff are involved in a variety of coalition efforts. Particularly close ties are maintained with the Women's Resource Center and Women's Alliance, and events including Take Bake the Night and Women's Herstory Month. In 1999 the Women's Resource Center honored our program for its coalition.
- Women's Resource Center
- Women’s Alliance
- Take Back the Night
- Principle 3: Community and Friendship
- Women's Studies is supported by a large and extended community of faculty and friends offering affiliated courses throughout campus. Faculty, staff, students, and community supporters get together at picnics, potlucks, and celebrations throughout the year.
Empowering Your Future with Women’s Studies…
Nationally, studies have shown that Women's Studies students feel more confident and speak up more in other courses. Women's Studies students come from all walks of academic life and find Women's Studies useful to a variety of educational and career goals. Women's Studies provide:
- Students of the arts, literature and humanities with greater depth and personal voice in their work
- Students of natural, physical, health and social sciences with a more multifaceted view of the social and natural world
- Future teachers with help in building more inclusive approaches to their classrooms
- Business and technology leaders with an edge through understanding current issues in a dynamic and changing workforce
- Helping professionals with complex understanding of the intersections of race, class, sexuality, and gender issues
What Can You Do with a Degree in Women’s Studies?
“Women's Studies provides you with all the benefits of a liberal arts degree. Liberal arts education emphasizes critical thinking, which can be applied to a multitude of careers. It demonstrates to a potential employer that you have the confidence, skills, and maturity to earn a college degree; that you are well-rounded, having studied a wide variety of topics rather than one narrow skill area; that you likely are able to think more globally than many other job applicants. Managers often prefer liberal arts majors because they think they are better at organizing material, writing well, and making oral presentations” (“see Career Opportunities for Women’s Studies Majors") According to Barbara Luebke and Mary Ellen Reilly’s 1995 study entitled Women's Studies Graduates: The First Generation, more than 38 distinct occupations were pursued by Women's Studies graduates. Categories of career include health and human services, education, research, law, government, and criminology. Double majors say one major defines the field in which they work; Women's Studies defines the focus within that field. The fields of graduate study that Women's Studies majors have pursued include: administration, advocacy, anthropology, arts, counseling, education, history, humanities, international studies, law, library science, philosophy, psychology, public health, public policy, social work, and sociology.