How have women’s lives changed over time?  How do women’s lives differ in different societies and cultures?  Have women always been expected to be primarily or exclusively wives and mothers?  Why have women been excluded from so many of the activities and pursuits usually considered most important in their societies?  How have women pursued equality at different times and in different places in the world?

How do different societies and cultures define masculinity and femininity?  How do our understandings of femininity and masculinity change over time?  How do they vary in different societies and cultures?  How are the biological bases of anatomical sex related to our social experiences of gender?  How are sex, gender, and sexual identity related?  What ideas about women, men, gender, and sexuality are embedded, for instance, in the books we read, the films we see, the sciences we study and practice, and the organizations in which we participate?

What is required in society in order for men and women to be equal?  What factors will change men and women’s lives in the future?  What factors will change our understandings of masculinity and femininity, gender and sexuality?  How will these changes affect the rest of society? 

These are just some of the questions that women’s studies addresses.

Women’s studies is the study of women’s lives, accomplishments, situations, and positions in societies and cultures.  It also includes the study of gender—femininity and masculinity—and sexual identities as historically changing social categories complexly related to human biology.  Students and scholars in women’s studies use the methods of many disciplines, including history, literary studies, biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, communication and media studies, philosophy, and religion studies.  They use these methods to understand the great variety of experiences that women have had and the many different positions that women have occupied in the world.  They also bring these methods to bear on questions about gender and sexuality.

Women’s studies emerged as a distinct academic field in the U.S. in the 1970s, largely because the traditional disciplines weren’t asking questions about women and gender.  Since then, the traditional disciplines have begun to incorporate these questions, and women’s studies has not only used but also reinterpreted the approaches and methods of the traditional disciplines.  So, at present, women’s studies and the traditional disciplines interact provocatively and productively, together generating new questions, new approaches, new data and information, and new ideas.

Women’s studies at Muhlenberg offers a six-course minor that students can combine with any major.  Recent women’s studies graduates have majored in biology, psychology, communication and media studies, sociology, history, English, and religion studies.  Some of Muhlenberg’s women’s studies graduates have gone into careers in areas such as health services, management, sales and marketing, social services, publishing, and law and public policy making.  Others have gone on to graduate study in fields that include the natural sciences, history, political science, psychology, and English.