Women and Gender Studies: About Women's Studies

Women's studies is a field of inquiry that grew from a concern about the way other academic fields ignored or distorted the concerns, histories, theories, experiences, and perspectives of women. Women's studies scholars, with many different points of interest and with many different methods of conducting research, seek to understand the causes, workings, and effects of power inequalities in societies past and present. These power inequities have affected the kinds of claims a male-dominated academy has made about women as well as the lives and opportunities of women and men. Women's studies grew out of the women's movement in the 1970s, when many committed professors and students began to address the sexism they saw in the academy by volunteering to organize courses, forums, and conferences.

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Women's and Gender Studies at CMU