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Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Montana State University offers courses as well as an undergraduate minor.

The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) minor encourages students to engage actively in the innovative and challenging work of interdisciplinary research. The program takes gender and sexuality as categories foundational to understanding culture and society and investigates how these categories intersect with race, ethnicity, class, nationality, and other categories of difference. Through engagement with feminism, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, and LGBT studies, the program promotes interdisciplinary inquiry into femininity, masculinity, queerness, and normativity. Areas of faculty strength include the study of nationhood, science, empire, transnational movements, globalization, family, health, and implicit biases.

Because WGSS is interdisciplinary, you study politics, literature, history, sociology, anthropology, biology, and psychology, all with an aim towards social justice. A WGSS minor complements a variety of majors and prepares you for a broad range of job opportunities by helping you to develop critical thinking skills and a deep understanding of diverse cultural perspectives and social experiences. Our minors have gone on to careers in science, law, non-profit organizations, community organizing, environmental activism, healthcare, social services, education, and politics.

Undergraduate students have numerous opportunities to conduct research with support from faculty and may opt to conduct such research as a Senior Capstone Project. Many students have presented their research through conference papers and posters, allowing them to gain experience conducting creative and original interdisciplinary work.

There are also many opportunities for students to engage in WGSS-related activities and activism on campus, including the Equal Pay Task Force, Diversity Center, QSA Spectrum, Transclub, Safe Zone, and VOICE Center. The WGSS Speaker Series highlights current research of WGSS faculty as well as of national and international scholars.

More information regarding course requirements for WGSS can be found in the course catalog.