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Women's and Gender Studies at UNSW

Welcome

Women's and Gender Studies' 2008 Flyer

Flyer image

"An understanding of women’s or gender issues would benefit graduates in a wide range of
careers, especially those concerned with social policy and justice. Potential employers may
include .."

 Download Flyer here

The Women's and Gender Studies program gives students the opportunity to explore the cross-disciplinary academic study of women, feminism, gender and sexualities.

The program is coordinated through the School of History and Philosophy by:

Dr Hélène Bowen Raddeker
Senior Lecturer, School of History & Philosophy
Convenor: Women's & Gender Studies Program
Room: Morven Brown 361
Direct Tel: +61 (2) 9385 2335
Facsimile: +61 (2) 9385 1251
Email: hbowenr@unsw.edu.au OR womenstudies@unsw.edu.au

Hélène is available for consultation on Mondays and Thursdays, 10-11 a.m

Women’s and Gender Studies is one of a number of faculty-wide interdisciplinary programs in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.  It is currently administered from the School of History and Philosophy, but undergraduate courses are offered toward a Women’s and Gender Studies major by a number of different Schools and Disciplines, including History, Philosophy, English, Political Science, Sociology, Languages and Linguistics.

Women's and Gender Studies offers a range of courses focusing on feminist scholarship, debates and issues, both in the past and present, in Australia and globally.  Some courses focus specifically upon women (women’s changing social situation, women’s roles, women’s issues etc), while others study gender and sexualities.  In feminist scholarship ‘gender’ generally refers to social constructions of femininity and masculinity;  of women’s and men’s ‘proper’ social roles;  and of purportedy ‘natural’  womanly and manly identities.  Studying gender illustrates how hierarchies of power are implicated in conventional constructs of gender difference;  how these constructs vary with time and cultural context;  and how they intersect with racism even in common representations of the ‘East’ and ‘West’ and ‘Other’ nations, cultures and peoples.