Gender and Women's Studies

The Gender and Women's Studies (GWS) Program at Pomona College focuses on the culturally and historically specific production of sexual difference, on the wide-ranging impact of feminist research both within and beyond the academy, and on the intersections of gender with other social forces such as race, sexuality, class and colonialism. The program fosters rigorous critical inquiry into these multiple forms of difference, challenging conventional cultural assumptions about women, dis/ability, sexuality and gender roles and promotes the development of new ideas and research in feminist scholarship within an open, supportive environment.

The Gender and Women's Studies Program offers two kinds of majors. One stands alone and emphasizes the theoretical focus of recent queer and feminist interdisciplinary scholarship. The other major features disciplinary tracks that link queer and feminist theory with a discipline or interdisciplinary program. Both forms of the major prepare a student for a variety of careers and for graduate study. The major with disciplinary tracks enables students whose career plans or plans for graduate study might not have a direct link with gender studies to explore disciplinary and interdisciplinary constructions of knowledge in ways richly informed by feminist scholarship.

Departments and programs participating in the disciplinary tracks major include: Anthropology, Asian Studies, Art History, Economics, English, French, History, Media Studies, Politics, Psychology, Religious Studies, STS, Sociology, and Theater. Each student electing this major has a faculty advisor who teaches in both GWS and the participatory department or program. There are approximately 47 Pomona faculty members with courses cross-affiliated with GWS. We recommend that all GWS majors take at least one feminist theory course by the end of their junior year. Courses toward a gender and women's studies major or minor must be taken on a letter-grade basis, unless a petition to take the course Credit/No credit is approved by the program coordinator or steering committee.