Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies: Self-Designed Major, Concentration 

Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies is a multidisciplinary program that explores the many facets of gender and sexuality.  We encourage our students to examine and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, explore and honor marginalized experiences and perspectives, and question power at personal, interpersonal, social, structural levels. 

Students in the program pursue critical questions from a range of academic disciplines and learn how activism can promote social change.  We challenge students to consider how complex social identities such as race, social class, age, and ability intersect with gender and sexuality to shape the world in ways that are all at once personal, political, local, and global. Our concentration is an appropriate supplement to any academic major. 

GSWS Statement on The Overturning of Roe v. Wade

June 27, 2022  -  Read the full statement 

Program Highlights

  • 15-20 classes offered per semester and in a range of disciplines 
  • Opportunities to work closely with faculty on groundbreaking research and activist projects  
  • Events on a wide range of topics throughout the year 
  • The capstone experience — an independent project that can take the form of a research paper, an art or performance piece, or an action campaign  
students and a professor in a classroom
Mission

Learn about the guiding intellectual principles and activist practices that inform our work.

Students at a computer
Research

Under the guidance of a faculty member, students conclude the concentration with a capstone experience in their fourth year.

Students in a classroom
Opportunities

From internships to study abroad to the DC and NY Semester programs, opportunities for hands-on learning abound.

Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies News

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Eleven students and recent alumni receive prestigious grants and scholarships
This spring, College of the Holy Cross students and alumni have won an impressive array of awards from prestigious organizations, including the Fulbright Program, Critical Language Scholarship and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. These accolades speak to the curiosity, intellect and …
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Holy Cross Professors Recognized for Outstanding Scholarship and Student Advising

Before the faculty of the College of the Holy Cross who were gathered for her spring address, Margaret Freije, provost and dean of the College, presented Mary Louise Marfuggi Faculty Awards ...

Nate Chung '18 from the Nate Chung Project performs with his band as a part of Academic Conference.
Academic Conference 2018 Showcases Creativity, Independent Research of Over 470 Students
Over the course of four days, more than 470 students spanning all class years presented the results of their independent, creative and intellectual endeavors during the 2018 Academic Conference. The celebration of academic life at the College of the Holy …