Women's Studies is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that critically examines women's roles, achievements, and experiences, both historically and cross-culturally.
Women's Studies brings to light valuable information about women in the family, at work, in the arts, in politics, and in the sciences--information that traditional scholarship has overlooked.
Women's Studies explores the relationship between cultural definitions of feminine behavior and the realities of women's lives. It considers the ways class, race, ethnicity, and age shape the female experience.
Women's Studies examines the ways in which gender -- our notions of masculinity and femininity -- is socially and culturally constructed rather than determined by biology alone. Uniting all Women's Studies inquiry is the effort to understand and explain the inequality between men and women and to envision change.
The discipline began as an academic field in the 1970s with connections to popular feminist movements in the 1960s.
Covers media studies and gender studies, with content on queer theory, gender, Foucault, Judith Butler, media influences, cyberculture, role models, and critical theory. www.theory.org.uk
Links and other information provided by the University of Toronto, Graduate Collaborative Program in Women's Studies. www.utoronto.ca/womens/cdnwomen.htm
The University of Maryland women's studies database. Serves those interested in the women's studies. Topics include conferences, bibliographies, calls for papers, program support, gender issues, bibiliography and syllabi, employment, and government. www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/WomensStudies
A news resource from the New York Times for student and faculty academic research. News archive searchable by interest or field of study, and an email news alert. college.nytimes.com/../../../Womens_Studies