Gender Studies

This involving and thought-provoking minor interrogates gender, sex, and other categories of difference, across contemporary and historical spaces and places.  Learning from experts across disciplines, you will gain new knowledge and skills to help you think critically about gender and its intersections, and to analyse the major challenges and changes in gender relations today.  Graduates have the opportunity to take on roles that advance social justice and the status of women and girls, or work in politics, public policy, research or analysis.

By studying the complexities of different genders, and by understanding their experiences in society, students can work to advocate equality and gender justice through sociology, government and policy and community development positions. Gender Studies offers a student a unique set of skills: empowerment, self-confidence, critical thinking, building community, and understanding differences and intersections among racism, homophobia, sexism, classism, ableism, anti-Semitism and other types of oppression. These skills can be used in a variety of careers in order to be a more successful leader in any organization, a better colleague who will know how to be effective in diverse work settings and someone whose insights into differences will benefit you when working with clients or other key players in your career.

The scholars in Gender Studies at UQ are located within the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry and across a diverse range of other disciplines. The Gender Studies research strengths lie in their interdisciplinarity across History, Philosophy, Literature, Communications, Creative Writing, Sociology, Politics and humanities and social sciences more broadly. Within these disciplines, areas of focus include reproductive rights, sexual violence, popular culture and media representation, feminist philosophies, First Nations feminism and decoloniality, diverse bodies, multicultural communities, and gendered education.