Women's studies

Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppression; and the relationships between power and gender as they intersect with other identities and social locations such as race, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, and disability.^[1]

Popular concepts that are related to the field of women's studies include feminist theory, standpoint theory, intersectionality, multiculturalism, transnational feminism, social justice, affect studies, agency, bio-politics, materialism, and embodiment.^[2] Research practices and methodologies associated with women's studies include ethnography, autoethnography, focus groups, surveys, community-based research, discourse analysis, and reading practices associated with critical theory, post-structuralism, and queer theory.^[3] The field researches and critiques different societal norms of gender, race, class, sexuality, and other social inequalities.

Women's studies is related to the fields of gender studies, feminist studies, and sexuality studies, and more broadly related to the fields of cultural studies, ethnic studies, and African-American studies.^[4]

Women's studies courses are now offered in over seven hundred institutions in the United States, and globally in more than forty countries.^[5]

^ Shaw, Susan M.; Lee, Janet (23 April 2014). Women's voices, feminist visions: classic and contemporary readings (Sixth ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0078027000. OCLC 862041473.
^ Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Oxford University Press. 2018. ISBN 978-0190872823. OCLC 1002116432.
^ Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy (18 July 2013). Feminist research practice: a primer (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781412994972. OCLC 838201827.
^ Wiegman, Robyn (2002). Women's studies on its own: a next wave reader in institutional change. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822329862. OCLC 49421587.
^ Berger, Michele Tracy; Radeloff, Cheryl (2015). Transforming Scholarship: Why Women's and Gender Studies Students Are Changing Themselves and the World. New York: Routledge. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-415-83653-1.

[1] Shaw, Susan M.; Lee, Janet (23 April 2014). Women's voices, feminist visions: classic and contemporary readings (Sixth ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0078027000. OCLC 862041473.

[2] Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Oxford University Press. 2018. ISBN 978-0190872823. OCLC 1002116432.

[:02-3] Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy (18 July 2013). Feminist research practice: a primer (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781412994972. OCLC 838201827.

[4] Wiegman, Robyn (2002). Women's studies on its own: a next wave reader in institutional change. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822329862. OCLC 49421587.

[5] Berger, Michele Tracy; Radeloff, Cheryl (2015). Transforming Scholarship: Why Women's and Gender Studies Students Are Changing Themselves and the World. New York: Routledge. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-415-83653-1.

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