Women's StudIES Program

Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study (begun in many universities in the 1970s) that is concerned with difference, history, and social justice, especially regarding gender, race, class, age, and sexuality.

The Women's Studies program at Indiana State University offers an undergraduate minor.  Our programs are interdisciplinary in nature.  Women Studies students and faculty come from a variety of disciplines and academic departments across the Indiana State University campus.  In addition to offering academic programs, the Women's Studies Program is active in facilitating and support a variety of activities and events concerned with social justice for all people. 

ISU’s Women’s Studies Program has the following goals:

To introduce the histories of women.

To understand relationships among gender, race, age, and sexuality.

To learn about same-sex, cross-sex, and cross-cultural differences.

To communicate across differences, not necessarily overcoming them.

To explore different kinds of societal oppression.

To form educated opinions.

To study the politics of education.

To know the history and practice of feminisms.

What can I do with a women’s studies minor?

Students who have specialized in women’s studies enter occupations in health, social, and human services; education and library services; and law and government. Specific occupations include:

advocate for domestic violence victims, journalist, advocate for hate-crime victims, law enforcement, archivist, lawyer, art therapist, librarian, artist, minister, battered women’s center director, musician, business owner, nurse or midwife, clinical social worker, Planned Parenthood clinic coordinator, college professor, program director at human rights organization, communications consultant, psychotherapist, congressional fellow, public and government relations manager, cooperative grocery manager, rape crisis program director, director of program for inner-city teenagers, recreational therapist, doctor, sexual assault/sexual abuse educator, energy conservation manager, teacher, film-casting assistant, theater worker, flight instructor, town manager, health clinic medical assistant, union organizer, HIV educator, university staff psychologist, hospital foundation executive director, writer, human services administrator

How can I find out if Women’s Studies is right for me?

Talk to faculty and current students, take a Women’s Studies course, or research the subject at the library. WS 200, Introduction to Women’s Studies, is a general education course. There are several sections offered each semester. ISU also has a Women’s Studies Minor’s Association. A related organization is the Feminist Majority.  The Women’s Studies Program Office is part of the Center for Interdisciplinary Programs, located in Holmstead Hall 291. Our hours are M-F, 8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. or by appointment.

There are several good books to read about Women’s Studies including, Luebke and Reilly’s Women’s Studies Graduate: The First Generation, O’Barr and Wyer’s Engaging Feminism” Students Speak Up and Speak Out, and Findlen’s Listen Up: Voices of the Next Feminist Generation. 

Updated August 19, 2008