Welcome to the Women's & Gender Studies Programme

Personal message from the Programme Convenor

Kia ora, and welcome to Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Waikato!

Women's and Gender Studies is a relatively new branch of academia, still growing and open to change. Not so long ago, issues such as gender, sexuality, and relations between women and men were either not theorised or researched, or were not part of a specialised academic field. Today, Women's and Gender Studies is a young and vibrant subject that brings innovative theory and research techniques to the study of women's and men's lives, their relative status in society, and dilemmas and contradictions in gender relations.

Here at Waikato, Women's and Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary programme of study located within the School of Social Sciences. It draws on the teaching and research strengths of academics from within the school and across the wider University community. Our papers offer a specialised knowledge of gender inequality and social change, while also analysing issues around power and social difference. Some of the many topics we address include historical and contemporary gender relations, the social construction of 'femininity' and 'masculinity', gender and the body, media representations of women and men, motherhood and the family, the gendered division of paid and unpaid work, gender and new technologies, health and medicalisation, gender and social policy, the intersections between gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality, difference, and forms of women's resistance.

As a graduate of this programme, I myself have benefited immensely from the way in which Women's and Gender Studies challenges student's existing understandings and extends their horizons. The programme that I am now proud to convene offers papers that are stimulating and thought provoking, while also teaching students to think, assess, evaluate and develop critical judgement. Women's and Gender Studies also provides an excellent training in social theory and a sound background in social analysis, all of which adds up to an excellent foundation for personal and professional life.

Further information about the papers and qualifications we offer is available on this website. If you are considering enrolling in a major or support in Women's and Gender Studies, or wish to know more about graduate studies in this subject, please feel free to contact me or one of our administrators for further information. I look forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Carolyn Michelle
Convenor