The Gender Studies minor is an interdisciplinary program that encourages students to question how gender affects our lives.

Many students may be surprised to find that they have completed much of the minor already, as it requires only five courses across three areas of study, with at least two being outside of the student’s major.

During pre-registration, the Gender Studies Committee puts out a list of courses that are being offered in the coming semester that qualify to count for the minor.

These courses deal with gender in a substantial way, with many of the discussions and readings centered on the topic.

However, students are in no way restricted to these courses alone: With approval from the Gender Studies Committee, students may petition for a course to be counted toward the minor and create a plan for how to tailor the class to appropriately cover the topic of gender.

A common misconception in society, as chair of the Gender Studies committee Professor Rizzo points out, is that when many people hear “gender studies,” they think “women’s studies.”

Gender studies is in no way limited to the discussion of feminism and women’s issues, but rather is a look at society “through the lens of gender,” as Rizzo put it.

Rizzo also said that “Gender is an all- encompassing construct that lies at the base of our perceptions…it is a defining concept that underlies identity…it defines us all the time, we are influenced by it all the time…but we don’t see it.”

She expressed this by using the example of the one question that everyone asks when they find out someone is pregnant: is it a boy, or a girl?

This is not asked simply out of curiosity, but because the answer will change the way that society interacts with the new child and what its expectations are for it as it grows older.

Because it is such an invisible force, a Gender Studies program is essential, even on the Hilltop.

Through the study of this topic, Professor Rizzo expressed that students will learn to think critically, be intellectually stimulated, and will be benefited “in innumerable ways” because of the importance of gender to our everyday lives.

Professor Thorn of the English department is also a member of the Gender Studies committee, and she also believes that there are great benefits to being a Gender Studies minor.

She says that “the minor makes it possible for motivated students to pursue gender-related projects that are especially interesting to them, as will be the case next spring in an independent study that I’m doing with several students in the spring, comparing autobiographical and fictional accounts of women and slavery in 19c America to autobiographical and fictional accounts of women and slavery, including sex trafficking, right now, around the world.”