Guided Pathways: Comparative Gender and Sexuality

The way we understand gender, both in theory and in practice, has changed over time. Scholars currently think of gender as systems that sort people into the categories of male, female, queer, or non-binary. As we know from more recent studies of sex and gender in the sciences, the biological and cultural expressions of gender shape each other. Our Comparative Gender track allows students to study gender across and among different cultures and in different historical moments. Such comparisons make the socially constructed nature of gender much easier to see and illuminate the profound impact it has always had on our daily lives, social structures, legal frameworks, and economics. Studying gender cross-culturally also allows students to think about how gender interacts with other social hierarchies such as race, class, and sexuality. Students in this track will develop crucial skills for analyzing how systems of power and hierarchy work and how they interact with each other. Students will also acquire an understanding of how gender has shaped opportunities and experiences in the past, leaving lasting legacies. With this knowledge we can imagine a range of possible futures.