Major Overview

Description

The Gender Studies major traces histories, theories, and experiences of gender and its intersections with race, class and sexuality. It explores the everyday practices, institutions, and cultural texts of students' gendered lives and investigates the social and cultural legacies that inform contemporary lived experience. The major is grounded in interdisciplinary methodologies and equips students with the analytical, communication, and advocacy skills to foster equity, diversity and inclusion in any context. Gender Studies also emphasizes skills in collaboration, teamwork, leadership, group dynamics, and literacy in screen, print and digital cultures.

Outcomes

Students are able to:

  1. articulate comprehensive knowledge of gender studies including its key shifts, major theorists and sub-fields including feminism, queer theory and masculinity studies
  2. critically evaluate and explain definitions of gender, including its intersections with other markers of identity such as race, class, and sexuality
  3. critically evaluate the role of gender and sexuality in the history and politics of social movements and activism, and its continuing relevance to the exercise of power
  4. use interdisciplinary methods of thinking, researching, writing, and communicating that recognise the role of gender and sexuality in the production of knowledge
  5. deploy concepts such as gender, sexuality, ideology, subjectivity, phenomenology, agency, and intersectionality for analysis and problem-solving
  6. use communication strategies that model and facilitate respect for others, social inclusion, and constructive dialogue.
Broadening guidelines
All students studying towards a Bachelor's Degree at UWA are required to Broaden their studies by completing a minimum of four units (24 points) of study outside their degree specific major. Broadening is your opportunity to explore other areas of interest, investigate new disciplines and knowledge paradigms and to shape your degree to suit your own aspirations and interests. Many of you will be able to undertake more than this minimum amount of broadening study and we encourage you to do so if this suits your aspirations. Over the next few months you will find here some broadening suggestions related to your degree-specific major. While we know that many students value guidance of this sort, these are only suggestions and students should not lose sight of the opportunity to explore that is afforded by your Broadening Choices. Advice can also be sought from your Allocated Student Advising Office.
Suggested Minors to broaden you study area, are:
(1) MNR-WHLTH Women's Health
(2) MNR-CITZN Active Citizenship
(3) MNR-ETHIC Applied Ethics
(4) MNR-BIOAN Biological Anthropology
(5) MNR-BRBEH Brain and Behaviour
(6) MNR-MEHUM Environmental Humanities
(7) MNR-SCCOM Science Communication
Suggested units to broaden your study area, are:
(1) MUSC1351 Women in Music
(2) INDG1150 Aboriginal Encounters: Strangers in our Backyard
(3) INDG1160 Boodjar Moort Katitjin: Introduction to Indigenous Heritage and Knowledge
Courses

Gender Studies can be taken as a degree-specific major in the following degree courses:

Example Study Plan

See study plans for more information.

Units

Key to availability of units:
S1
Semester 1
S2
Semester 2
N/A
not available in 2025 – may be available in 2026 or 2027

Level 1

Degree-specific major units

Take all units (12 points):

Availability Unit code Unit name unit requirements
S2 ENGL1902 Reading Bodies None
S1 GEND1901 Beyond 'Gender Wars' None

Level 2

Degree-specific major units

Take all units (12 points):

Availability Unit code Unit name unit requirements
S2 GEND2902 Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change
Prerequisites
Successful completion of
GEND1901 Beyond 'Gender Wars'
or ENGL1902 Reading Bodies
or GEND2903 Sex, Gender, Technology and Science
or GEND3901 Feminist Thought
or GEND3904 Queer Theory
or Successful completion of
36 points
Incompatibility
GEND2902 Men and Masculinities in History HIST2902 Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change
S1 GEND2903 Sex, Gender, Technology and Science
Prerequisites
Successful completion of
24 points
Degree-specific major units

Take unit(s) to the value of 6 points:

Availability Unit code Unit name unit requirements
S1 ANHB2215 Biological Anthropology: Human Adaptation and Variation None
S2 ENGL2200 Jane Austen and her Legacy
Prerequisites
any Level 1 English unit
N/A HART2045 Making the Modern Body: Art and the Human Form
Prerequisites
Successful completion of
HART1000 Great Moments in Art
or HART1003 Ways of Seeing: Themes and Theories in Art
N/A HIST2008 White Supremacy
Prerequisites
a Level 1 History unit
or EURO1101 Europe Now: Cultures and Identities
or GEND1901 Gender in Australia
Incompatibility
HIST2249 White Supremacy.
HIST3349 White Supremacy

Level 3

Degree-specific major units

Take all units (12 points):

Availability Unit code Unit name unit requirements
S1 GEND3901 Feminist Thought
Prerequisites
Successful completion of
GEND1901 Beyond 'Gender Wars'
or ENGL1902 Reading Bodies
or GEND2902 Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change
or GEND2903 Sex, Gender, Technology and Science
or GEND3904 Queer Theory
or Successful completion of
48 points
S2 GEND3904 Queer Theory
Prerequisites
Successful completion of
GEND1901 Beyond 'Gender Wars'
or ENGL1902 Reading Bodies
or GEND2902 Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change
or GEND2903 Sex, Gender, Technology and Science
or GEND3901 Feminist Thought
or 48 points
Degree-specific major units

Take unit(s) to the value of 6 points:

Availability Unit code Unit name unit requirements
S2 ASIA3002 Issues in Japanese Society and Culture
Prerequisites
Successful completion of
any one level 2 Unit(s) from the School of Social Sciences
or Humanities
Incompatibility
ASIA2218 Japan: Social and Cultural Tensions.
ASIA2214 Japan in Changing Asia.
ASIA2217 Shifting Identities in Japan
S1 CLAN3011 Sex, Gender, and the Body in the Greco-Roman World
Prerequisites
Any Level 2 CLAN, HIST
or GEND unit
S2 EMPL3208 Managing Diversity
Prerequisites
24 points of study at any level, including at least 12 points of Bachelor of Commerce units
Incompatibility
EMPL2208 Managing Diversity
S1 HIST3017 Mysticism, Melancholy and Madness
Prerequisites
Any Level 2 History
or Level 2 Medieval and Early Modern Studies unit
or EURO2201 Civilisation and Barbarism in European Cultural History.
.
Incompatibility
MEMS2215 Mysticism, Melancholy and Madness
N/A LAWS3330 Gender and the Law
Prerequisites
Criminology major students
Successful completion of
LAWS1110 Crime and Society LAWS2223 Criminal Justice Systems and at least one other Level 2 option unit from any major For students in the Bachelor of Human Rights degree
Successful completion of
LAWS2224 Evolution of Human Rights and and at least one other Level 2 option unit from any major For all other students
Successful completion of
LAWS2227 Law in Action
or LAWS2220 Birth, Life and Death: Health and Medical Law at least one other Level 2 option from Law and Society
N/A PHIL3005 Continental Philosophy: The Origin and Influence of Phenomenology
Prerequisites
any Level 2 Philosophy unit
or PPHE2211
Incompatibility
PHIL2225 Continental Philosophy
N/A POLS3204 The Politics of Gender
Prerequisites
12 points of Social Science and/or Humanities study at level 2
S1 POLS3335 Social Movements and the Politics of Change
Prerequisites
12 points of Social Sciences and/or Humanities study at level 2