What Can I Do with this Minor?
This is not an uncommon question for all students when they begin to choose their major/minor for their degree. Although, for students that choose to minor in Women's & Gender Studiess the question seems to be more persistently asked. It is difficlut to get a picture of women's studies as a field due to the number of graduates out in the workforce and the kinds of career paths being chosen. Women's Studies prepares graduates to work in various careers that may or may not be specific to a particular expectation such as other fields of study that may train for a specific career path.
Women's Studies offers a student a unique set of skills learned through women's studies programs: empowerment, self-confidence, critical thinking, building community, and understanding differences and intersections among racism, homophobia, sexism, classism, ableism, anti-Semitism and other types of oppression.
Applying Women's Studies to your Career
Whether students are choosing to go into fields of study such as Business Administration, Medicine, Law or Public Relations, courses in women's studies provide critical professional development. Having experience in women's studies will give you the following skills to help in a number of possible careers.
- To teach about women and men in non-sexist ways is one of the biggest challenges faced by teachers and professors at all levels of education.
- To understand public policy questions which revolve around assumptions about what women and men do, assumptions that are rapidly changing as men and women push for equality at home and at work.
- To write about women's issues – from analysis of the gender gap in wages to media images of women – requires a thorough grounding in women's history, experience, and modes of expression.
- Understanding the market research and adversigin may be based on sxist interpretations that are “bad for business” is useful in product development.
- Knowing that product design may reflect views of gender behavior no longer appropriate to vast segments of the market is essential for good business.
- Being a good manager involves understanding worker stress to be a major factor in productivity, a stress often based in work-family arrangements.
- Realizing that many facets of international business rely on women industrial workers and as agricultural laborers, especially in the global south is crucial for future policy development.
Below is a list of resources to review to further answer this question.
- WSP Career Guide - TTU Women's & Gender Studies
- Connecting Majors/Minors with careers - TTU Career Center
- Mapping Women's and Gender Studies Data Collection - NWSA report
- "The Evolution of the American Women's Studies" - Inside Higher Ed
- What can I do with a Women's Studies degree? - Ms. Magazine
- National Women's Studies Association - Defining Women's & Gender Studies
Links of interest
Women's Studies Council
The purpose of the Women's Studies Council is to advise the Director of the program and enable all members of the University community to participate in and be informed about the Women's Studies Program.