Welcome to the UCLA Department of Gender Studies.  Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the complex interaction of gender with other identity markers such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, nation, and religion. 

Our department has grown significantly since 1975, when Women’s Studies first gained formal status as an academic program at UCLA. In 1987, the Women’s Studies Program was granted interdepartmental degree program status and began offering a major and minor. A Ph.D. degree, among the first in the country, was added in 2000. In January 2008, after functioning successfully for two decades as a program, we became a department. Today, the Gender Studies Department has 17 core and 19 joint faculty and is home to approximately 250 undergraduate majors, 50 minors, and 32 Ph.D. students. 


Having launched an updated undergraduate major in 2011, we implemented a revised graduate core sequence in 2014 designed to train the next generation of Gender Studies scholars.  The graduate courses include "Introduction to Interdisciplinary Methods in Gender Studies," "Key Theories and Concepts in Gender Studies," "Epistemologies of Gender," and "Research Design and Professional Development."  Rather than being gender additive, these courses teach interdisciplinary methods, relate debates in the field to key intellectual and social movements, explore intersections of feminist studies, masculinity studies, and queer studies, and assist students with professional development. 

If you would like to learn more about Gender Studies at UCLA, please explore this website, feel free to join us at one of our upcoming events, email us at info@gender.ucla.edu, or call 310-206-8101 for more information.

Elizabeth Marchant, Chair, Department of Gender Studies