Our world is complex. Are you sharpened and drawn to challenging issues involving gender, race, ethnicity, and class? Are you passionate about ideas of social justice, hospitality, and purposeful action that reflect Christian values? If you desire to study and respond to global issues of gender justice, consider an interdisciplinary minor in women's studies.
The women’s studies minor embodies a commitment to gender equality by addressing gender issues in curriculum and on campus. It aims to combine theory and praxis regarding gender, while encouraging multicultural, cooperative, inclusive, and relational ways of learning.
Join students from a wide range of majors in examining important gender issues across a wide variety of academic fields. Classes in the women's studies minor examine the politics of race, class, and gender and the development of feminist theory. You'll be able to choose elective credits from a wide variety of classes that focus on gender and women's issues in literature, history, economics, politics, health, theology, and more.
Margaret Stevenson Center for Women's Studies
Women’s studies offers opportunities to engage with off-campus speakers, faculty research, film forums, and art and theatre in the wider San Diego community. Some of our speakers have included writers Sarah Bessey, Shauna Niequist, Jeannette Walls, and Lauren Winner; historian Elaine Tyler May; theologians Rebecca Chopp, Diane Leclerc and Paul Chilcote; Islam and gender expert Huma Ghosh; and poets Nikki Giovanni and Carolyne Wright. We have hosted films and documentaries such as Embrace, Miss Representation, Girl Rising, The Invisible War, The Mask You Live In, and Suffragette.
We have attended plays at the La Jolla playhouse (world premiere of the The Who and the What by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Ahktar and Ruined by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynne Nottage), the Old Globe (Good People), and the San Diego Repertory Theatre (Rapture, Blister, Burn, and My Manana Comes). Students have participated in activism to stop violence against women, and shared their honors research, which we celebrate at our annual spring graduation dinner. Women’s studies also collaborates with Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, Residential Life, and Discipleship Ministries to host speakers, discussion panels, and our annual retreat for graduating women students on life after college.
B.R.E.A.K. -- MOSAIC Club
PLNU B.R.E.A.K. stands for Beauty, Revival, Equity, Action, and Knowledge and was founded through MOSAIC (Multicultural Opportunities for Students Actively Involved in Community) and the Women’s Studies Department. It exists to provide a safe and welcoming environment for students who wish to participate and learn more about gender equality issues in our society today. We hope to overcome stereotypes such as masculinity and femininity on campus, unite the student body, and broaden students’ views by creating a place to converse about our experiences on gender.
This occurs through weekly meetings on topics such as micro sexism, double standards for male and female, body image, and gender roles in the workforce, as well as gender roles in the church today. We engage with speakers who can knowledgeably share the benefits and life stories about gender equality.
