Women’s Studies Courses: Learn Women’s History

Considering a Women’s Studies Course? 

If you want to learn women’s studies, the best way is to do one of the many women’s studies courses currently available. Doing a women’s studies course will provide you with everything you need to know about women and society. The course will give you a full view of how women have changed and how their roles in society have changed too. The course challenges gender norms and you will become more aware of all of this, leaving the course with a brand-new perspective. The good news is there are tons of women’s studies courses currently available. They are very flexible too for those of us leading such busy lives. They offer part-time, full-time and evening class options, in-person and online.  

What Does Women’s Studies Refer to? 

Women’s studies, in simple terms, is the study of women and gender in every field. Its basic premise is that traditional education is based on a study of men, generally the upper-class, Caucasian, education men while other groups of men and all different groups of women are erroneously subsumed under the category ‘mankind’.  

The Origins Women’s Studies 

Women’s studies, as a concept and a topic of learning, began with the second wave of the women’s movement in the late 1960s. However, generations of information gathering and work preceded that time, particularly in the nineteenth century penchant for writing great stories of ‘great women’ and gathering them in collections of ‘women worthies’. A later and much more democratic strain of the study of women was begun by Mary Beard, a historian, who in her 1946 volume ‘Woman as a Force in History’ took a different tack.

If one looks at ‘long history’ one finds not ‘great women’ only but everyday women, not women as victims but women who influenced their worlds, women who had agency, even within the confines of a limited sphere, within the private realm. Although, Mary Beard did not initiate women’s studies. The initiation of women’s studies took a combination of the civil rights movement, the peace movement and the various open university movements in the 1960s to help women coalesce and organise themselves into the women’s liberation movement.  

What Will I Learn? 

Each course varies depending on the course provider, however, there are some topics you can expect to learn in any women’s studies course. Therefore, you can expect to be provided with an introduction to women’s studies whereby you will learn the history and what contemporary women’s studies is. You will also learn about women and history, women’s movement, women, gender and conflict and women and sexuality.

In addition, you will explore women and development, women and philosophy, women, work and family, women art and culture, women memory and identity and women and literature. Some courses may cover more than you read here. If you would like an exact list of modules, do not hesitate to get in touch with your course provider. They will be delighted to hear you are interested in the course and happy to help you answer any questions you have.  

If you’re serious about doing a women’s studies course, check out courses near you in the Nightcourses.co.uk national course finder.