Studying

Gender studies, as we do it, is committed to a reflexive understanding of science. Central to this is a critical attitude towards the unquestioned self-evident facts of everyday life as well as scientific theories and models of thought and towards one's own standpoints and position in the field of knowledge production. Another aspect of this understanding of science is the focus on the historical genesis of social constructions of gender in interaction with other forms of symbolic domination, especially 'race'/ethnicity, class and sexuality.
Gender structures social relations in a fundamental way and plays a decisive role in many areas. Gender studies focuses on theories, methods and findings of interdisciplinary women's, men's and gender studies as well as feminist theory. However, gender relations are closely intertwined with other categories of difference such as race, class, age and body. Gender studies therefore also conducts intersectional research. Perspectives from queer studies, trans* studies and postcolonial studies are included. The Master's programme "Gender Studies ? Interdisciplinary Research and Application? thus offers the opportunity to immerse oneself in complex relationships and to deal with social relations on a scientific level.

Our understanding of gender studies is based on the constitutive importance of gender for the emergence and reproduction of social order. The central question is how social and gender orders are specifically and concretely intertwined historically. How, for example, do transformations in the economy and in gender relations mutually affect each other? How are different categories of symbolic domination interconnected in these processes of producing inequality? With these questions we tie in with national and international debates in gender studies (keywords include: Neoliberal modes of governance, commodification of care work, care chains, precarisation, dissolution of boundaries and subjectification of work, gender segregation of the labour market).Other important questions are: What cultural patterns, for example, determine perceptions and experiences of gender identity? How can the relationship between gender and body images be determined? How does gender structure families, organisations or nations? What is the relationship between gender images and health action? What role do biological differences between the sexes play in medicine? How are gender norms negotiated in the context of education and school? What consequences do role stereotypes have, for example, for pedagogical action?

"That's why Gender Studies!
Gender studies enable us to understand how the world can appear ordered in all its complexity and how we all constantly participate in these relations of domination. But what kind of world and what kind of order do we want to live in? That's what Gender Studies wants to understand." - Prof. Dr. Diana Lengersdorf