MA
Gender Studies

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Key Information

Campus

Brayford Pool

Start Date

September 2025

Typical Offer

See More

Duration

1 year

Part-time

2 years

Academic Year

Course Overview

The MA Gender Studies offers the opportunity to explore ideas of gender and gain knowledge of contemporary gender issues in a global context, at an advanced level.

Students will be encouraged to critically examine their own assumptions, and, most importantly, to question popular and common-sense notions of gender.

The programme places considerable emphasis on advanced research methods, enabling students to hone qualitative and quantitative research skills, and supporting them in becoming confident researchers in their own right. It draws on a range of subject specialisms within the School of Social and Political Sciences and connects students with tutors who are well-known in their respective fields of study.

The School of Social and Political Sciences is collegiate and friendly. All students are invited to attend the School's research seminar series. Tutors are approachable and keen to support students on their personal research and career paths.

Why Choose Lincoln

Continuing career support after your course finishes

A focus on theoretical knowledge, understanding, and practical experience

Teaching delivered by experts in the field

Emphasis on the development of professional and research skills

Complete a research project in a specialist area

Two female students sat at a table with a laptop

How You Study

The learning and teaching strategy adopted within the MA Gender Studies reflects a commitment to self-directed, student-centred learning, with an emphasis on applied analytical skills.

This degree offers a distinctive range of modules, drawing upon the existing research and teaching expertise in the School of Social and Political Sciences to deliver an academically rigorous and contemporary programme.

The strong research methods element of this programme is not only designed to develop a student's specialist subject knowledge, but aims to equip students with a set of transferable skills relevant to further academic study and employment.

Students will be taught using a range of methods including lectures, seminars/workshops, and tutorials.

We generally expect students to undertake two hours of self-directed study for every hour of teaching.

You will have the opportunity to explore a research area of your choice for your dissertation and further explore a particular area of interest you may have. Previous examples include exploration of the media and its portrayal of gender stereotypes, colonialism and family relationships, and feminist theory against white ideology.

Overseas Study Trips

There may be opportunities to participate in optional field trips to key international organisations, and national and international political institutions, including New York, Washington D.C, Brussels, Ypres, and The Hague. Places are limited so students are encouraged to register their interest early in the academic year. Students who wish to take part are responsible for covering their own travel, accommodation, and general living costs.

Modules

              † Some courses may offer optional modules. The availability of optional modules may vary from year to year and will be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed. Optional module selection may also be affected by staff availability.

              Critical Reading in the Social and Political Sciences 2025-26SOS9014MLevel 72025-26This social science module explores the ways in which knowledge is created, communicated, consumed and debated in the social and political sciences. It aims to expose students to key issues of methodological choice, issue framing, research ethics and author subject-position through interrogation of contemporary and classical texts of relevance to the social and political sciences and the disciplinary concerns of the MA programmes on which it appears. The module seeks to develop students’ skills in critical reading and in both oral and written academic debate.CoreFeminisms: Theories and Debates 2025-26SOS9016MLevel 72025-26This module explores feminist theories of gender, applying feminist perspectives to contemporary issues. As there is no single ‘feminist’ perspective, the module will introduce students to different strands of feminist thought including liberal, radical, black, postcolonial and postmodern feminisms. Feminist debates around the nature of gender/sex, the causes of gender inequality, the intersection of gender with other important social and political identities (such as race, class and sexuality) and disagreements over strategies for how best to address continuing gender inequalities will all be addressed. In addition, we will examine the extent to which a postfeminist perspective which takes feminism for granted but at the same time dismisses its continuing relevance is currently dominant in society. We will also engage with questions around the relevance of feminism to men and masculinity. Finally, we will consider what light feminist theoretical perspectives can shed on a range of gendered issues. Sample topics might include: the family, pornography, popular culture, the workplace, the family, everyday sexism and objectification. Students will be encouraged to develop their own critical and informed answers to key questions such as how far gender is a performance (as opposed to biologically determined), which feminist perspectives offer the most promising tools for challenging the contemporary gender order and how we can apply feminist thought to re-imagining gender relations. In accordance with a feminist pedagogical ethos, students will also be required to demonstrate a reflexive approach to the theory, analysing the links and disjunctures between their own experiences and feminist theoretical debates. Overall, the module will aim to ‘make the familiar strange’ and enable students to question their own assumptions, as well as popular and common sense notions of gender.CoreGlobal Issues in Gender and Sexuality 2025-26SOP9199MLevel 72025-26This module aims to provide the opportunity to develop an in-depth understanding of some central concepts and theoretical debates on gender and sexuality including feminist theory and masculinities. These can be examined in greater depth in the context of key issues relating to power and economy in contemporary global politics. These theories can then be applied to a range of case studies/issues. These case studies may change to reflect contemporary issues and academic developments but sample topics include decision-making processes in national and international political systems, the construction of gender and sexual identities in a globalised world and militarised masculinities.CoreIndependent Study in Gender Studies 2025-26SOS9011MLevel 72025-26The independent study module allows students to explore their own interests relevant to gender studies in accordance with the University’s Student as Producer policy. It provides students with an opportunity to undertake and produce an independent piece of in-depth research. Students will develop their research ideas in collaboration with teaching staff and will be supported to design and implement a coherent, robust research project and to write up their findings/analysis in the form of a dissertation. The format of the study will vary from primarily library-based or theoretical research to the production of empirical research through qualitative or quantitative fieldwork. Students will need to: examine an issue related to gender studies; demonstrate the ability to critically review the relevant academic literature; address a clear research question or hypothesis; address ethical issues in conducting social research ; and give a clear explanation and defence of the methods they have chosen as most appropriate to their study.CoreResearching Social and Political Sciences 2025-26SOS9015MLevel 72025-26This module is designed to introduce students to researching in social and political sciences. The aim of the module is to provide a crucial foundation for all students (regardless of disciplinary background) to understand debates around research methods/methodologies in social science; to enable familiarity with a variety of research methods and to equip students to be able to critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of applying specific methodologies/methods to different research projects in social and political sciences. Overall, the module will aim to prepare students for independent studies later in their degree and equip them with transferable research skills.CoreEarly Modern Manhood 2025-26HST9028MLevel 72025-26This module introduces key issues and concepts in gender history, with particular reference to early modern masculinity. An introduction to key ideas and scholars is provided, focussing particularly on the ways in which scholars of the history of masculinity use a variety of texts – from journals and letters to visual material and published works – in order to elucidate the ideals and experiences of both early modern men and women. The module offers students the opportunity to engage in sustained analysis of developments in scholarship relating to masculinity in the period c.1500-1750. This is designed to enable them to demonstrate their understanding and ability to structure their own research, utilising primary and secondary sources, including works from cognate disciplines such as gender theory and other theoretically-informed approaches.OptionalGender and Material Culture in Modern Britain 2025-26HST9063MLevel 72025-26OptionalGender, Deviance, Crime and Society 2025-26CRI9002MLevel 72025-26This module deconstructs the interrelationships between gender, crime, deviance and society. It will explore gender through a criminological lens and aims to introduce students to ‘gendered’ explanations of crime and deviance. The significance of gender in the various agencies of the criminal justice system will also be explored, as will its presence a range of discourses around victimhood and offending. The ways in which ‘justice’ can be gendered will be identified and critiqued. The module will also aim to critically engage with notions of harm, dangerousness and risk, and unpick the arguments found within feminist criminologies.OptionalGender, Media and Culture in a Global Context 2025-26MED9039MLevel 72025-26This module examines the multi-directional and variable relationship between gender, media and culture. We will interrogate the category of gender as a tool of cultural analysis and its relation to media and popular culture. Gender will be presented as central to media and cultural formations, while media, mediation and culture will be presented as central to gender formations. Key concepts to be examined in relation to gender will include body, class, power, sexual difference, masculinity/femininity race/ethnicity, identity/non-identity and subjectivity. These concepts will be introduced and examined in relation to case studies, media practices and texts from a variety of historical and geo-political contexts.OptionalInterdisciplinary Approaches to Researching Genders and Sexualities 2025-26SOS9004MLevel 72025-26OptionalMasculinities, Power and Society 2025-26SOS9012MLevel 72025-26This module explores masculinities and the operation of power through masculinities in society. It aims to engage with key theoretical perspectives on gender and masculinity, taking an in-depth look at these concepts, along with related ideas such as ‘hegemonic masculinity,’ ‘heteronormativity’ and ‘intersectionality.’ Important contemporary debates in masculinities scholarship will be addressed, such as around hegemonic masculinity, whether this is a useful concept and how far it can explain (global) gendered power relations. Masculinities and masculinity will also be explored in different empirical settings.OptionalPolitical Leadership 2025-26POL9009MLevel 72025-26This module focuses on the structural parameters and manifestations of political leadership by political ‘chief executives’ (heads of government, party leaders and heads of state). The course is designed to introduce students to some of the many different theoretical and conceptual approaches that have guided empirical investigations into and assessments of political leadership in Britain and beyond. This module equips students with the necessary tools for studying leaders and leadership in different settings. Students will have the opportunity to apply theories and concepts of political leadership to case studies of presidents, prime ministers and party leaders and apply comparative methods to analyse leaders (such as Blair and Cameron, Hawke and Howard in Australia, Merkel and Macron). Based on a thematic approach students will consider a range of approaches to political leadership including: personality and charisma, theory from Machiavelli onwards, executive leadership, court leadership, rhetorical, party leadership and ‘bad’/toxic leadership.OptionalSex and Science in the Western World, 1800 to the present 2025-26HST9067MLevel 72025-26This module explores the medicalisation of sexuality from the nineteenth century to the present. Although what was considered healthy sexual behaviour had long occupied Western medical thought, in the nineteenth century physicians grouped together a series of sexual issues and made them the object of intense specialised analysis unparalleled in previous medical study. Students can explore how medical knowledge has shaped understandings of sex differences, gender, sexual behaviour and sexuality over time, and how, in turn, political and cultural problems have influenced science.OptionalSex, Sexuality and Gender in Asia 2025-26POL9003MLevel 72025-26OptionalThe History of Women’s History 2025-26HST9059MLevel 72025-26This module examines the way in which women have uncovered and used their own history for varying ends from the late Medieval period up to the present. Rather than present a narrative of women’s history, it will ask students to engage in critical thought on the uses of feminist scholarship within the discipline of history. It explores the variety of ways in which women’s history has been put to use over a 600 year period in ways which have been conditioned by the historical conditions prevailing at the time for both men and women. It utilises a variety of texts, from mass market biography to writings aimed more specifically at policy makers, other historians, and campaign groups. It will end with a consideration of the ways in which contemporary feminist women’s historians envisage the future of women’s history.OptionalThemes and Issues in the History of Gender and Sexuality 2025-26HST9073MLevel 72025-26This course focuses on the history of gender and sexuality and introduces some of the key concepts and thinkers in the field, from feminists to queer theories. It examines some of the historical debates about notions of gender and sexuality, and the complex structures binding them together. It looks at the intersections of gender and sexuality with class, race, ethnicity and other modes of social belonging, and covers different geographical areas. It also introduces students to the main methodologies with which to approach the historical documents relevant to the history of gender and sexuality, from the early modern period to the present. This module also aims to widen students’ understanding of the themes and issues in the history of gender and sexuality, provide students with the conceptual and practical skills of an historian of gender and sexuality, and strengthen students’ critical thinking in the field.OptionalWomen Writing the 21st Century 2025-26ENL9025MLevel 72025-26This module aims to explore some of the extraordinarily exciting, diverse and abundant range of short stories, novels, life writing, drama, performance and poetry produced by women in the 21st Century. The module begins firstly with the consideration of the contemporary revival of feminist theory and politics and attempt to think through the variety of ways in which feminism is meaningful in a post-millennial context. Secondly, the module will attempt to trace and examine ways in which women writers engage with and represent the 21st Century, and specifically their negotiation of personal identity, motherhood, ageing, sex and sexuality, as well as local/ global politics, war, race, class, religion, region and nation. Thirdly, you can study ways in which contemporary women’s writing utilises, negotiates and challenges traditions of literary and dramatic form to find new and radical ways of writing the 21st Century.OptionalWomen, Sport & Physical Cultures 2025-26SOS9019MLevel 72025-26Optional

              What You Need to Know

              We want you to have all the information you need to make an informed decision on where and what you want to study. In addition to the information provided on this course page, our What You Need to Know page offers explanations on key topics including programme validation/revalidation, additional costs, contact hours, and our return to face-to-face teaching.

              Research Areas

              Research within the School of Social and Political Sciences is diverse. Examples include work on violence against women and girls in the UK and India by Dr Sundari Aritha. Dr Catherine Bochel holds a research fellowship at the House of Commons considering key elements of public engagement, and Professor Hugh Bochel a fellowship at the Scottish Parliament, looking at committee witnesses. These projects involved working with MPs, MSPs, and officials on ways to enhance the work of the two legislatures.

              Some of the interesting areas which students can get involved in, include:

              • Gender-based violence 
              • Transgender movements 
              • Women in the criminal justice system 
              • Media and the portrayal of gender stereotypes 
              • Mothers and Children in Prisons 
              • LGBTQ+ social movements 
              • Gay characters in films 
              • Girls and the risk of harm 
              • Colonialism and family relationships 
              • Gender, ethnic minorities, and workplace discrimination 
              • Feminist theory against white ideology 
              • Sexual Violence against Asylum-Seeking Women in UK 
              • Domestic violence and femicide 

              Students can also engage in the Eleanor Glanville Centre, the University’s centre for equality. Research themes within the centre include inclusive environments, life course, embodiment, social construction, culture and creativity, and perceptions and prejudice.

              Protestors and police on the streets

              Research

              Violence in Society Research Group

              As a University, we are committed to having an impact through our research. A number of the lecturers on this programme are involved in the Violence in Society Research Group which examines different perspectives on violence to work towards developing more effective responses to support victims and address perpetration.

              Learn More

              How you are assessed

              You will be expected to undertake a variety of assessments to enable you to develop a range of academic, professional, and work-related skills such as public speaking, written communication, and research skills.

              Career Development

              Postgraduate study is an investment in yourself and your future. It can help you to further or completely change your career, develop your knowledge, enhance your salary, or even prepare you to start your own business. The problem-solving, analysis, and interpretation skills that this course aims to equip you with, can enable you to explore opportunities in national and international organisations across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. 

              Why Postgraduate Study? 

              How to Apply

              Postgraduate Application Support

              Applying for a postgraduate programme at Lincoln is easy. Find out more about the application process and what you'll need to complete on our How to Apply page. Here, you'll also be able to find out more about the entry requirements we accept and how to contact us for dedicated support during the process.

              A student listening in a seminar

              Entry Requirements 2025-26

              Entry Requirements

              First or second class honours degree in a relevant subject.

              Candidates holding other qualifications or substantial relevant work experience may be considered on an individual basis.

              If you have studied outside of the UK, and are unsure whether your qualification meets the above requirements, please visit our country pages https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/internationalstudents/entryrequirementsandyourcountry/ for information on equivalent qualifications.

              Overseas students will be required to demonstrate English language proficiency equivalent to IELTS 6.0 overall, with a minimum of 5.5 in each element. For information regarding other English language qualifications we accept, please visit the English Requirements page https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/internationalstudents/englishlanguagerequirementsandsupport/englishlanguagerequirements/.

              If you do not meet the above IELTS requirements, you may be able to take part in one of our Pre-session English and Academic Study Skills courses. https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/internationalstudents/englishlanguagerequirementsandsupport/pre-sessionalenglishandacademicstudyskills/ . These specialist courses are designed to help students meet the English language requirements for their intended programme of study.

              Course Fees

              You will need to have funding in place for your studies before you arrive at the University. Our fees vary depending on the course, mode of study, and whether you are a UK or international student. You can view the breakdown of fees for this programme below.

              Course Fees

              The University offers a range of merit-based, subject-specific, and country-focused scholarships for UK and international students. To help support students from outside of the UK, we offer a number of international scholarships which range from £1,000 up to the value of 50 per cent of tuition fees. For full details and information about eligibility, visit our scholarships and bursaries pages.

              Course -Specific Additional Costs

              There are opportunities to supplement your studies by participating in optional field trips to key international organisations and political institutions. Students are responsible for the costs of their travel, accommodation, and general living expenses.

              For each course you may find that there are additional costs. These may be with regard to the specific clothing, materials or equipment required. Some courses provide opportunities for you to undertake field work or field trips. Where these are compulsory, the cost for travel and accommodation will be covered by the University and so is included in your fee. Where these are optional, you will normally be required to pay your own transport, accommodation and general living costs.

              With regards to text books, the University provides students who enrol with a comprehensive reading list and you will find that our extensive library holds either material or virtual versions of the core texts that you are required to read. However, you may prefer to purchase some of these for yourself and you will be responsible for this cost.

              Funding Your Study

              Postgraduate Funding Options

              Find out more about the optional available to support your postgraduate study, from Master's Loans to scholarship opportunities. You can also find out more about how to pay your fees and access support from our helpful advisors.

              Two students working on a laptop in a study space

              Academic Contact

              If you would like more information about this course you can speak to the Programme Lead.

              Dr Aideen O'Shaughnessy
              aoshaughnessy@lincoln.ac.uk

               

              Postgraduate Events

              To get a real feel for what it is like to study at the University of Lincoln, we hold a number of dedicated postgraduate events and activities throughout the year for you to take part in.

              A group of students sat around a table, working together on a project
              The University intends to provide its courses as outlined in these pages, although the University may make changes in accordance with the Student Admissions Terms and Conditions.