Gender Studies Symposium

43rd Annual Gender Studies Symposium
Being Online
March 6–8, 2024

The 43rd Annual Gender Studies Symposium, “Being Online,” will focus on the ways in which digital technology, internet platforms, and online spaces have shaped and been shaped by understandings and expressions of gender and sexuality. This year’s events explore gender, sexuality, and digital technologies by thinking about issues of work, leisure, sex, violence, family, privacy, activism, identity, self-expression, and more. Some questions that arise for us:

  • How do gender and sexuality influence the ways we use the internet, social media, and digital technologies?
  • How has the internet been a space for finding safety, building community, and forging feminist and LGBTQ+ resistance? At the same time, how has the internet facilitated violence, abuse, and harassment?
  • How have online spaces been an outlet for self-expression and creativity around gender and sexuality?
  • How has the growth of the online sex work industry and dating apps affected sex, intimacy, and labor?
  • How do people with identities as gender and sexual minorities experience obstacles or opportunities in the tech industry?
  • What aspects of data mining and digital surveillance are revealed when we focus on privacy and security in relation to gender and sexuality?
  • How do technologies like algorithms and artificial intelligence amplify, reinforce, challenge, or undermine gender biases, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia?

We hope this symposium inspires dialogue about these changing technologies and their relationship to gender and sexuality.

2023-24 student co-chairs:
Molly Gibbons ’24, Cameron Kalopsis ’24, and August van Nieuwenhuysen ’25

 

Learn more about the 2024 symposium event schedule, keynote speakers, art show, and more.

  • Working on the Gender Studies Symposium has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I feel so lucky to have gotten to play a part in bringing together such a meaningful and informative event.

    Cameron Kalopsis BA ’24
    Sociology and Anthropology | London, Ontario, Canada, and Glendale, California
    More about Cameron
  • I am a cochair for the Gender Studies Symposium, and I always look forward to attending symposia events. I love learning from the keynote speakers and being able to support my peers and learn about their work.

    Molly Gibbons BA ’24
    History | Gender Studies and Hispanic Studies | Missoula, Montana
    More about Molly
  • I am one of the cochairs for this year’s Gender Studies Symposium. I really appreciate how involved students are on all levels of symposium planning. It requires lots of dedicated teamwork, but seeing that symposium come to life after months of planning makes it all worth it.

    August van Nieuwenhuysen BA ’25
    Biology | Gender Studies | Tustin, California
    More about August

 

  • Gender Studies Symposium crowd
    Five 

    L&C’s five academic student-led symposia reflect our commitment to inquiry, innovation, collaboration, and global engagement.