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Central European University (CEU) in Vienna is a global hub for research and learning, blending American and European academic traditions. Its Department of Gender Studies meets the growing demand for expertise on gender issues, offering master’s and doctoral-level programs with modern curricula and individualized support for students.
CEU’s MA in Gender Studies
“I think the best part of Gender Studies at CEU is its multidisciplinary approach. We have a range of faculty doing work from the humanities to the social sciences, so our students get a well-rounded education,” says Professor and Pro-Rector for Teaching and Learning, Eva Fodor regarding the MA, which can be completed on a one- or two-year track. CEU classes are taught in a seminar format, where student feedback actively shapes the academic journey.
“Our programs live up to the highest standards of graduate teaching and supervision. The intensity of the supervision, the feedback, the contact, and the input that people get is really the most distinctive thing at the department,” says University Professor Susan Zimmermann. The faculty guides students in conducting original research in a specific area of interest, while drawing on the tools and methods of interdisciplinary research practiced at CEU. Fodor adds: “We teach students how to think critically about society in a constructive way – focusing on how societies and the work environment therein can get better and how that can be achieved. It’s a life skill.”
Women and Work: One Area of Expertise in a Multidisciplinary Department
Fodor, who researches how gender differences in the labor market are shaped, highlights: “There is consistent gender inequality in the labor market, which tends to be overlooked because we see some women in leadership positions and may be tempted to believe that everything is okay. But it’s not. Women are still making less money than men.” One reason, she notes, is the consistent devaluing of care work, which is often women’s work.
“I believe we need to rethink how we work. Studying work through a gendered lens is important because it helps us examine not only gender inequalities in the labor market, but also how we conceptualize and value work, and how we organize our work lives,” says Fodor.
Zimmermann has been leading a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant-funded research project on women’s labor activism during the past 150 years. She says: “There is a striking continuity of certain topics which women labor activists addressed, especially women’s involvement with unpaid family and care work, and the tensions between paid and unpaid work.” She adds: “Our findings show that women have constantly addressed the topic, on the local, national, and international level, because it has not been resolved to the present day, and because other actors have systematically neglected it.”
Zimmermann maintains that studying topics through a gendered lens is a critical approach that reveals specific insights. “Gender is one of the most striking and terrible disparities in our world strained by multiple inequalities,” she says. “If you don’t consciously look at gendered difference and put working-class women’s interventions center stage, you will reproduce the masculinist and middle-class biases of activists and scholars of activism.”
Central European University Drives Innovative
Research and Education in Vienna.