The Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota has three distinct missions. In all three of these missions the subject matter of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies encompasses feminist approaches to the study of women, gender, and subalternity.

The educational mission of the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies is to develop and sustain a learning environment, curricula, and a trained faculty to deliver high-quality interdisciplinary, multicultural, and global course of study and means for inquiry for undergraduate and graduate students, and for the enrichment of faculty and community scholars.

The research mission of the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies is to develop new interdisciplinary research, scholarship, creative work, and new methods for improving the study of women, gender, and subalternity in a variety of disciplines and across multiple cultural and social differences, and to evaluate critically more traditional scholarship and research in these areas. This includes both disciplinary and interdisciplinary means of knowledge production, concerns for epistemic diversity, and the application of such knowledge towards the improvement of social justice and equality.

The civic and global mission of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies is to create a women's studies learning, inquiry, and research environment at the University of Minnesota that addresses or responds to issues of concern relevant to the lives of women on our university campus and in our local cities, the state, across the Americas and globally.