About SdBI

The oldest Women's Studies program in Canada

Established in 1978, the Simone de Beauvoir Institute leads new research, teaching and thinking on women, gender, feminism, sexuality, race, oppression and social justice.

In 2019, we began offering a major and minor in Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality.

Our community of students, scholars and activists work to develop initiatives that promote equality and social justice for all, in one of the most innovative places in Quebec and Canada to study feminist thought and action.

Our approach

Our approach to teaching and research works in partnership with communities outside the university and puts the leading political, theoretical and methodological commitments that come from feminist activism into practice. 

We are committed to the work of social justice, including: intersectional, feminist, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-carceral, anti-war and militarism, decolonial, ecological, pro-sex worker, sexual and gender diverse, trans inclusive and transnational politics.

At the heart of our approach is the understanding that social inequality is produced through interlocking systems of oppression and that the State, nationalism and imperialism centrally produce and sustain intersecting and asymmetrical power relations across the geopolitical division between the global north and global south.

Our work centers on studying the social production of identities and differences by critically examining media representations, consumer cultures, cultural production, social movements, law, governance, public health and other related areas.