Objective: The research objective is to describe the research that entitles itself as "gender studies" in a multidisciplinary and international database, pointing out possibilities and limitations for this kind of source. Method: Exploratory study with bibliometric analysis of the scientific output self-named gender studies indexed at Web of Science and published before 2017. Results: The results mirror the area's history, with documents identified in the base since 1981 and growing until recent years. It points out the diversity of areas that research gender studies, especially knowledge areas connected to the humanities and social sciences, but also from areas such as health and medical sciences. The number of publications has increased since the 90's as well as it's interdisciplinarity since the number of areas that publish gender studies has also increased. The analysis comparing different periods demonstrates the following: an increase of co-authored publications; different areas "joining" gender studies; more general and multidisciplinary journals publishing self-named gender studies, and the increase of journals devoted specifically to the area. It also identifies the important impact of proceeding papers and dispersion of publication vehicles. The USA and European countries are the most productive ones, however, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia stand out by having some of the most productive institutions and publication sources. The terms analysis point to researches related to education and teaching, and the importance of post-structuralism influenced topics. Masculinity and sexuality-related research have increased their frequency in the publications over the years, however, sexuality papers are much rarer, while words such as male and masculinity appear within the most frequent terms and in the publications with more citations. Subjects and terms of the publications also suggest that gender studies, as it could be expected, are following the matters of the feminist movements. Conclusions: The gender studies' scientific output at Web of Science demonstrates the area's consolidation over the years and its recognition among knowledge fields as different disciplines have joined it. Despite many interesting and pertinent characteristics were raised, the database coverage for this kind of research is limited. The data quality is also a limitation as many data fields were missing, especially for documents of the humanities and social sciences. Lastly, we suggest the usage of additional terms for future research.
