Women's and Gender Studies

 

Director 
Jan Doolittle Wilson 
Associate Professor of History

Governing Board
Jennifer Airey, Assistant Professor of English
Lisa Cromer, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Joanne Davis, Associate Professor of Psychology
Heidi Holeman Kamm, Clinical Therapist, Alexander Health Center
Holly Kruse, Assistant Professor of Communication
Lamont Lindstrom, Professor of Anthropology
Liz Polcha, Student Representative

Women’s and Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary program that analyzes what it means to be female and male in contemporary societies, that seeks to discover the historical factors that have shaped the current status of women and men from all parts of the world, and that explores the various means by which women have sought to achieve equality and empowerment.

By employing diverse methods of inquiry used by a variety of academic disciplines, courses in the program use gender as a central category of analysis to clarify relationships between women and men and to analyze the extent to which sexual difference has been socially constructed and historically contested. Because gender alone does not yield a full understanding of women’s lives, courses consider other factors—such as race, class, culture, sexuality, and age—that have worked to shape the life experiences of women from diverse backgrounds.  

Certificate Requirements 

The Women’s and Gender Studies certificate requires a minimum of 21 hours of course work, 9 hours in the Women’s and Gender Studies core and 12 hours in Women’s and Gender Studies electives. Courses from at least three disciplines must be included in the elective credits, and six hours must be at or above the 3000 level. Special topics courses and other variable content courses may be counted toward elective course requirements with the approval of the Women’s and Gender Studies Governing Board.

Women’s and Gender Studies Core

  • WS 2013, Introduction to Women’s Studies
  • WS 3113, Feminist Theory (Prerequisite: WS 2013 or permission of instructor)
  • WS 4963, Seminar in Women’s and Gender Studies (Prerequisites: WS 2013, WS 3013, and at least six hours in Women’s and Gender Studies electives, or permission of instructor)

Women’s and Gender Studies Electives

  • WS 1043, Twentieth Century American Women Playwrights
  • WS 2033, Housewives to Harridans: Images of Women in Drama
  • WS 2053, European Women of History Since 1700
  • WS 2083, Psychology of Trauma
  • WS 2123, Crime, Justice, and Social Order
  • WS 2133, Inequality in American Society
  • WS 2153, Women and Democracy on Film
  • WS 2193, Literary Genders
  • WS 2213, Language, Gender and Society
  • WS 2523, Contemporary Women Playwrights
  • WS 3013, Sociology of Work and Occupations
  • WS 3023, French Feminism
  • WS 3053, Socialization
  • WS 3063, Sociology of Education
  • WS 3093, Sociology of Poverty
  • WS 3123, Sociology of Family
  • WS 3133, Social Movements
  • WS 3173, Gender Across Cultures
  • WS 3283, History of Women in the United States
  • WS 3293, Crime, Conspiracy and Courtroom Drama
  • WS 3323, Interpersonal Communication
  • WS 3473, The Victorian Period in British Literature
  • WS 3483, Principles of Visual Communication
  • WS 3513, Modern Women Writers
  • WS 3523, Gender in Modernism and Postmodernism
  • WS 3753, Black American Women Writers
  • WS 4023, Psychology of Women
  • WS 4043, Women’s Movements in Asia
  • WS 4063, Psychology of Diversity
  • WS 4123, Colloquium in Women’s Studies
  • WS 4133, Women and Health
  • WS 4153, Women in Music
  • WS 4213, Feminism and Contemporary Art
  • WS 4473, The Sacred Feminine