Women’s and Gender Studies, BA

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The Women’s and Gender Studies Major provides an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the social and cultural constructions of gender that shape the experiences of women and men in society. The curriculum offers a solid foundation in Women’s and Gender Studies, facilitating graduate study and careers involving gender justice and preparing students for leadership roles in diverse workplaces and communities.

Through our partnership with the Jane Kopas Women’s Center and other community-based organizations and agencies, the Women’s and Gender Studies program offers students the opportunity to integrate theory and practice to develop leadership skills. The department works to create a learning community for students enrolled in its programs that integrates curricular and extra-curricular programming and encourages life-long learning and civic engagement.

While the degree offers students direct career paths to work in the non-profit, government, and private sectors for organizations that focus on issues of gender justice, the degree also aims to prepare students for a life of civic engagement and commitment to justice. Furthermore, the degree prepares students for graduate study in law, counseling, social work, and any field in the humanities or social sciences. Pre-medicine and allied health field students as well as business students find Women’s and Gender Studies to be helpful in preparing them to understand both their clients and their own lives as professionals.

As an inter- and multi-disciplinary field of study, Women’s and Gender Studies courses are drawn from departments across the University. All courses available for Women’s and Gender Studies credit have been reviewed and approved by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program Steering Committee. Women’s and Gender Studies courses focus on critiquing and understanding human experiences in relationship to gender and the evolution of gender in specific historical, social, and cultural contexts.; examining the complexity of power structures and modes of authority, especially as they pertain to structural and institutional modes of power and oppression; and developing an intersectional understanding of the methods women and the marginalized have employed to achieve self-expression, voice, and visibility and to exercise agency.

For more information about the Latin American Studies and Women’s Studies (LA/W/S) department, visit its website.

Major Requirements

A minimum of 10 courses (30 credits), distributed as follows, is required for the Women’s and Gender Studies major:

1. Foundational/Praxis courses (6 credits minimum)

These courses provide the foundation of Women’s and Gender Studies by introducing students to the complexity of feminisms, in both theory and practice, and discussing the relationship between the two. Students must take one course from group A AND one course from group B.

A. PHIL 218 - (P,D) Feminism: Theory and Practice

B. WOMN 215 - (D) Feminism and Social Change /SOC 315 - (D) Feminism and Social Change OR SOC 220 - (S,D) Social Stratification

2. At least 1 course (3 credits) must be taken in each of the three areas listed below (9 credits minimum)

A. Area A: Historical Knowledges (material, cultural, social)

After completing courses in Area A, students will be able to: demonstrate that they recognize the intersections between gender and other social and cultural identities, including, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, class, and sexuality; comprehend the impact of gender and women’s experiences on individuals’ historical and contemporary agency, and how the ability to express agency has shaped people’s lives in geographical settings; demonstrate knowledge of the history of women’s studies as an academic discipline, with an understanding of its growth and relation to the fields of gender and sexuality studies; articulate a critical appreciation of the richness and diversity of gender expressions and feminisms; articulate theoretical perspectives relevant to feminist theories; and explain relationships between feminist theory and practice.

B. Area B: Social and Behavioral Sciences:

Courses in the social and behavioral sciences will provide students with: an understanding of cross-cultural studies of gender; an understanding of intersectionality between gender and other modes of oppression; the ability to determine how various types of research tools and social/behavioral science research methods are used to study the human experience and gender; the skills and knowledge to perform an institutional, structural, and behavioral analysis of gender and/or women’s lives; a critical appreciation for theoretical perspectives relevant to feminist theories; and the ability to explain relationships between feminist theory and practice.

C. Area C: Representations and Expressions (creative, literary, and visual arts)

After completing courses Area C, students will be able to: demonstrate through analysis and/or practice their understandings of ways in which artistic works (i.e. literature, music, and the visual arts) expose the reality of gender-based human experiences; demonstrate through analysis and/or practice their understandings of ways in which artistic works have been created to express gender-based social and/or political views, issues of sexuality and the relationship between the personal and the political; articulate theoretical perspectives relevant to feminist theories; and demonstrate through analysis and/or practice the relationship between feminist theory and practices.

3. Electives (15 credits)

All Women’s & Gender Studies (WGS) designated courses including additional area and praxis courses beyond those required count as electives. Students must complete 5 WGS elective courses. Students wishing to specialize or concentrate in a particular area (e.g., humanities or social/behavioral sciences) may focus the remainder of their WGS courses in a given area or discipline. Students are strongly encouraged to complete a community-based internship related to their work in Women’s and Gender Studies and/or volunteer or work at the Jane Kopas Women’s Center (JKWC).

4. Theory intensive courses

Of the 10 courses necessary for completion of the major, students must take at least one theory intensive course beyond the foundational/praxis courses. Any approved area or elective Women’s and Gender Studies course may be flagged as theory-intensive, if it fits the WGS criteria and has been approved for such designation by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program Steering Committee.

List of Women’s and Gender Studies (WS) designated courses

Course Number - Name and GE Designation	Foundational A or B	Area A	Area B	Area C	Theory Intensive	Elective
ARTH 210 - (CA,D) Women in the Visual Arts				X		X
ARTH 311 - (D,CA) Medieval and Renaissance Women				X		X
CHS 337 - (D) Counseling Girls and Women			X			X
CHS 375 - Counseling Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Persons			X			X
COMM 229 - (D) Gender and Communication			X			X
1st Yr. Seminar: ENLT 135X - (FYS,CL,D) Feminism and Jesuit Education	X					X
ENLT 225 - (CL,D) Writing Women				X		X
ENLT 251 - (CL,D) Borderlands Writing				X		X
ENLT 260 - (CL,D, EPW) Women of Color: Literature & Theory				X	X	X
FREN 430 - Women Writers of the Francophone World				X		X
HIST 213 - (CH,D) Gender and Family in Latin America		X				X
HIST 238 - (CH,D) History of American Women: From Colonization to Mid-Nineteenth Century		X				X
HIST 239 - (CH,D) History of American Women: From Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present		X				X
LA/WS 395 - (S,D) Women and Development in Latin America			X		X	X
LIT 207 - (CL,D,EPW) Literature of Global Minorities				X		X
LIT 221E/221F - (EPW,CL,D) Italian Women’s Writing				X	X	X
LIT 323E/323F - (EPW,D) Topics in French and Francophone Cinema				X		X
LIT 325E/325F - Gender in Italian Cinema				X		X
NURS 111 - (D) Women’s Health						X
PHIL 218 - (P,D) Feminism: Theory and Practice	A					X
PHIL 232 - (P,D) Women in Chinese and Western Philosophies
PS 216 - (D,S) Women’s Rights and Status			X			X
PS 227 - (D,S) Women, Authority and Power			X			X
PS 335 - (D) Women in the Global Community			X			X
PSYC 228 - Health Psychology			X			X
PSYC 237 - (D,S) Psychology of Women			X			X
SOC 210 - (EPW,D) Marriage and the Family			X			X
SOC 220 - (S,D) Social Stratification	B		X			X
SOC 222 - (S,D) Gender in Society	B		X			X
SOC 224 - (S,D) Race and Ethnic Relations			X			X
SOC 230 - Sociology of Globalization			X			X
SOC 315 / WOMN 215 - (D) Feminism and Social Change	B		X			X
SOC 317 - (EPW,D) Family Issues and Social Policy			X			X
SPAN 430 - (CL,D) Hispanic Women Writers				X		X
WOMN 215 / SOC 315 - (D) Feminism and Social Change	B		X			X
WOMN 380-381 - Women’s and Gender Studies Internships						X
WOMN 383 - Independent Study						X
WOMN 384 - Special Topics						X

Some of the listed courses have prerequisites: please consult departmental descriptions.

Women’s and Gender Studies Curriculum

	*Department and Number - Description Title of Course*	*Fall Cr.*	*Spr. Cr.*
First Year
MAJOR	WOMN 215 - (D) Feminism and Social Change /SOC 315 - (D) Feminism and Social Change or SOC 220 - (S,D) Social Stratification — WOMN ELECT - WOMN Elective	3	3
FREE ELECT	FREE ELECT - Free Elective		3
GE WRTG/SPCH	WRTG 107 - (FYW) Composition – COMM 100 - (FYOC) Public Speaking ^*	3	3
GE C/IL	C/IL 102/102L - (FYDT) Computing and Information Literacy ^*	3
GE HUMN/GE S/BH	GE HUMN - Humanities (CF/CH/CI/CL/CA) Elective — GE S/BH - Social & Behavioral Science (S) Elective	3	3
GE PHIL-T/RS	–	3	3
GE FSEM	¹
		15	15
Second Year
MAJOR	or	3
GE NSCI	NSCI ELECT - NSCI Elective		3
MAJOR	WGS Area A: Historical Knowledge Elective — WGS Area B: Social & Behavioral Sciences Elective	3	3
GE HUMN-S/BH	GE HUMN - Humanities (CF/CH/CI/CL/CA) Elective — GE S/BH ELECT - Social & Behavioral Sciences Elective (S)	3	3
GE PHIL -T/RS	–	3	3
GE QUAN - HUMN	GE QUAN - Quantitative Elective — GE HUMN - Humanities (CF/CH/CI/CL/CA) Elective	3	3
		15	15
Third Year
MAJOR	WGS AREA C : Representative & Expression Elective— WGS ELECT - WGS Theory Intensive Elective	3	3
MAJOR	WGS ELECT - WGS Elective — WGS ELECT - WGS Theory Intensive Elective	3	3
GE NSCI - GE PHIL/RS	GE NSCI ELECT - NSCI (E) Elective — GE PHIL/RS ELECT - Philosophy-Theology/Religious Studies (P) Elective	3	3
GE ELECT	FREE ELECT - Free Electives	9	6
		18	15
Fourth Year
MAJOR	WGS ELECT - WGS WOMN Elective	3
GE HUMN	GE HUMN - Humanities (CF/CI/CH/CL/CA) Elective	3
GE ELECT	FREE ELECT - Free Electives	9	15
		15	15
Total: 123 Credits

¹The selection of a First Year Seminar is likely to fulfill requirements both for the First Year Seminar and a General Education Requirement. Thus, the First Year Seminar will not add to the total credits for the semester. Talk with your advisor if you have any questions.

*An approved 3-credit EP Foundation Course may be substituted for and -. In this case, the total needed for graduation in this major may be reduced. Consult with your advisor if you have questions.

Women’s and Gender Studies, BA

Major Requirements

1. Foundational/Praxis courses (6 credits minimum)

2. At least 1 course (3 credits) must be taken in each of the three areas listed below (9 credits minimum)

3. Electives (15 credits)

4. Theory intensive courses

List of Women’s and Gender Studies (WS) designated courses

Women’s and Gender Studies Curriculum

First Year

Second Year

Third Year

Fourth Year

Total: 123 Credits