Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (BA)

This program is offered by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences/Law, Crime and Social Justice Department and is only available at the St. Louis main campus.

Program Description

This is an interdisciplinary program that takes an intersectional, transnational, feminist approach to the study of women, gender and sexuality. The program investigates how assumptions about gender and sexuality inform social, cultural and political practices that both reproduce and resist hierarchies of power. Courses examine the intersections of gender and sexuality with other significant categories and identities such as race, ethnicity, class, age, religion, ability, nationality, immigrant status and body size. Through a student-centered approach, faculty inspire students to engage with local, national and international communities to effect social justice. Students can earn a major or minor in women, gender and sexuality studies, or a minor in LGBTQ studies.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Describe sex/gender systems in terms of intersecting structural and institutional constraints.
• Explain how feminist theories of gender and sexuality relate to activism and social justice work.
• Synthesize and communicate various approaches to the analysis of data, texts and perspectives concerning LGBTQ lives.
• Analyze how assumptions about gender and sexuality inform social, cultural and political practices that both reproduce and resist hierarchies of power.
• Identify women of diverse backgrounds who have shaped their societies in recognized and unrecognized ways, both locally and globally.
• Critically analyze, interpret and integrate interdisciplinary and transnational source materials, and produce original scholarship in women, gender and sexuality studies.

Degree Requirements

For information on the general requirements for a degree, see Baccalaureate Degree Requirements under the Academic Policies and Information section of this catalog.

• 36 required credit hours
• Within the required 36 hours, 12 hours must be at the 3000-level and above
• 3 international language credit hours
• Applicable University Global Citizenship Program hours
• Electives

Courses completed with a grade below a C- do not count toward fulfilling the specific course requirements of the major.

No more than 6 credit hours obtained in practica, independent learning experiences, reading courses and assessment of prior learning may be applied toward the 36 credit hours required for a major.

Transfer students can apply up to 15 credit hours of approved WGST course work from other colleges/universities toward the women, gender and sexuality studies major.

Curriculum

The 36 credit hours required for the women, gender, and sexuality studies major include:

Students must take 9 core credit hours including:

• WGST 1020 Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (3 hours)
  or WGST 1010 Women, Gender, and Sexuality Around the World (3 hours)
• WGST 2010 Feminist and Gender Theory (3 hours)
  or WGST 3370 Feminist Philosophy (3 hours) 
• WGST 4650 Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Capstone (3 hours)

Students must take 6 credit hours in each of the categories below (12 credit hours total):

Category I: (6 credit hours)

• WGST 2030 Introduction to LGBTQ Studies (3 hours)
• WGST 2040 Queer Theory (3 hours)
• WGST 2260 Men and Masculinities (3 hours)
• WGST 2275 LGBTQ Families (3 hours)
• WGST 2475 Bisexualities (3 hours)
• WGST 2550 Gender, Culture and Leadership (3 hours)
• WGST 2610 Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Social Justice Organizations (3 hours)
• WGST 3230 Domestic Violence (3 hours)
• WGST 3270 Female Sexuality and Society (3 hours)
• WGST 3350 Feminist Criminology (3 hours)
• WGST 4240 Feminism and Families (3 hours)
• WGST 4330 Global Sex/Gender Systems (3 hours)

Category II: (6 credit hours)

• WGST 2050 Topics in LGBTQ Studies: LGBTQ Literature (3 hours)
• WGST 2060 Politics and Gender (3 hours)
• WGST 2370 U.S. Women's History (3 hours)
• WGST 2620 Women and the Law (3 hours)
• WGST 2680 Transnational Feminisms (3 hours)
• WGST 3200 Gender and Sexuality in the Arts (3 hours)
• WGST 4220 Gender, Justice, and Human Rights (3 hours)

Students must take 15 additional credit hours comprised of women, gender, and sexuality studies courses (any course offered with a WGST prefix or cross-listed with a WGST prefix).