Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies (BA in Interdisciplinary Studies)

Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Program

Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary academic program designed to acquaint students with current scholarship and theory on women, gender, and feminism. Each semester a wide variety of courses in humanities and social science departments as well as in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies offers students the opportunity for cultural and cross-cultural studies of the effects of representations and assumptions about gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality on our lives. Courses generally of interest to Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies students and eligible for major credit are listed below; in addition, a separate flyer listing each semester’s eligible courses is available through the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies office (757) 221-2457 and on the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies web page (https://www.wm.edu/as/gsws). Students may declare an interdisciplinary major or a minor in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies.

The Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies major prepares students who wish to gain a strong interdisciplinary perspective in advance of employment and/or graduate or professional study leading to careers in a wide variety of fields including law, education, politics, business, social action, the arts, medicine and so on. Graduates of Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies programs nationwide report reasons for choosing this field of study that range from lifelong interest in feminism, to discovering new intellectual challenges, to providing themselves with the confidence and freedom to “do whatever you choose to do.”

The following guidelines have been reviewed and approved by the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Curriculum Committee, the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Executive Committee and the Committee for Honors and Interdisciplinary Studies.

Course Requirements

An interdisciplinary major in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies requires a minimum of 32 credit hours. No more than 9 credits of introductory courses, excluding GSWS 205 Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies, and 6 credits of independent study may count toward the major. All students must complete at least 32 credit hours distributed across five groups of courses, all meeting approved Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies criteria, as follows. These courses must be cross-listed in at least three different departments.

Major Writing Requirement

Note

Students must take courses grounded in three different departments and cross-listed with GSWS.

GSWS 391 Topics in Gender and International Issues courses fulfill the requirement for gender and international issues; GSWS 392 Topics in LGBTQ Issues courses fulfill the requirement for LGBTQ issues; and GSWS 393 Topics in Gender and Race/Ethnicity Issues courses fulfill the requirement for race/ethnicity issues.  Other courses that fulfill these requirements will be designated with “GIN” for gender and international issues; “LGBT” for LGBTQ issues; and “GRE” for gender and race/ethnicity issues.  GSWS 490 Senior Seminar courses will be assigned an attribute based on their subject matter.

Additional Courses Eligible for Major or Minor

Following is a sample listing of courses that have been counted toward the major or minor. Not all of these courses are offered every semester, and additional courses may qualify for Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies credit. Check the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies flyer or web page or consult a program advisor for a list of each semesters approved courses. (Note: Courses in which topics vary should be selected according to the relevance of the topics offered that semester; sample titles are given. Students may request permission from Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies to count a particular course not listed in the flyer if the course’s relevance to the student’s program of study can be demonstrated.)