Graduates of the WGSS program go in many directions after Wooster. Some have attended graduate school in women’s and gender studies, others have pursued graduate degrees in social work, library science, English, sociology, psychology, nurse-midwifery, and divinity. Their careers include working with NGOs for women’s rights, counseling in rape crisis centers, coordinating sex education programs for Planned Parenthood, teaching from pre-school through College. Whatever their chosen field, alums report the profound impact that their major/minor in WGSS has had on their view of the world, affecting everything from becoming politically active to the paid work they engage in to making choices about creating families and raising children.
The WGSS curriculum is based in feminist scholarship-both within traditional disciplines across the academic divisions and in response to questions that cannot be answered within the framework of a single discipline. To foster this interdisciplinary inquiry, the Women’s Studies Program was established in 1978 and has been built upon the feminist teaching, scholarship, and activism of faculty and students with a wide variety of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives. In the past few decades, the program has grown and evolved, changing its name to the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in 2008 to recognize important changes within feminist scholarship.
Acknowledging this important history, WGSS courses retain Women’s Studies’ focus on examining previously unavailable information about the lives and contributions of women and analyzing the effects of cultural attitudes, power and inequality, and social structures on the experiences of women as they intersect with race, nation, ability, class, religion, and other axes of difference. In addition, feminist scholarship has recognized and explored commonalities between women’s oppression and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other sexual minorities worldwide, as well as the varied experiences of masculinity throughout the globe. In this vein, WGSS courses explore the cultural construction of sex, gender, and sexuality in the context of their relationship between theoretical and experiential knowledge and privileging historically marginalized voices. WGSS encourages scholarship and teaching that is committed to the feminist principle of creating a more just world for all.
Digital History of WGSS at Wooster Explore the Global Queer Studies Minor at Wooster
Professor of Communication Studies; Program Chair of Global Media & Digital Studies; Liaison to Digital Visual Storytelling Pathway
Professor of Anthropology and Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies, Program Chair of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies (On leave Spring 2025)
Associate Professor of Economics & Business Economics; Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Administrative Coordinator - Africana Studies, Archaeology, East Asian Studies, Middle Eastern & North African Studies, Religious Studies, Sociology and Anthropology, South Asian Studies, Urban Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology; Latin American Studies; Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies; Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Peyton Crook ’26, a psychology major and minor in statistical & data sciences and women’s, gender, & sexuality studies, knew she wanted to gain […]
Archaeology major Henry McMahon spent the summer before his senior year at The College of Wooster in Guatemala surveying an ancient plaza inside El […]
Amelia Menk Brown ’96, originally from Poland, Ohio, knew she wanted to attend a small, liberal arts college, but the Independent Study program made […]
Emilie Eustace ’24, a psychology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies major at The College of Wooster, has seen a notable increase in her […]
A major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies consists of 11 courses spanning Africana Studies, Anthropology, English, History, Communication Studies, Political Science, and World Languages.
View CoursesMinors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and Global Queer Studies (GQST) consist of six courses spanning Africana Studies, Anthropology, English, History, Communication Studies, Political Science, and World Languages.
View CoursesMajors explore their own research questions relating to gender and sexuality. In their Jr. Independent Study seminar, Doing Feminist Research, WGSS majors, minors, and other students who plan to pursue feminist research in their I.S. are introduced to feminist research methods as well as distinctive feminist critical approaches to issues in the social sciences, natural sciences, and the humanities. In their senior year, working under the guidance of a faculty member, students explore their own research for the Independent Study project.
The College Libraries and various academic areas, including Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Global Queer Studies, collaborate to highlight the importance of feminist politics of citation, being aware and strategic with how we cite, and acknowledging those whose work inspires and influences our own. As part of that effort, we brought Dr. Christen A. Smith to campus to talk about her work with the Cite Black Women movement.
More Information| Student | Year | I.S. Title | Major 1 | Major 2 | Advisor |
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Alumni of the WGSS program go in many directions after Wooster.
Some have attended graduate school in women’s and gender studies, others have pursued graduate degrees in social work, library science, English, sociology, psychology, nurse-midwifery, and divinity.
Their careers include working with NGOs for women’s rights, counseling in rape crisis centers, co-ordinating sex education programs for Planned Parenthood, teaching from pre-school through College, and one alum owns her own hula hoop company to promote positive body image!
Whatever their chosen field, alums report the profound impact that their major/minor in WGSS has had on their view of the world, affecting everything from becoming politically active to the paid work they engage in to making choices about creating families and raising children.
