Christa Craven’s book selected as an essential resource on reproductive rights
Reproductive Losses: Challenges to LGBTQ Families, a book by Christa Craven, professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and anthropology at The College of […]
Overview
What are the career and graduate school options for Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies majors from The College of Wooster?
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.
Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at The College of Wooster
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 WoosterFaculty & Staff
Ahmet Atay
Professor of Communication Studies; Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Global Media & Digital Studies; Liaison to Digital Visual Storytelling Pathway (on leave 2022-23 academic year)
Christa Craven
Interim Dean for Faculty Development, Professor of Anthropology and Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Katherine Holt
Associate Professor of History; Latin American Studies Department Chair; Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies Co-Chair; Global and International Studies; Co-Liaison to Digital and Visual Storytelling Pathway
Beth Muellner
Professor and Department Chair of German Studies and Russian Studies; Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies Co-Chair; Global and International Studies
Santha Schuch
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
Naoko Skala
Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance; Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Zareen Thomas
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology; Latin American Studies; Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Ziying You
Associate Professor of Chinese Studies; East Asian Studies; Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (on leave 2022-23 academic year)
Latest Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies News
Ahmet Atay elected president of Central States Communication Association
Ahmet Atay, professor of global media and digital studies, communication studies, and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at The College of Wooster, was recently […]
Sina Lee wins two grants to support her works in feminist and Korean studies
Sina Lee, a visiting assistant professor in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at The College of Wooster, recently received two grants to support her […]
Christa Craven featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education
Christa Craven, professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and anthropology at The College of Wooster, was recently featured in an article in the […]
Major
A major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies consists of 11 courses spanning history, communications, and women and gender studies.
View CoursesMinor
A minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies consists of six courses spanning history, communications, and women and gender studies.
View CoursesIndependent Study
Majors 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.
Recent I.S. Projects
- a study of fat positive feminism in blogs
- an analysis of novels about eating disorders published in the U.S. and France
- an investigation of feminist Bible study techniques in South Africa
- a study of masculinity in the ex-gay movement
- a cross-cultural feminist analysis of quinceañeras in Nicaragua & the U.S.
- a study of charged comedy aimed at combatting racism, sexism & homophobia through stand-up comedy
- a photovoice project with LGBTQ+ students on campus
- the development of an augmented reality video game to teach students, staff & faculty about the experience of sexual assault survivors
Search the I.S. Database
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| Student | Year | I.S. Title | Major 1 | Major 2 | Advisor |
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| Please search to view results | |||||
Related Articles
Breaking Out From Binaries Behind Bars: How Structural Identity Denial Influences Pro/Anti-Social Reactionary Responses and Corresponding Psycho-Social Experiences Inside and Outside the Prison Industrial Complex
Name: Kate Larson Majors: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Psychology Advisors: Zareen Thomas, Amber Garcia, Katie Holt The goal of this research was to complete Critical […]
Body Image Mediating the Relationship between Personality Factors, Emotionality and Extraversion, and Psychological Well-being in a Gender-Diverse and Queer Sample
Name: Rachel Jones Major: Psychology Minor: Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Advisors: Amber Garcia Second Reader: Meredith Hope Research has examined the relationship between […]
I.S. research enhances understanding of birth workers in the COVID-19 era
Hannah Lane-Davies ’21 explores the commitments of contemporary birth workers
Catastrophic Imaginings: Human-Driven Catastrophe, the Anthropocene, The Skin of Our Teeth, and Lungs
Name: Hayden Lane-Davies Major: Theatre and Dance, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Advisors: Dr. Jimmy Noriega, Dr. Natasha Bissonauth (Second Reader) This Independent Study […]
Alumni
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.
Related Articles
Economics alumna analyzes effect of pandemic on student assessment
Mahi Lal ’22, a College of Wooster economics alumna recently contributed to a national press release elaborating on the effect of the pandemic on […]
Women, gender, and sexuality studies alumna manages grassroot political campaigns
Before attending The College of Wooster, Gina Christo ’14 planned on becoming a political science major, but she soon “fell in love with the […]
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