Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Why Wooster?
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program is an interdisciplinary field based on feminist scholarship both within traditional disciplines and outside the framework of a single discipline. Scholars and students attempt to examine previously unavailable information about the lives and contributions of women, and to understand the impact of cultural attitudes and social structures on women's and men's experiences.
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies recognizes gender as an important factor in constructing knowledge, and it seeks to explore the diversity of women's and men's experiences across race, culture, and class.
WGSS majors have opportunities to access numerous academic departments in order to address questions from several perspectives and integrate those perspectives into their own work, especially in their interdisciplinary independent study projects. The major offers a practicum that allows students to work in a community organization or on campus, relating theory to practice. Students have worked with the local chapter of Planned Parenthood, helped new and prospective mothers through the Community Action Program, assisted the local battered women's shelter, and written a handbook on sexual harassment for Wooster students. Off-campus study programs take students to a variety of settings, including The Philadelphia Center program and the Antioch Women's Semester in Europe. Also, with its required seminar course (WGSS 310), the program offers students the experience of feminist teaching and learning, where instructors and class members work together on readings, assignments, and discussions in a non-hierarchical setting.