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Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program

This is where advocacy is encouraged.

Providing support, obtaining knowledge, and being passionate about a cause are what we’re all about.

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B.A. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

As an interdisciplinary area of study, women’s, gender, and sexuality studies will teach you how to integrate knowledge across disciplines to understand gender within historical and contemporary contexts. You’ll examine gender and its intersections with other categories of identity, including race and ethnicity, sexuality, class, nationality, and disability. You’ll also study how systems of power and oppression function, and how individuals and organizations can bring about meaningful social change.

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Program Highlights

  • An understanding of gender in both historical and contemporary contexts
  • Knowledge regarding the intersections of gender with race, nationality, class, sexuality, and disability
  • The development of expert critical-thinking, problem-solving, speaking, and communication skills
  • Support from the Mastodon community
  • A prestigious Purdue degree

Scholarships

 

Looking for ways to make paying for college a little easier? ScholarshipUniverse is a tool for current and admitted Purdue Fort Wayne students that allows you to create an academic profile and connect with scholarship opportunities.

For more information about all the scholarships available at Purdue Fort Wayne—including opportunities for specific programs—you can visit the Office of Financial Aid or contact us at [email protected].

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Requirements and Curriculum Overview

Our comprehensive curriculum and diverse requirements will challenge you to go further than you ever imagined. Check out what you can expect as you advance through our program.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this degree, students will be able to demonstrate the following learning outcomes:

  • Understand the major concepts of feminist critical analysis, including gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, ability, and age, and the complexities of their intersections
  • Understand how gender is socially and historically constructed; how it relates to systems of power, privilege, and oppression; and how it impacts our lives
  • Understand a broad range of feminist theories, with an appreciation for their cultural and historical contexts
  • Understand the history and importance of feminist thought and activism in the United States and around the globe
  • Understand the diversity of women’s experiences, roles, and contributions to society and culture
  • Understand how gender impacts the production of knowledge and how feminist approaches to learning and research have transformed traditional disciplines and other canons of knowledge
  • Understand the history and status of women’s studies as an academic field of study and the key principles that distinguish it from traditional disciplines, including its interdisciplinarity, its commitment to feminist approaches to teaching and learning, and its development of feminist research methods
  • Demonstrate effective reading, speaking, writing, and critical-thinking skills through the work they complete in women’s studies courses
  • Apply feminist perspectives to a range of issues and engage in critical debates or areas of contention within feminism
  • Apply feminist perspectives across disciplines
  • Incorporate feminist theories and scholarship in research methods and problem-solving
  • Transform knowledge into engagement and articulate effective strategies for change