Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Minor in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS)
Students in the program learn feminist theories and methods with which to transform the norms and forms of domination that socially construct women in oppressive ways, and that discourage practices of femininity and masculinity that hinder all genders from participating fully in society. Women and gender studies programs and departments throughout Canada and internationally are widely recognized as playing an important role in broadening and problematizing our definitions of knowledge and helping to amend the bias and narrowness of many academic disciplines and social practices and institutions beyond the academy.
Governments and many large and small institutions and organizations acknowledge the need to work towards gender, sexual and related forms of equity; our graduates demonstrate their expertise in this area through a range of practical and professional applications of their knowledge.
Minor in WGSS
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) is an interdisciplinary minor that allows students to choose elective courses from their own major, as well as from other programs and disciplines. It is designed to work with major areas of study, helping students develop a range of skills that will enhance their primary academic focus.
Students in the minor will earn at least twenty-four (24) credit hours (8 courses) in relevant courses, including a structured core of four (4) WGSS courses, and four (4) elective courses drawn from an extensive list from a variety of departments and programs.
Courses in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies lead to a fuller understanding of how gender and intersecting variables of power shape individuals and groups, cultures, ways of knowing, and struggles for social justice and change. This involves scrutinizing not just how gender shapes and has shaped everyday practices, but also how sexual norms, racism, class, geo-politics, ableism and age-related power shape people's lives in conjunction with gender.
Sample Courses Offered
- Introduction to Women and Gender Studies: You will be introduced to key issues and debates in women's, gender, and feminist studies from historical, contemporary, and transnational perspectives. Students address diverse experiences of and ways of understanding sex and gender, foregrounding how they intersect with race, class, ethnicity, ability, nationality, settler and other forms of colonialism, as well as other social identities and resources.
- Women and Gender in A Transnational Context: Place women's civic and political rights movements in a global perspective and question hegemonic divisions between "Western" and "Third World" feminisms. Students chart the growth of the transnational women's movements in the context of intersectionality, justice, activism, and coalition-building in a wide range of historical, cultural, and geopolitical locations.
- Gendered and Sexualized Violence: Critically engage with debates around the relationships between gender, violence, and conflict in an interdisciplinary, ethics-informed context. Students focus on the following themes: gendered and sexualized experiences of violence, conflict and peace militarization, hegemonic manifestations of masculinities and femininities and their relationship to gender-based and sexual violence, and the institutionalization of such violence.
WGSS electives (undergraduate) in WGSS
Fall 2026
WGSS 2826.1 Monsters W 1-330 Dr. Lindsay Macumber
WGSS 3832.1 ST: Sex Education M/W 1-215 Dr. Bishop Owis
WGSS 3834.1 ST: Gender, Labour & Empire T 4-630 Online Synchronous Dr. Benita Bunjun
WGSS 4826.1 ST: Disability Justice T/R 1130-1245 Dr. Michele Byers*
*For those who have already taken 4100 but not this topic.
Winter 2026
WGSS 4826.2 ST: Witches R 230-5 Dr. Lindsay Macumber
WGSS electives (undergraduate) outside WGSS
Fall 2026
ENGL 1284.1 Literature and Resistance M/W 1130-1245 Dr. Soji Cole
ENGL 3307.1 Poetics of the Archive T/R 1-215 Dr. Luke Hathaway
GEOG 4828.1 Borders. Online Asynchronous Dr. Cathy Conrad
PHIL 4590.1 Ethics of Microaggressions T/R 230-345 Dr. Emma McClure
RELS 2325.1 Myth and Story. W 1-330 Dr. Lindsay Macumber
SOCI 3833.1 The Sociology of Happiness M 4-630 Dr. Mohita Bhatia
SOCI 4827.1 The Ethnography Lab R 4-630 Dr. Mohita Bhatia
Winter 2027
ANTH 2829.2 The Anthropology of Heated Rivalry M/W 10-1115 Dr. Rylan Higgins
CRIM 4829.2 Queer Criminology. M/W 230-345 Dr. Allyn Walker
ENGL 2323.2 Queer Lives and Letters T/R 1-215 Dr. Luke Hathaway
ENGL 3791.2 Literatures of the Black Atlantic. M/W 230-345. Dr. Soji Cole
PHIL 2335.2 Common and Constitutional Law T/R 4-515 Dr. Emma McClure
POLI 4490.2 Far Right Politics. T 4-630 Dr. Paulo Ravecca
SJCS 4432.2 Gender & Law R 4-630 Dr. Val Johnson
SOCI 3828.2 ST: Sexualized Violence T/R 230-345 Dee Dooley
SOCI 3834.2 Men and Masculinities. W 4-630 Dr. Pauline Hoebanx
SOCI 3892.2 Sociology of Mental Health M/W 1230-215 Dr. Atsushi Narisada
SOCI 4849.2 The Sociology of Sport T//R 1130-1245 TBA
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