Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies

Overview

Gender, women and sexuality studies is an interdisciplinary program that draws from across the humanities, social sciences, and cultural studies. This dynamic program allows students to develop integrative and finely tuned perspectives on how gender and sexuality are central components of everyday life. Subjects of exploration include experiences of embodiment and social recognition; histories of modernity and domination; global, social, and economic processes; cultural production and systems of representation; and social justice movements.

At UBC Okanagan, you can complete a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) with a major or minor in gender, women and sexuality studies.

Program Learning Outcomes

Knowledge of Gender, Women’s And Sexuality Studies

Explain foundational concepts for gender, women’s and sexuality studies including gender, sex, sexuality, intersectionality, cultural representation, identity, embodiment and structures of power and their emergence from and development within specific intellectual histories.
Demonstrate understanding of the history of gender, women’s and sexuality studies, including critical interpretations of its origins in feminist and women’s movements, through reflective discussions and applied research projects.
Describe how structures of power related to gender and sexuality intersect and overlap with issues of race, class, Indigeneity, ability, and other socio-structural factors.

Feminist, Queer and Gender-Based Methods and Application of Knowledge

Articulate how feminist, queer and intersectional theories and concepts help explain the production of inequalities and difference.
Explain how theories of gender and sexuality have been and continue to be crucial to the social construction of identities.
Distinguish a variety of feminist research methods and epistemologies and their implications for academic research.
Understand the interdisciplinary foundations of GWST and develop the capacity to apply this learning to one or more areas outside the discipline.
Articulate the importance of perspectives from marginalized communities by incorporating these perspectives into analyses, discussions, and problem-solving approaches.
Acquire, analyze, evaluate, critically interpret, and integrate a broad selection of interdisciplinary data for its relevance to social justice.
Apply feminist, queer and intersectional theories, concepts, and methods to understand issues in and beyond the classroom through written, oral and arts-led means.
Apply frameworks and concepts from gender, women’s and sexuality studies to develop self-reflexive analyses of our own implication in systems of power, privilege and marginalization.

Communication, Impacts and Action

Use feminist frameworks to connect disparate issues of relevance to local, regional, and transnational justice.
Design and produce effective communication in a variety of formats and genres to communicate gender, women’s and sexuality studies knowledge for specialist and non-specialist audiences.
Effectively collaborate with others within and beyond the classroom to generate, deepen and share knowledge on gender, women’s and sexuality studies.
Develop transferable skills necessary for further study, employment or community involvement in gender-based social justice and related areas.

Possibilities and Limits of Knowledge

Develop strategies for gender- and sexuality-related justice as relevant to contemporary lived experience of diverse communities in Canada.
Recognize sex, gender and sexuality as dynamic categories whose potential for critical and creative transformation is evolving.
Demonstrate a critical understanding of how ideas and practices of sex, sexuality, and gender are relevant to processes of settler colonialism in what is now known as Canada.

Major in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies

Degree Requirements

Major in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies	Credits
Foundational Requirements	21
Distribution Requirements	12
Program Requirements	48
300/400-level Electives	18
Electives any level	21
Total Credits	120

Note: Some program requirements may be applied to Foundational and Distribution requirements; see B.A. requirements.

Program Requirements

First and Second Years¹	Credits
GWST_O 100	3
One of INDG_O 100, 102	3
GWST_O 200²	3
Two of ENGL_O 270, GWST_O 205³, 215, 235, 240, 272, SOCI_O 217, 226, 246	6
Total 100/200-level credits	15

Third and Fourth Years	Credits
GWST_O 300⁴	3
GWST_O 335	3
GWST_O 400⁵	3
Eight of the following, of which at least two must be GWST: any 300/400-level GWST_O⁶, ARTH_O 410, CULT_O 320, 325, 485, ECON_O 351, ENGL_O 430, 443, FREN_O 419, 439, GEOG_O 358, HIST_O 373, 420, INDG_O 310, 450, PHIL_O 373, POLI_O 372, PSYO_O 353, 354, SOCI_O 303, 305, 309, 313, 370, 374, 415, 467, 485	24
Total 300/400-level credits	33
Program Requirement Total Credits	48

Note: Relevant special topics courses and directed studies in other disciplines may apply with permission from the program advisor.

¹Students are encouraged to begin taking pre-requisites for their upper-level program requirements.

Minor in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies

Program Requirements

First and Second Years	Credits
GWST_O 100	3
GWST_O 200	3
Two of the following: ENGL_O 270, GWST_O 205³, 215, 235, 240, 272, SOCI_O 217, 226, 246	6
Total 100/200-level credits	12

Third and Fourth Years	Credits
One of GWST_O 300⁴, 323, 335	3
Four of the following: any 300/400-level GWST_O⁶, ARTH_O 410, CULT_O 320, 325, 485, ECON_O 351, ENGL_O 430, 443, FREN_O 419, 439, GEOG_O 358, HIST_O 373, 420, INDG_O 310, 450, PHIL_O 373, POLI_O 372, PSYO_O 353, 354, SOCI_O 303, 305, 309, 313, 370, 374, 467, 485.	12
Additional 400-level GWST_O	3
Total 300/400-level credits	18
Program Requirement Total Credits	30

¹ Relevant special topics courses and directed studies in other disciplines may be applied with permission of the program advisor.

Credit will only be granted for one of:
²GWST_O 200 or GWST_O 216
³GWST_O 205 or ANTH_O 205
⁴GWST_O 300 or GWST_O 223
⁵GWST_O 400 or GWST_O 334
⁶Excludes GWST_O 300, 335, 400

Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies