Women’s, Gender and
Sexuality Studies (WGS)
College of Liberal Studies
Department Chair: Deb Hoskins
423A Wimberly Hall
608.785.8734
e-mail:
hoskins.debo@uwlax.edu
Professors: Krajewski, S., Vandenberg-Daves;
Associate Professor: Hoskins;
Assistant Professor: Khan;
Co-faculty: Anderson, D., Bratina, Chavalas, Crutchfield, Delgado, Denlinger, Dickmeyer, L., Galbraith, Giddings, Hart, Huisman, Jessee, Lloyd, Macias-Gonzalez, Manrique, McCormick, Miller, C.D., Morgan, Niedzwiecki, Oyster, Pettit, Rees, Reiland, Ross, Scherwitz, Sullivan, S., Tobin;
Self-Sufficiency Program (SSP):
Sullivan, A.
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Courses in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality
Studies (WGSS) provide students with new perspectives on the
roles of women and men as individuals, within families and
communities, and as participants in society across cultures.
Based on research and analysis by WGSS scholars, courses examine
how social structures, ideals, stereotypes, mores, and
institutions shape people as gendered and sexual beings and in
terms of their access to power. Courses also examine how
people have responded to limitations systematically organized
around gender as it intersects with race, class, sexual
orientation, colonization, ethnicity, and other social
hierarchies and explore solutions to contemporary problems.
Because of its emphasis on communication, critical thinking, and
problem-solving, WGSS courses are valuable in a broad range of
employment settings. WGSS programs include courses within the
interdisciplinary department as well as specialized courses in
many other departments across the university.
Self-Sufficiency Program (SSP)
In addition to the following courses, the
Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies sponsors
the Self-Sufficiency Program (SSP). This free pre-college
program, which concentrates on critical reading, writing and
thinking, prepares low-income parents for successful college
work. Classes meet one night per week and child care is
provided. For more information, call the director of the
Self-Sufficiency Program at 608.785.8733.
Women’s Studies Major
(All colleges, excluding Teacher Certification
programs) — 33 credits
24 credits must be 300-400 level, and courses
may not count in more than one category. Admission to the major
requires a grade of “C” or higher in the courses taken for the
Introductory or Transnational categories. Students majoring in
Women’s Studies and another major must satisfy requirements for
both majors; no more than six credits can count for the Women’s
Studies major and another major or minor.
-
Introductory (three credits): WGS 100, 210, 230
-
Transnational (three credits): WGS 215, 373, 410; WGS/SOC 337; HIS 360, 386; POL 405, 439
-
Intimacy, Sexuality, and the Family (six credits): WGS 270, 375; WGS/HIS 305, 376; CST 334; HED 472; PHL 240; PSY 305, 318; SOC 370
-
Gender Stratification (six credits): WGS 230, 255, 259, 301, 320, 340, 370, 374, 376; ANT 250; ARC/HIS 372; ECO 336; ENG 220; HED 412; POL 205; SOC 338
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Feminisms/Social Change (six credits): WGS 225, 370, 371, 373, 450; WGS/SOC 375; ENG 385, 482; PHL 324; SAH 307
-
Theory and Practice (nine credits): WGS/HIS 315; WGS 390, 499
Women’s Studies Minor
(All colleges) — 24 credits (Courses may not
count in more than one category.)
Category I (three credits): WGS 100, 210, 230
Category II (nine credits minimum from WGS
classes, with at least six credits at the 300-level or above):
WGS 210, 215, 225, 230, 240, 250, 255, 259, 270, 300, 301, 315,
320, 330, 338, 340, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, 390, 410, 450;
WGS/HIS 305, 376; WGS/SOC 337
Category III (nine credits minimum from
classes in other departments): ANT 250; ARC 372; CST 334, 338;
ECO 336; EFN 485; ENG 220, 385, 482; HED 412, 472; HIS 301, 315,
360, 370, 371, 372, 386; HIS/WGS 305, 376; PHL 240, 324, 494;
POL 205, 405, 439; PSY 305, 318; SAH 307; SOC 338, 370, 375
Category IV (three credits): WGS 499
+ above a course number indicates a
General Education course.
+
WGS 100
Cr. 3
Gender, Race, and Class in American
Institutions
This course provides an introduction to how
gender, race and class have intertwined over time to produce
women’s social roles and status in American culture. The
creation, transmittal, interpretation and institutionalization
of gender roles will be examined using family and kinship, the
educational system, the media, work, government and the health
care system. The course provides a critical, interdisciplinary
perspective on scholarship which omits or distorts the female
experience. Offered Fall, Spring, Summer.
WGS/SOC
105 Cr. 3
Introduction to LGBT Studies
This course will examine the cultural, legal,
and political dimensions of LGBT life in the U.S. It will begin
by exploring the social invention of heterosexuality and how
personal and institutional interpretations of sexuality have
historically informed the lives of LGBT people. The course also
addresses class, racial and gender biases that especially
confront queer communities of color in the U.S. Finally, the
course looks at continued instances of hate crimes and
homophobia against the backdrop of rights-based activism and the
role that art and politics play in this interplay. (Cross listed
with SOC; may only earn credit in WGS or SOC.) Offered alternate
years.
WGS/HED 201
Cr. 1
Social Justice and Peer Education
This course both educates students on social
justice issues they face while in college and prepares them to
be able to give presentations to peers in residence halls,
classrooms, athletic teams, and student organizations with the
goal of effecting social change. Subject matter will respond to
campus needs. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205 or
ERS 100. CST 110 recommended. Repeatable for credit — maximum
three. (Cross listed with HED; may only earn credit in WGS or
HED.) Offered Fall, Spring.
+
WGS 210
Cr. 3
Women’s Voices/Women’s Culture
An examination of how women have expressed
female experience in a variety of forms, including fiction,
autobiography, oral traditions, and song. By analyzing women’s
words and forms of self-expression, students will explore what
is individual and what is common in women’s lives, and will
learn tools for understanding female experience and culture.
Offered occasionally.
WGS 215
Cr. 3
Transnational Women’s Issues
An introduction to women’s issues across
nations, continents, and cultures. Students will examine women’s
status and power, cross-cultural differences, reproductive
rights, paid and unpaid labor, participation in religion,
politics, sexuality, country’s stand on gender-based violence,
and the effects of globalization and gender equality movements
on women. The course will also study how common issues create
connection for women and how these common issues and gendered
challenges provide the basis for transnational feminist
movements. Offered Fall.
WGS 225
Cr. 3
Women and Leadership
This course investigates women’s leadership
and develops students’ leadership skills. Students will examine
women’s under-representation in formal public positions of power
while also evaluating the strengths women can and do bring to
leadership, and the emerging possibilities for women’s
leadership capacity in a rapidly changing world. Special
attention will be paid to women’s changing roles in the
workplace. Students will critically evaluate leadership models,
especially as they pertain to gender, race, and class. Offered
alternate years.
+
WGS 230
Cr. 3
Women’s Diversity: Race, Class and Culture
This course explores the diversity of women’s
experience in America as it has been affected by race,
ethnicity, class, and other factors, and the effects of gender
on women of different groups. Issues that have united and
divided women in movements for social change are also addressed.
Offered alternate years.
WGS 240
Cr. 3
Contemporary Women’s Issues
Contemporary women’s issues will provide the
student with an overview of women’s studies scholarship from the
late 1960’s to the present. Contemporary theory, social change
movements, and women’s lives will be integrated in order to
examine the relationship between theory and practice in women’s
studies. Offered occasionally.
WGS 250
Cr. 1-3
Topics in Women’s Studies
Intermediate and interdisciplinary analysis of
a social issue, idea or institution from the perspective of
women and women’s studies. Repeatable for credit. Department
approval is necessary to apply more than three credits toward
the WGS minor. Offered occasionally.
WGS 255
Cr. 1
Women in the Military
This course will provide students with an
understanding of the struggles and successes of women’s lives in
the U.S. Military. Beginning with an historic overview of
women’s changing roles in the military, it will proceed to
analyze the reasons for the limitations to women’s equal
participation. Finally, the course will recognize the
accomplishments of women in the military. Offered Spring,
even-numbered years.
WGS/PSY/ESS 259
Cr. 1
Girls and Women in Sport
An introduction to the involvement of girls
and women in sport. Topics include a historical perspective on
women’s sport participation, cultural images of women athletes,
physiological and psychological benefits of sport participation
as well as negative correlates, teaching and coaching
implications of current research, Title IX, and
recreation/leisure approaches to physical activity.
(Cross-listed with ESS and PSY; may only earn credit in ESS,
PSY, or WGS.) Offered annually.
WGS 270
Cr. 3
Women and Friendship
An examination of women’s friendships
historically, psychologically, sociologically, and politically
in the context of a sexist, racist, classist, and homophobic
culture. Beginning with defining friendships in women’s lives
and continuing through a woman’s life span, the course will go
on to examine how sociocultural changes have interrupted women’s
friendship in the past and the present. Women’s friendships with
women, men, kin, and mentors will be examined. Lastly, women’s
friendships will be explored as a way to reconstruct community.
Offered alternate years.
WGS 300
Cr. 1-3
Independent Study
Topics to be selected by the individual
instructor or by the student and instructor together. The topics
must relate to women’s experiences and/or issues. Prerequisite:
WGS 100 and consent of the department chair. Repeatable for
credit — maximum six. Offered Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer.
WGS/HIS
301 Cr. 3
Women in the Modern United States:
1890-Present
This course introduces students to key issues
in modern women’s history in the United States. It explores
women’s experiences as workers, activists, consumers, citizens,
and family members. It also examines the various ways in which
generations of Americans have defined “woman’s place” and
“women’s issues,” and raises questions about the possibility for
defining common women’s issues today. (Cross-listed with HIS;
may only earn credit in WGS or HIS.) Offered alternate years.
WGS/HIS
305 Cr. 3
History of Motherhood in the U.S.
This course considers motherhood in nineteenth
and twentieth century United States history from a variety of
perspectives. It explores women’s experiences as mothers, across
lines of race, class, and relationship status. It also examines
the politics of motherhood in U.S. history, and considers both
the restrictive and the empowering dimensions of ideologies of
motherhood. (Cross-listed with HIS; may only earn credit in WGS
or HIS.) Offered alternate years.
WGS 310
Cr. 3
Masculinity, Femininity and Violence
This course will examine the gendered and
systemic nature of violence primarily in the United States. The
course will pay special attention to the ways in which
gender-based violence is perpetuated through interpersonal
relationships and through social institutions such as the
judicial system, the media, law enforcement, the family,
organized sports and schools. Hate crimes will also be
addressed. The focus will be both on understanding and
preventing gender-based violence, asking what men and women must
do to put an end to this social problem. Prerequisite:
WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205 or ERS 100.
Offered alternate years.
WGS/HIS
315 Cr. 3
History of Feminist Thought
An examination of the history of feminist
ideas in the United States and the historical context, both
western and international, from which they emerged.
(Cross-listed with HIS; may only earn credit in WGS or HIS.)
Offered alternate years.
WGS 320
Cr. 3
Violence Against Women
This course will examine from an
interdisciplinary perspective, the connections between violence
against women and the power distributions within our society.
Three specific types of violence against women will be examined
in-depth: sexual assault, incest and battering. Prerequisite:
WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205. Offered alternate years.
WGS
330/530 Cr. 1-3
Topics: Women, Gender and Society
Interdisciplinary analysis of a social issue,
idea, or institution from the perspective of women and women’s
studies. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205 for
undergraduates only. Repeatable for credit — maximum nine.
Department approval is necessary to apply more than three
credits toward the WGS minor. Offered occasionally.
WGS/SOC 337 Cr.
3
Globalization, Women, and Work
This course examines the global and often
exploitative experiences of women, migrating from one part of
the world to another for work. As women leave their countries of
origin, many find themselves working as nannies, sex workers,
house cleaners and modern-day slaves in sweatshops. These work
environments often create vulnerability, discrimination, and
abuse of women within the private and public institutions of
their host countries. The course will also use in-depth personal
narratives and a focus on grassroots social movements to witness
how women resist workplace policies and domestic laws to
campaign for their rights, despite cultural and political
constraints. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205 or
ERS 100. (Cross-listed with SOC; may only earn credit in WGS or
SOC.) Offered alternate years.
WGS/SOC 338 Cr.
3
Sociological Aspects of Work and Life
This course will explore the sociological
impact of work and life demands in contemporary American
society. Special emphasis will be given to how gender, sexual
orientation, social class, race and ethnicity, and family
structure affect individuals’ ability to balance the demands of
work and life. Prerequisite: SOC 110 or 120 or 200 or ANT 101.
(Cross-listed with SOC 338; may only earn credit in SOC 338, WGS
338 or PSY 444.) Offered occasionally.
WGS 340
Cr. 3
Women, Learning and Knowledge
An analysis of how women’s learning experience
has been and continues to be limited by conceptions of gender,
race, and class. Through an examination of how knowledge is
acquired and how society defines knowledge, students will come
to a better understanding of how women can “reclaim” their
educations. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205.
Offered alternate years.
WGS/HIS 370
Cr. 3
The History of Black Women’s Activism
An historical overview of the thoughts,
actions, and creative products of Black women activists in the
United States, from slavery to the present. Students will
examine historical analyses, speeches, essays, economic
activities, organizational styles, political issues, and various
forms of artistic expression that women of African descent have
produced in order to query, resist, and defy the interlocking
oppressions of racism, sexism, and classism in the United
States. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205 or ERS
100. (Cross-listed with HIS; may only earn credit in WGS or
HIS.) Offered alternate years.
WGS/HIS 371
Cr. 3
Women, Agriculture and the Environment
Beginning with the ancient notion that the
earth was both alive and female, a concept indigenous to western
as well as other cultures, this course will examine subsequent
ideas that have historically shaped attitudes and actions toward
women and the earth, especially as those values and actions have
affected agriculture in the U.S. The course will examine such
topics as the roles of women as builders of community in the
rural world; the impact of the industrializing of the production
of food and fiber on concepts of femininity; the development of
the modern corporate state and its impact on women and
agriculture; and how women and men are working to re-shape the
way we see, think about, and act on, and interact with the
earth. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205.
(Cross-listed with HIS; may only earn credit in WGS or HIS.)
Offered alternate years.
WGS 373
Cr. 3
Gender and Human Rights
This course will provide an overview of
transnational women’s human rights movements in a variety of
locations around the world; locations will vary with the
instructor. Included in this overview will be the study of
women’s political participation as a human rights issue; women’s
bodily integrity as a human right; violence against women and
reproductive sexual health and rights; human rights as a
framework for social and economic and gender justice; and human
rights as (quasi) legal accountability; UN agreements, treaties
and venues of redress. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 215 or
230 or EFN 205 or ERS 100. Offered Fall, odd-numbered years.
WGS 374
Cr. 3
Women, Poverty and Public Policy
The course analyzes the historical
underpinnings to the creation and evolution of welfare with
special attention paid to the ways gender, race, and class
oppression have shaped welfare in the past and today. Wage
differentials, occupational segregation, unpaid work, and gender
violence are discussed in relation to the construction of
poverty. How poverty affects the lives of poor women and their
children also is be explored. Current welfare policy will be
analyzed and suggestions for reform based on current research is
developed by the class. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or
POL 205 or PSY 318 or EFN 205. Offered alternate years.
WGS/SOC 375 Cr. 3
Lesbian Studies
Examines the social construction of sexual
orientation and its meaning for women and women’s equality. The
course draws on a range of sources, including scientific
research, history, literature, psychological theory, and popular
culture. Prerequisite: WGS 100 or 210 or 230 or EFN 205.
(Cross-listed with SOC; may only earn credit in WGS or SOC.)
Offered alternate years.
WGS/HIS 376
Cr. 3
History of Childhood in the United States
This course explores the vast diversity of
children’s experiences in American history, while also examining
contemporary issues for children. The course explores historical
change in the socialization, experiences, economic, cultural and
social positions of children. It also examines change and
continuity over time in our cultural ideals of childhood and
children’s rights. (Cross-listed with HIS; may only earn credit
in WGS or HIS.) Offered alternate years.
WGS 390
Cr. 3
Social Justice Research Methods
This course answers the question that most
caring people want answered: How can we fix this problem?
Students will engage in the process of strategizing, whatever
the issue (gender biased, racism, homophobia, environmental
degradation, disability biases), and whatever the setting (a
workplace, neighborhood, campus, or beyond). Course activities
organize around the processes behind social change: strategic
analysis, organizing, action planning, and evaluation,
developing students’ ability to create the knowledge necessary
for complex problem-solving. Students learn and use the
quantitative, qualitative, and critical research methods
necessary to inform decisions at each step along a generalized
pathway to change. Students going on to graduate school and
students entering the workforce in a variety of fields like
social work, community organizing, communication, and management
will benefit from this course. Prerequisites: WGS 100 or 210 or
230 or EFN 205 or ERS 100; plus nine additional credits in
courses approved for WGS. Offered Fall.
WGS 410
Cr. 3
Women’s Issues in the Third World
A broad overview of women’s issues in AALA
(Africa, Asia, and Latin America), this course will investigate
the impact of colonialism, unilateral economic imperialism, and
multinational corporations on women’s traditional roles in AALA
and explore the processes that have produced both women’s and
feminist movements in these regions of the world. Exploring the
meaning of women’s movements in international politics following
the Mexico City, Nairobi, and Beijing conferences, the course
will analyze relationships between women in the U.S. and the
women of AALA. Topics might include: the international economic
power of U.S. women as consumers, international labor issues and
organizing, environmental issues for U.S. and AALA women, and
the challenges of AALA feminisms. Prerequisites: WGS 100 or 210
or 230 or EFN 205; another 300-level WGS course or cross-listed
course. Offered occasionally.
WGS 450
Cr. 1-6
Internship in Women’s Studies
The internship is an academically relevant
field experience for minors in women’s studies which combines
women’s studies scholarship with practical experience. The field
experience will be supervised by the women’s studies staff.
Prerequisites: junior standing; six credits of women’s studies;
a minimum 2.50 GPA. A maximum of three credits will be counted
toward the minor. Repeatable for credit — maximum six. Offered
Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer.
WGS 499
Cr. 3
Seminar in Women’s Studies
Intensive interdisciplinary study of particular areas in women’s studies. Topics will be chosen by the instructor and the students. Prerequisites: WGS 100 or 210 or 230; at least two other courses approved for the women’s studies major or minor; declared women’s studies major or minor. Offered Fall.