Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies is an interdisciplinary program that looks at the lives of women and men from a feminist perspective. Our courses use feminist theory and gender analysis to examine literature, culture, social structures, and political power, and to understand how assumptions and beliefs about masculinities, femininities, and sexualities shape human institutions, organizations, and activities. As one of the first in the nation, the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Washington University has been encouraging the critical thinking and active participation of students in their education since 1972. The program emphasizes the importance of gender analysis to such disciplines as anthropology, philosophy, psychology, political science, history, education, law, architecture, art history and archeology, English, German, Romance, and Asian and Near Eastern languages and literatures, and to such interdisciplinary programs as culture studies, international and area studies, religious studies, and performing arts.