About the Program
The field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies grew out of the women’s movement in the late 1960s and 1970s and served as its academic arm supporting and sustaining those movements through the production and dissemination of knowledge about women, gender, sex discrimination, and feminist activism through the 1980s and 1990s.
Over four decades of feminist scholarship has invigorated and transformed traditional disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, and has inspired many policy initiatives in the United States and around the world. By the turn of the 21st century, many academic women’s studies programs redefined themselves more inclusively as Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies reflecting an expansion of the political and intellectual project of 21st-century feminism.
The recently renamed Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Purdue University offers courses that critically assess the historical and social context and meanings attached to the categories of man and woman as well as the salience of gender identities that exist outside and beyond that dichotomy.
Our courses provide students with the opportunity to examine systematically the role and politics of sexuality and to interrogate the discriminatory practices disadvantaging those who reject or fall outside of compulsory heteronormativity.
Our program sponsors student engagement on issues central to feminism, promotes equality for all people regardless of the way they express their gender or sexuality, and nurtures academic research and scholarly inquiry that supports these core values.
Summary of Program Requirements
The Summary of Program Requirements for Women’s Studies is a comprehensive list of those categories which a student must fulfill in order to earn their degree. Unlike the full Detailed Program Requirements listed below, complete lists of selectives for any given category are not shown. These summaries are intended to be printer-friendly and less expansive in detail.
Detailed Program Requirements
Please see below for detailed program requirements and possible selective fulfillments.
Women’s Studies-BA
WOST
120 Credits
“C” or better in all WOST Major courses
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