Welcome to WGSS!

Welcome to the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department (WGSS) at Western. Our department offers an interdisciplinary approach to women, gender, and sexuality studies. 

Central to our department is the study of sex, gender, and sexuality. We study women's contributions as artists and anarchists, poets and politicians, public figures and private citizens. The program also examines the complexities of gender, analyzing the construction of feminine, masculine, and queer identities across time and cultures. Our focus thus includes some of the most pressing issues of today: reproductive rights, economic and political equality, health and welfare, and LGBTQIAA rights.

Above all, we aim to create an innovative and challenging experience for students at Western. Interested in examining transnational feminist movements? Eager to do an internship on women and media? Looking to get course credit for working at the domestic violence center? Hoping to develop a senior project analyzing queer graphic novels? With course offerings from more than fifteen academic disciplines, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies introduces students to exciting ideas, dynamic professors and classmates, and feminist thought and gender perspectives in small, collaborative communities of learning.

Check out our website to find up-to-date information on our events, courses, faculty, and students. We have frequent colloquia with lectures, panels, and other events that address new research, current events, and activism around timely social, economic, political, and cultural issues.

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Dr. Schwartz-DuPre, Department Chair or Ren Schreuder, Department Manager. We'd love your input, perspective, and participation.