Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program

The Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program at Washington and Lee University offers students both the opportunity to complete a multi-disciplinary minor in feminist and gender studies, and a stimulating co-curricular environment in which to develop as intellectual and community leaders. Founded in 2001, the WGSS is a vibrant academic program that links the classroom with the world and offers the theoretical basis for activism and social change.

A demanding introductory course and disciplinary distribution requirements give all students a sound theoretical orientation to defining and articulating concepts and practices in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, while diverse course offerings from professors in disciplines that range from psychology to English, from Romance languages to political science, philosophy to sociology and anthropology, make it easy for students to draw connections between their major fields of studies and the evolving work of gender scholars. Our faculty encourages students to see their studies as relevant to their everyday lives and important for understanding and responding to social justice issues. Students do just that--in a math student's investigation into why so few women study math in college, in a fraternity member's paper analyzing how his fraternity brothers' drinking habits shape male privilege, or in a missionary's daughter's attempt to better understand how a feminist might read the Bible.

The flexible Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies capstone requirement allows students to pursue their particular interests with the kind of intensity that turns classroom competence into an abiding passion.

Do you want to make audiences laugh with women's humor? Or challenge the ways in which media images invade our consciousness and control our bodies? Study women artists or find out how women changed history? Want to learn how we might get more diverse elected officials, and figure out why homophobia is still part of public policy? Or write a poem that moves its readers to action against sexist oppression? Join us. That's what we do.