Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (BA)

College of Arts and Sciences

Program Website

Program Information

The Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program (FGSS) is an interdisciplinary program that investigates how gender and sexuality are embedded in cultural, social, and political formations. The study of feminism, gender relations, and sexuality urges attention to the complex structures of power and inequality, tracing intersections and relationships among sexuality, race, class, age, ethnicity, and other aspects of identity. Founded in 1972 as Women’s Studies, this program has been a home for innovative approaches to research in gender and sexuality studies, as well as a site for important theoretical and activist debates among feminists and cutting-edge research for scholars from across the humanities and social sciences.

The Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program’s course offerings are built around several assumptions about the study of gender and sexuality. First, understandings of sex, sexuality, and gender are neither universal nor immutable; to study them is to gain an understanding of human behavior, culture, and society across time and space as well as to gain a sense of how these social constructions shape us as individuals. Second, gender and sexuality are best understood when examined in relation to race, class, and geography, so as to reveal how social relations are structured by multiple ways of belonging. Third, even the most current knowledge derived from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences is not impartial, objective, or neutral but instead emerges out of particular historical and political contexts. FGSS graduates are trained in critical thinking, analytic writing, and cultural competencies that enhance their lifelong personal and intellectual growth, as well as their professional development. Graduates of this program have gone on to work in a wide variety of fields, including law, medicine, social policy, arts, transnational advocacy, media, research, and community activism.

Honors Program

To graduate with honors, a student majoring in FGSS must complete a senior thesis under the supervision of an FGSS faculty member and defend that thesis orally before an honors committee. To be eligible, a student must have at least a cumulative 3.3 GPA in all course work and a 3.5 GPA in all courses applying to their FGSS major. Students enroll in FGSS 4990 Senior Honors Thesis I in the fall semester and FGSS 4991 Senior Honors Thesis II in the spring semester, and will meet independently with their director in these courses, which are taken in addition to the courses that meet the minimum requirements for the major. Students receive a grade of "R" for the first semester's work; once the honors thesis is completed that "R" will be changed to a letter grade. Students interested in the honors program should consult the DUS late in the spring semester of their junior year, or very early in the fall semester of their senior year.