This page is designed to provide information about the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Webster University, announcements about upcoming WGST events, and items of interest to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies students and faculty. The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program is based on the principles of social justice established by the founding organization of Webster Unive
rsity, the Sisters of Loretto. Courses in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGST) are informed by feminist learning and research, focusing on the physical, psychological, social, political, and economic factors that empower and oppress women. Learning Goals for the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
The learning goals for the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program reflect recommendations from the National Women’s Studies Association. Upon completion of the program, students should:
• Distinguish between sex and gender, including shifting definitions of “woman” and the social construction of gender,
• Explain feminist theories, including standpoint theory, intersectionality, and womanism and demonstrate knowledge of key feminist theorists, such as Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich;
• Analyze the role of men in the empowerment and oppression of women;
• Identify women’s contributions to history, activism, waves of feminism, culture, politics, science, religion, and the arts and the variation in women’s experiences across nations, cultures, time, class, race/ethnicity, ability and other social statuses, identifying strategies for social change;
• Demonstrate critical thinking about major cross-cultural and global issues or “big questions” pertaining to contemporary women, such as domestic violence, reproductive rights, the shifting definition of motherhood, white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, the gendered construction of knowledge and social institutions, and the potential for interlocking oppression at the intersections of multiple social statuses (e.g., race/ethnicity, social class, gender, sexuality);
• Produce independent research reflecting competency in one or more of the content areas, constructing arguments with evidence obtained from research that demonstrate competency locating, evaluating, and interpreting diverse sources, including statistics;
• Apply research and knowledge for individual transformation, social transformation, and global citizenship.
