Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality
Studies Program
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Overview
The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program offers an interdisciplinary and multicultural series of courses that explore and question the intersections of gender, sexuality, culture, ethnicity, social class and race. Courses are taught by faculty members from various departments and fields of study and provide a critical framework to explore the significance of gender (along with race, sexuality, and class) in the shaping of women’s and men’s lives. The program focuses on the recovery of women’s contributions in a variety of fields, on women’s and men’s roles in society across cultures, and especially on critical questions about gender neutrality in the shaping of culture.
The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program complements any course of studies and prepares you well for any career in the arts, sciences and technology, health professions, business, law, social and community service, and education.
24+
Faculty members from across RIT contribute to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
40+
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies courses offered
9
4 Minors and 5 Immersions offered:
Gender and STEM Studies
Gender, Art, and Media
Gender Equity, Social Institutions, and Public Affairs
Queer and Transgender Studies
Women’s and Gender Studies
Careers
For what jobs, careers, and professions is an education in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies highly beneficial? For what is it an excellent complement? Find out here.
Featured Work and Profiles
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Celebrating a Milestone in Gender Justice Education
RIT's women's, gender, and sexuality studies program proudly honors its inaugural graduates, Molly Kohli and Gaby Licona, who are poised to make a significant impact in social justice and advocacy...
Read More about Celebrating a Milestone in Gender Justice Education -
New BS program builds leaders adept at inclusivity, gender and social justice advocacy, and more
How does gender diversification advance potential, heighten creativity, inform perspectives, and improve our environments, workplaces, families, and communities? As gender dynamics intersect with race...
Read More about New BS program builds leaders adept at inclusivity, gender and social justice advocacy, and more
Latest News
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August 8, 2024
RIT student Jolie Crunelle awarded Norman Miles academic excellence honors
The award is given to an individual who began their studies as a first-year student at RIT and is entering their final year of undergraduate study with the highest grade point average across the university.
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May 7, 2024
Women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program honors first graduating class
The first class of graduates from RIT’s women’s, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS) program will be celebrated during commencement this month. The bachelor’s degree program was approved and offered for current students in 2023, and enrollment will be available to incoming first-year students this fall.
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March 18, 2024
Women’s History Month poster contest entries showcased in the SHED
As part of RIT’s Women’s History Month celebrations, students from across the university submitted their poster designs to the annual Women’s History Month poster contest. The theme of each contest entry is crafted around a quote from Audre Lorde’s collection of essays, Sister Outsider.
Faculty / Staff
Past Directors
Tina Lent
Retired Professor, former Director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
Degree Program
RIT’s women’s, gender, and sexuality studies major critically explores how gender and sexuality interact with science, technology, and the arts to shape aspects of our personal, social, and professional lives and career paths.
Learn more about the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies BS programDouble Major with WGSS
Explore how gender and sexuality interact with science, technology, and the humanities to shape our personal social, and professional lives. Enhance your technical, professional education and become a trailblazer for progress by adding the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies major to a degree in other disciplines in the humanities or STEM.
A double major in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies adds a secondary area of expertise to your résumé, complementing the skills you develop in your primary major and demonstrating to employers that you have the abilities, tools, and resources to help create a diverse, equitable, inclusive, sustainable, supportive, and fulfilling place for everyone involved.
The women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program pairs nicely with many majors at RIT, often enabling students to complete a double major in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies within their primary program’s 4-or-5 year timeframe. In fact, through utilizing the general education curriculum appropriately, a double major in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies adds few-to-no additional courses to the plan of study, depending on primary major.
While almost any program at RIT can pair with a double major in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, below are worksheets for some combinations where an education in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies proves especially important to impact social good and enhance people’s lives, social, economic, and environmental justice, civic responsibility, and sustainable communities. Other combinations may be figured out by talking with the academic advisor.
- Computer Science
- Environmental Sustainability, Health, and Safety
- Human Centered Computing
- Mechanical Engineering
- New media Interactive Development
- Nutritional Sciences
Minors and Immersions
The gender and STEM studies immersion is an interdisciplinary set of courses that enable you to investigate, analyze, and critically question a range of issues at the crossing of gender (in its intersection with sexuality, race, class, and ethnicity) with the STEM fields.
Learn more about the Gender and STEM Studies Immersion programThe gender equity, social institutions, and public affairs immersion equips you with the ability to view the social domain of public affairs, institutions, practices, and policies through a gendered lens and prepares you for future potential roles as advocates and leaders in the struggle toward gender equity and social justice at local, national, and global levels.
Learn more about the Gender Equity, Social Institutions, and Public Affairs Immersion programThe gender equity, social institutions, and public affairs minor is an interdisciplinary course of study that equips you with the ability to view the social domain of public affairs, institutions, practices, and policies through a gendered lens and prepares you for future potential roles as advocates and leaders in the struggle toward gender equity and social justice.
Learn more about the Gender Equity, Social Institutions, and Public Affairs Minor programIn the gender, art, and media immersion students explore how gender issues and identities, in their intersections with culture, race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, age, and (dis)abilities, are represented and portrayed in various artistic, literary, and media forms. By engaging with cultural texts and productions from both historical and contemporary perspectives, the immersion introduces students to critical analysis and knowledge-building methods drawn from fields such as women's and gender studies, feminist theories, critical race studies, queer studies, social justice work, and activism. The immersion teaches students to analyze gendered images as they appear in arts and media, recognize power inequalities and stereotypes in gender representations, and acquire the conceptual skills to critique and improve current conditions of artistic, literary, and media production and consumption in view of increased gender equity and fairness. The immersion complements any course of studies in a number of art and media-related fields such as art and literary criticism, art curation and exhibition, journalism and photojournalism, media studies, filmmaking, literature, photography, advertising and marketing, public relations, social services, and more.
Learn more about the Gender, Art, and Media Immersion programIn the gender, art, and media minor students explore how gender issues and identities, in their intersections with culture, race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, age, and (dis)abilities, are represented and portrayed in various artistic, literary, and media forms. By engaging with cultural texts and productions from both historical and contemporary perspectives, the minor introduces students to critical analysis and knowledge-building methods drawn from fields such as women's and gender studies, feminist theories, critical race studies, queer studies, social justice work, and activism. The minor teaches students to analyze gendered images as they appear in arts and media, recognize power inequalities and stereotypes in gender representations, and acquire the conceptual skills to critique and improve current conditions of artistic, literary, and media production and consumption in view of increased gender equity and fairness. The minor complements any course of studies in a number of art and media-related fields such as art and literary criticism, art curation and exhibition, journalism and photojournalism, media studies, filmmaking, literature, photography, advertising and marketing, public relations, social services, and more.
Learn more about the Gender, Art, and Media Minor programThe queer and transgender studies immersion is an interdisciplinary set of courses whose primary concern is the critical study of cultures, creative expressions, histories, economic structures, and socio-political and legal institutions as they impact the formation of queer and transgender identities and the lives and experiences of people in the LGBTQ+ community.
Learn more about the Queer and Transgender Studies Immersion programThe queer and transgender studies minor is an interdisciplinary set of courses that provides a critical study of cultures, creative expressions, histories, economic structures, and socio-political and legal institutions as they impact the formation of queer and transgender identities and the lives and experiences of people in the LGBTQ+ community.
Learn more about the Queer and Transgender Studies Minor programThe women’s and gender studies immersion allows students to explore the significance of gender as it intersects with racial, ethnic, religious, national, class, sexuality, and dis/ability-based identities, past and present. The immersion introduces critical analysis and knowledge-building methods drawn from fields such as women's and gender studies, feminist theories, critical race studies, queer studies, social justice work, and activism. Courses build knowledge about the personal, social, cultural, economic, and historical dynamics that inform gender and intersecting social categories. The immersion provides valuable skills and experiences applying these different lenses to real-world interactions with diverse individuals and communities, to current social challenges that impact multiple parties, and with an eye to improving equity and fair outcomes for everyone concerned.
Learn more about the Women’s and Gender Studies Immersion programThe women’s and gender studies minor provides a critical framework to explore the significance of gender—as it intersects with racial, ethnic, religious, national, class, sexuality, and disability-based identities, past and present. Course builds knowledge about the personal, social, cultural, economic, and historical dynamics that inform gender and intersecting social categories. The minor builds fluency with critical analysis and knowledge-building methods drawn from women's and gender studies, feminist theories, critical race studies, queer studies, social justice work, and activism. The minor also provides valuable skills and experience applying these different lenses to real-world interactions with diverse individuals and communities to current social challenges that impact multiple parties, and with an eye to improving equity and fair outcomes for everyone concerned. Students will learn how to analyze and question power relations in all their rich complexities, locally, and globally.
Learn more about the Women’s and Gender Studies Minor programCourses
Student Resources
Here you can find resources related to women’s, gender, and sexuality studies such as award opportunities, contest prizes, career information, links to graduate programs, and campus, local, and national organizations.
Award Opportunities
Contest Prizes
Careers
Other resources for the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
Moving Forward: Suffrage Past, Present, and Future
RIT celebrates the 19th Amendment, Equal Rights, and the Power of Voting through a series of initiatives focused on the history of women’s voting activism; the problems and questions that the 1920 expansion of voting rights opened and left unsolved; and the work that remains to be done to continue expanding political representation and participation for all women.
Indigenous Land Acknowledgment
RIT is built on the traditional territory of the Onöndowa'ga:' or “the people of the Great Hill.” In English, they are known as Seneca people, “the keepers of the western door.” They are one of the six nations that make up the sovereign Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
The WGSS Program honors the land on which RIT was built and recognizes the unique relationship that the Indigenous people have with their land. As, through our Program, we endeavor to achieve dignity, respect, justice, equality, peace, and reconciliation for all, we are mindful of the histories of violence, genocide, colonization, and assimilation of Indigenous people that also took place on this territory and we are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and share ideas on this land.
Make a Gift
Help support the many activities of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and provide increased opportunities that benefit students.
Learn more about how to support the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program