GW Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program

Since its inception in 1972, the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program (WGSS) at GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences has been a leader and innovator as an interdisciplinary program offering an undergraduate major and minor as well as several graduate degrees.

The curriculum brings together scholarship on women in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies’ courses are encouraged to explore traditional and current issues in gender and social justice studies and to critically challenge inequity and inequality. The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies curriculum offers courses that examine the world from diverse vantage points – gender, race, age, class, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, etc. – and encourages students to explore and voice varying points of view, from a multidisciplinary vantage point.

The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies Program provides students unique access to resources and internship opportunities in Washington, DC. Many Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies graduates go on to professional and graduate schools in law, humanities, social sciences, and other fields. They secure jobs in both the private and public sector, in business, law, government, public interest and social service organizations, the arts, and elsewhere. Expertise in women’s issues, along with other academic and professional skills, is valued by many organizations.

As the oldest graduate program of its kind in the United States, the program continues to seek innovative ways to remain at the forefront of feminist theory and practice on campus and in the Washington, DC metro area, as well as nationally and internationally.