Women’s and Gender Studies
Carla A. Pfeffer, Director
The Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of South Carolina promotes an understanding of the experiences of women and other underrepresented groups through a complete program of teaching, research, and service to the University, the local community, the state, the nation and the global community. Through its research mission, the program reconceptualizes knowledge, creates new knowledge, and reinterprets existing knowledge through the lens of gender and the prism of diversity. Its teaching mission is to share this knowledge with students so that they learn to think critically, to communicate effectively, to solve problems, and to interpret human experience. Emerging from an activist tradition, the program serves University, local, state, national and global communities by acting as a resource and guide for issues related to women and gender. Our research, teaching, and service missions interweave as we create, share, and apply the knowledge, skills, and values that promote the full participation of women and other underrepresented groups in society.
There are two introductory courses: WGST 112 and WGST 113 . Students in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Music may apply WGST 112 for social science general education requirements. WGST 112 may be counted for elective credit in the Moore School of Business, the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and the College of Nursing.
Women’s and Gender Studies Minor
Students may minor in women’s and gender studies by completing 18 hours of specified courses.
Bachelor of Arts in Women’s and Gender Studies
A student may also pursue a major in the field through the Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in women’s and gender studies.
Further information may be obtained from the College of Arts and Sciences or the Women’s and Gender Studies.
Courses
A social science perspective of women in psychological, sociological, historical, anthropological, economic, and political contexts; the changing roles, images, and institutions.
Carolina Core: GSS, VSR
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Community Service, GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy
Basic functioning of the female body; effects of society on processes of health and disease. Not for natural sciences credit.
Carolina Core: GSS
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Anthropological study of gender, with emphasis on cross-cultural investigation of the interaction of biological, cultural, and environmental factors including intersections of race, social class, and sexuality as influences gender behavior.
Cross-listed course: ANTH 207
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Childhood, maturity, old age, and gender socialization within the family.
Carolina Core: GSS
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Course content varies and will be announced in the schedule of courses by title. May be repeated as content varies by title.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Supervised experience addressing a community organization’s needs and allowing the student to explore an aspect of the community related to women’s and gender studies issues. Contract approval by advisor required.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Offers a sociological lens to develop critical ways of thinking about sex and gender as social processes in everyday lives. This course considers how sex and gender shape and affect the experiences of women, men, girls, boys, and individuals who live in the spaces in-between (those who are intersex or transgender) across a wide range of social institutions (family, work, education, politics, etc.).
Cross-listed course: SOCY 301
Carolina Core: GSS
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
The psychological, physiological, and social characteristics of marriage.
Cross-listed course: PSYC 301
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Historical and contemporary power relationships in race, social class, gender, and sexual orientation.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Community Service, GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Sociological perspectives related to various aspects of family behaviors, roles, and values.
Cross-listed course: SOCY 305
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Social welfare services available to women and minorities and the forces that shape these services.
Cross-listed course: SOWK 305
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Community Service, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Historical development of feminist theory and contemporary debates within feminism.
Cross-listed course: POLI 307
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
An interdisciplinary survey of the contributions of African-American women to feminist theory.
Cross-listed course: AFAM 308
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Introduction and overview of theories, history, literature, politics, legal, health and social issues within human sexual diversities, including the intersections of gender, race, and social class.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Women’s experiences: childhood and adolescence, work, family, cultural images, adjustment and social change.
Cross-listed course: PSYC 310
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
The study of the relationship among persons of color, women, and the mass media.
Cross-listed course: JOUR 311
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Gender roles, standards of sexual behavior, evidence for women’s lives, as manifested in ancient Greek literary and archaeological evidence; attitudes toward homosexuality; the modern media’s representation of famous Greeks.
Cross-listed course: CLAS 320
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Sexuality as a social construct exemplified in standards of sexual behavior in ancient Rome and their reinforcement of the ruling ideology; feminine virtue, definitions of manliness, attitudes toward homosexuality.
Cross-listed course: CLAS 321
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Gender and sexuality in the shaping of social and individual identity in religious contexts.
Cross-listed course: RELG 333
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Introduces feminist philosophy and applications to philosophical problems.
Cross-listed course: PHIL 334
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Introduces the connection between gender and the Chinese national imagination Readings include cultural and historical documents that purport to explain the experience of women in China. Readings in English. Taught in English.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Kinship, systems of descent, marriage, and domestic organization in different cultures. Variations in childrearing practices, gender, and other aspects of social relations in kin groups. Cross-listed Course: ANTH 351
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Global Learning, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Impact of gender on the distribution of power in society; foundations for intersections of gender, race, social class, and sexuality and their economic, social, and political concomitants.
Cross-listed course: POLI 352
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Holy women from various periods and religious traditions, and how they demonstrate the different ways communities understand ideas of holiness, from piety, martyrdom, monasticism and mysticism to social action.
Cross-listed course: RELG 376
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Survey of women in European history from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Focus on women’s citizenship beginning with Enlightenment idea of rights through developments in modern feminism.
Cross-listed course: HIST 379
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Global Learning, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Examines the dialectic between globalization and the social construction of gender. Topics include the global assembly line, transnational markets for domestic labor and sex workers, and global feminist alliances.
Cross-listed course: ANTH 381
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Anthropological study of pregnancy and birth with a cross-cultural focus comparing the United States to other nations. Examination of cultural factors such as prenatal care, dietary practices, taboos, birth location, practitioners, and birthing styles.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
This course examines health concerns important in the lives of women around the world through an overview of contemporary issues and challenges in the field of global health, broadly construed.
Cross-listed course: ANTH 392
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Course content varies and will be announced in the schedule of courses by title. May be repeated as content varies by title.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Contract approved by instructor, advisor, and director of women’s studies required for undergraduate students.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences, GLD: Research
Course content varies and will be announced in the schedule of courses by title.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Selected small action-research project on selected issue(s) in women’s studies.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences, GLD: Research
Overview of psychological, social, physical, and emotional issues related to men's lives.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Constitutional and statutory case law dealing with gender equality issues. Topics include abortion, affirmative action, pornography, sexual harassment, fetal protection policies, employment discrimination, and women in the military.
Cross-listed course: POLI 454
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
The social, political, and economic roles and changing status of women in America.
Cross-listed course: HIST 464
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Study of rhetoric by and about women as manifested in speeches, essays, and other rhetorical artifacts.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
An examination of literature by and about black women, including fiction, poetry, drama, and autobiography. This study will focus on issues that emerge from the creative representations of black women and the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class that interrogate what is both particular and universal experiences.
Cross-listed course: AFAM 487, ENGL 487
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Supervised experience addressing a community organization’s needs and allowing the student to explore an aspect of the community related to women’s studies issues. Contract approval by advisor required.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Internships
Experiential Learning: Experiential Learning Opportunity
Representations of race and gender in comics with a special emphasis on the experiences of African Americans.
Cross-listed course: AFAM 515
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Biological, social, and psychological aspects of the midlife woman.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
An exploration of the connections between oppression of women and oppression of nature.
Cross-listed course: PHIL 535
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
An exploration of women’s health and health care concerns from multiple perspectives.
Cross-listed course: NURS 541
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Application of skills and theories of adolescent mentoring taught in the classroom to a supervised, structured mentoring field experience.
Cross-listed course: CRJU 551
Impact of gender-based relations on crime and the criminal justice system.
Cross-listed course: CRJU 554
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Approaches to gender and language emphasizing the social grounding of both; how language reflects sociocultural values and is a tool for constructing different types of social organization.
Cross-listed course: ANTH 555, LING 541
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Diversity and Social Advocacy, GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Course content varies and will be announced in the schedule of courses by title. May be repeated as content varies by title.
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences
Public health issues, social and behavioral science, policies, programs, and services related to maternal and child health in the United States and other countries.
Cross-listed course: HPEB 621
Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences