About
Who We Are
Mission of the Department
The mission of the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of South Florida is feminist education, research, and practice.
We promote social justice by engaging students in the discovery and production of knowledge that emerges from feminist perspectives on culture and society.
We teach students to use the analytic skills that emerge from engaging the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, ability, and nation in order to promote responsible citizenship in a diverse transnational environment.
We expose limits in traditional higher education caused by excluding women and other marginalized groups and create knowledge that is transformative and inclusive. We aim for knowledge that will better all people鈥檚 lives, not just the lives of a few.
We connect our work as academics with the social, political, and economic world outside the university to educate our students about social inequalities that result from sexism, heterosexism and homophobia, racism, classism, able-ism, and ethnocentrism. We link knowledge, research, teaching, and action.
We seek to empower students through a feminist critique of social, cultural, and institutional
structures that enables them to think more critically about their own lives and that
inspires them to work as active citizens for social change.
What is Women's Studies?
The Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of South Florida follows the mission of the National Women鈥檚 Studies Association and is an institutional member of that body.
鈥淣WSA is committed to support and promote feminist teaching, research, and professional
and community service at the pre-K through post-secondary levels. Integral to this
commitment is understanding the political ramifications in our teaching, research
and service.鈥� For more information, .
Academic Programs
Today, the USF Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies plays a vital role in the undergraduate General Education curriculum. We offer Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as a primary and secondary major as well as a minor, and we now offer a minor in Queer and Sexuality Studies as well. In addition to the MA degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, we also offer a Graduate Certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
We are one of the three master's degree-granting WGS programs in the State of Florida.