Women's and Gender Studies
Program Coordinator: Shawna Ferris
Program Office: 218 Isbister Building
Telephone: 204 474 6984
E-mail: womens_gender_studies@umanitoba.ca
Website: umanitoba.ca/womens_gender_studies
Program Information
Fundamental questions of equality and social justice are still very much with us, and as a dynamic interdisciplinary program, we explore both current and historical debates about women's experiences, gender relations, and feminism. Courses take diverse theoretical and practical approaches, including feminist cultural studies and studies of popular culture, violence against women, lesbian and queer studies, women in science and technology, gendered violence in urban spaces, sex work and sex workers, feminist geography, indigenous feminisms, masculinity studies, and reconstructing indigenous art histories that recontextualize museum collections and reclaim women's voices and lives.
For entry, continuation and graduation requirements for the General Degree, Advanced Degree and Honours Degree, see Basic Faculty Regulations for the B.A. General, Advanced and Honours Degree Programs.
The following entries contain information which is not contained in Basic Faculty Regulations for the B.A. General, Advanced and Honours Degree Programs.
Major Program
For entry to the Major, the prerequisite is a grade of “C” or better in each of two 3 credit hour courses in Women’s and Gender Studies. It is suggested that students wishing to Major in Women's and Gender Studies take both WOMN 1500 and WOMN 1600. For students who have taken additional courses toward the Major, then a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.00 is required on all courses including the higher grade of repeated courses and excluding failed courses.
A minimum cumulative GPA of 2.00 in all courses that comprise the Major is required to graduate including the higher grade of repeated courses and excluding failed courses.
Minor (Concentration) Program
For entry to the Minor (Concentration), the prerequisite is a grade of “C” or better in each of two 3 credit hour courses in Women’s and Gender Studies.
Honours Program
For entry to the Honours program, see Basic Faculty Regulations for the B.A. General, Advanced and Honours Degree Programs.
Coordinated Programs in Women’s and Gender Studies
Students may take courses in the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of Winnipeg and, where applicable, have these courses credited to their degree at the University of Manitoba. The coordinated program offers students access to more faculty resources, greater course selection and additional library facilities and thus can enrich their Women’s and Gender Studies program.
Students are advised to consult with the Women’s and Gender Studies coordinator for information on courses available for credit in Women’s and Gender Studies.
In addition, special courses under the rubric of selected topics or contemporary issues may be available in various Arts departments, particularly Anthropology, English, Psychology, and Sociology, for Women’s and Gender Studies credit in any given academic term.
Programs
| Degree/Diploma | Years to Completion | Total Credit Hours | Has Co-op Option |
|---|---|---|---|
| Degree/Diploma Women's and Gender Studies, B.A. Double Advanced Major | Years to Completion 4 | Total Credit Hours 120 | Has Co-op Option no |
| Degree/Diploma Women's and Gender Studies, B.A. Double Honours | Years to Completion 4 | Total Credit Hours 120 | Has Co-op Option no |
| Degree/Diploma Women's and Gender Studies, B.A. General | Years to Completion 3 | Total Credit Hours 90 | Has Co-op Option no |
| Degree/Diploma Women's and Gender Studies, B.A. Single Advanced Major | Years to Completion 4 | Total Credit Hours 120 | Has Co-op Option no |
| Degree/Diploma Women's and Gender Studies, B.A. Single Honours | Years to Completion 4 | Total Credit Hours 120 | Has Co-op Option no |
| Degree/Diploma Women's and Gender Studies Minor (Concentration) | Total Credit Hours 18 | Has Co-op Option no |
Courses
Women's and Gender Studies
Examination of the central concerns of women and gender in the Humanities. A focus on representation, voice, knowledge, and subjectivity. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 1500 and the former WOMN 1530.
Equiv To: WOMN 1530
Attributes: Humanities, Recommended Intro Courses, Written English Requirement
Examination of women's historical and contemporary roles in the economy, family, and society from the perspective of the social sciences. Introduction of feminist theories, with emphasis on the role of gender. Topics covered focus on the social conditions of women's lives: work, health, violence and organizing for change. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 1600 and the former WOMN 1540.
Equiv To: WOMN 1540
Attributes: Social Science, Recommended Intro Courses, Written English Requirement
Survey of the varieties of historical and contemporary feminist ideas. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 2000 and the former WOMN 2520.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Equiv To: WOMN 2520
This course will investigate through the media of film and literature, including life writing, fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry, the experiences of Indigenous women in North America, particularly Canada, as articulated in their own voices. Also offered as INDG 2430. Students may not hold credit for WOMN 2430 and any of: INDG 2430, the former NATV 2430.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: one of WOMN 1500, WOMN 1600, INDG 1200 (the former NATV 1200), INDG 1220 (the former NATV 1220), or INDG 1240 (the former NATV 1240), or written consent from either the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator or Indigenous Studies department head.
Equiv To: INDG 2430, NATV 2430
Attributes: Humanities
An exploration of the various ways race, class, and sexual orientation impact on women's lives and identities. Focus is on how racism, classism and heterosexism are produced and reproduced both within and outside of the feminist movement.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Attributes: Social Science
Examination of the ways that traditional scripts for women have been rewritten in literature and film. Topics include coming-of-age, madness, utopia, motherhood, and romantic love as represented in fairytales, autobiographies, documentaries, contemporary novels, and Hollywood films.
Attributes: Humanities
Course content will vary according to the needs and interests of students and instructors. Consult the Women's and Gender Studies Program office for information as to specific topics offered. The course content may vary. Students can earn multiple credits for this course only when the topic subtitle is different.
Mutually Exclusive: WOMN 3120
An overview of women's historical and contemporary participation in science, issues in science and math education, feminist critiques and theories on science and gender, and the impact of technology on women's lives.
Attributes: Social Science, Recommended Intro Courses, Written English Requirement
An examination of how we use places and spaces in our everyday lives to produce and maintain social differences of gender, sexuality, race, class, and citizenship. Drawing on perspectives from feminist geography and history, this course explores ideas about places (for example, homes) and spaces (for example, regions), as well as historical claims that women belong in place but men should control space. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 2600 and WOMN 2540 with the topic "Sex, Gender, Space and Place."
Attributes: Humanities, Recommended Intro Courses
Examines the gendered impact of uneven access to transportation. Using feminist theories of gender and mobility, it considers claims that mobile women are in danger, and that different forms of transportation have gendered cultures. It studies the links between imperialism, development, and transportation. The course also examines the particular ways in which transportation disadvantage, automobility, limited public transit services, and aging in place affect women as well as initiatives to promote sustainable transportation. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 2610 and WOMN 2540 with the topic "Gender, Transport and Social Justice."
Attributes: Social Science
This course introduces critical skills and a theoretical framework or "toolkit" in feminist popular cultural studies in order to facilitate more critically aware participation, analysis, and production in/of popular culture. It is a feminist examination, using various popular cultural and media forms, of how normative and revolutionary social relations of power are/may be constituted in and through popular culture. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 2620 and the former WOMN 2570.
Mutually Exclusive: WOMN 2570
Attributes: Humanities
With reference to scholarship, activism, and literary, narrative, and/or creative works, this course critically engages differences and shared priorities across Indigenous feminisms past and present. Also offered as INDG 2630. Students may not hold credit for WOMN 2630 and any of: INDG 2630, the former NATV 2630.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: one of WOMN 1500, WOMN 1600, INDG 1200 (the former NATV 1200), INDG 1220 (the former NATV 1220), or INDG 1240 (the former NATV 1240), or written consent from either the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator or Indigenous Studies department head.
Equiv To: INDG 2630, NATV 2630
Attributes: Humanities
Using a feminist critical lens, this course examines issues relating to gender, the body, and embodiment. Topics to be considered include (but are not limited to) social and scientific constructions of the body; constructions of beauty, health, fitness, and fatness; intersectionality and embodiment; incongruence of sex and gender identification; symbolic and literal cultural discipline and punishment of gendered bodies; artistic representations of and responses to gendered bodies; embodiment in trans and queer communities; embodiment in Indigenous and racialized communities.
Attributes: Social Science
Using a feminist critical lens, this course examines issues relating to gender and sexuality. Of particular interest will be considerations of how social, political, historical, and popular cultural forces influence representations and constructions of gender and sexuality, as well as how we understand ourselves, others, and our relationships to each other and the world around us.
Attributes: Social Science
An introduction to the approaches scholars use to challenge the dominant theories of knowledge and the major methodologies used to produce it. The course examines the influence of gender theory and feminism on the research questions we ask, the types of materials we use, and the methods we employ. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 3000 and the former WOMN 3580.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Mutually Exclusive: WOMN 3580
This course examines cultural linkages between femininity and prostitution in the context of contemporary Canadian culture. The course begins by considering historical cultural and feminist discourses about sex work and sex workers. Keeping in mind that the actual exchange of sexual services for money is currently legal in Canada, course discussions will interrogate enduring representations of sex work/ers. The course also examines some prostitution-related legislation, ideological and "real world" linkages between violence and prostitution, and ongoing activisms that reinforce or resist negative representations and the violent realities of sex work/ers in Canada today. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 3100 and WOMN 2540 with the topic "Sex Work in Contemporary Canadian Culture."
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Attributes: Social Science
The course will: introduce feminist theoretical analyses of militarization; explore the mobilization of women in wartime and its relation to postwar battles over women’s on-going access to well-paid occupations inside and outside the armed forces; through case studies, examine the processes by which women challenged their exclusions from particular roles; compare women’s experiences in different armed forces and their recruitment strategies; analyse sexual misconduct policies and the treatment of military families and veterans; consider the relationship between the feminist peace movement and women in the military; and study the struggles to commemorate women’s wartime contributions. Students may not hold credit for WOMN 3110 and WOMN 3500 with the topic "Women in the Military."
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women’s and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of instructor.
Mutually Exclusive: WOMN 3500
Attributes: Humanities
Indigenous women have had a long and problematic relationship with the camera. The colonial lens created a visual legacy of exoticism and objectification, creating images that continue to haunt us. However, women also sought the camera for their own purposes, seizing control of their own representation, and ‘speaking back’. Now photography and film are among the strongest modes of women’s contemporary artistic expression. This course will explore both legacies from Indigenous women worldwide. Whenever possible, the class will integrate with the Native Women & Film festival, a film event that brings women filmmakers to Winnipeg. Students may not hold credit for WOMN 3120 and WOMN 2540 with the topic "Indigenous Women and the Camera."
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women’s and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of instructor.
Mutually Exclusive: WOMN 2540
Attributes: Humanities
Relying on interdisciplinary feminist and Indigenous perspectives, this course examines how historical and present-day environmental issues do not exist "out there," but profoundly shape our bodies and lives, and in turn are shaped by social structures and inequities. It includes study of relationships between human and non-human beings in different places and times, and invites students to consider both the interconnection between social and environmental struggles and the misperception that humans and environments somehow exist in isolation from one another. It also provides room to study, envision and enact alternative planetary relationships. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 3130 and WOMN 3500 with the topic "Nature, Culture, Gender."
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women’s and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of instructor.
Mutually Exclusive: WOMN 3500
Attributes: Social Science
Course in which content varies from year to year according to needs and interests of students and instructors. The course content may vary. Students can earn multiple credits for this course only when the topic subtitle is different.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Introduction to transnational feminist perspectives in order to analyse our contemporary world, including gendered, racialized, and classed power relations and inequalities. Focus is placed on how current global phenomena such as neoliberalism, structural adjustment, and migration shape people's lived experiences in different regions of the world. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 3520 and the former WOMN 3510.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of instructor.
Equiv To: WOMN 3510
Attributes: Social Science, Written English Requirement
Directed readings in a range of Women's Studies literature. This is an independent study course. The course content may vary. Students can earn multiple credits for this course only when the topic subtitle is different.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: written consent of instructor and Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Directed readings in a range of Women's Studies literature. This is an independent study course. The course content may vary. Students can earn multiple credits for this course only when the topic subtitle is different.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: written consent of instructor and Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Overview of organizing efforts and techniques, community issues and strategies that women have developed in North American and especially Canadian communities. Focus is on a synthesis of thought and action, theory and practise.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Attributes: Social Science
An overview of feminist research and theories on violence against women as an integral component of our social structure, and on issues of social change to alleviate the problem.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Attributes: Social Science
This course examines the history of women, gender, and sexuality in Canada's past. Specific topics may include women, gender and sexuality in Indigenous peoples, English and French colonization, nation-building, immigration and urbanization, politics, race, migration and racialization, violence, war, and protest. This course is also offered as HIST 3576. Students may not hold credit for WOMN 3576 and any of: HIST 3576, the former HIST 3570, the former HIST 3572.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: 6 credit hours in HIST; or 3 credit hours in Women’s and Gender Studies; or written consent of Department Head.
Equiv To: HIST 3576
Mutually Exclusive: HIST 3570, HIST 3572
An introduction to the key debates in masculinity studies from a feminist perspective. Considering the idea of "hegemonic masculinity" and the practice of creating a typology of masculinity, this course examines the changing forms of masculinity as a political and cultural category, using historical examples from the 19th century and the 1970s and considers the influence of feminist theories on men's engagement with masculinity in North America. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 3620 and WOMN 3500 with the topic "Masculinities."
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [a minimum of three credit hours of Women's and Gender Studies courses] or written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Mutually Exclusive: WOMN 3500
Attributes: Humanities
The Thesis presents the results of an independent research project supervised by a faculty member.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Between September and March, the student will complete a minimum of 80 hours of unpaid independent work in a feminist or woman-centered organization and meet regularly with the instructor and other practicum students. Students will reflect critically on the work experience in course assignments.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [at least 24 credit hours in Women's and Gender Studies courses] and written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
An advanced seminar on a contemporary theme in Women's and Gender Studies. The theme will vary from year to year in accordance with the research interests of the instructor and new developments in the field. Student presentations and discussions will be emphasized. Students may not hold credit for both WOMN 4200 and the former WOMN 4110.
PR/CR: A minimum grade of C is required unless otherwise indicated.
Prerequisite: [WOMN 2000 or the former WOMN 2520] and written consent of the Women's and Gender Studies coordinator.
Equiv To: WOMN 4110