Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST) is an innovative, interdisciplinary program that explores human behaviour, institutions, culture, politics, and social issues. Students will examine current and historical events, theories, and movements related to gender and sexuality, race and Indigeneity, class relations, disability, and other areas, building skills in critical thinking, gender-based analysis, anti-oppressive research, and equity, diversity, and inclusion.  

The University of Saskatchewan is on Treaty Six Territory—home of the Cree, Saulteaux, Nakota, Dakota, and Dene—and the homeland of the Métis people. Bringing together Indigenous people, people of colour, newcomers to Saskatchewan, and settlers, our WGST courses commit to the work decolonization, reconciliation, and cultural humility, inside and outside of the classroom.

We also foreground the work of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), through studying gender inequity, structural racism, ableism, heteronormativity, and many other systems of oppression.  Courses in WGST provide future generations with the theory and practice that we need in our schools, workplaces, and social spaces, as we all work toward creating more welcoming, accepting, and diverse communities

Our Programs

Undergraduate Program

Our Women’s and Gender Studies undergraduate program is an interdisciplinary program that explores gender and sexual diversity, masculinities and queer studies, practices of representation and cultural production, popular culture, and critical transnational feminisms. Drawing on innovative conceptual frameworks and interdisciplinary methodologies, our undergraduate curriculum addresses intersections of embodiment, identity, community and knowledge politics in arenas that span the intimate and the international. Engaging the everyday worlds that we inherit and inhabit, the program provides critical tools that help students re-imagine more inclusive processes for creative, social and political change.

Graduate Program

In our Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies graduate program, we aim to foster the creation of new knowledge surrounding diverse gendered and sexual identities. Grounded in critical feminist theory, masculinities studies, queer and sexualities studies, as well as cultural and transnational studies, the program encourages the development of innovative concepts and theories. Emphasizing interdisciplinary scholarship, research opportunities, and community engagement, our graduate program situates students' work within critically informed local, national, and transnational frameworks, providing a rich and dynamic academic experience.

History

Women’s Studies emerged as an academic discipline in the 1970s as part of rights movements across the globe. Since that time, the field has undergone many transformations, becoming both more specific and inclusive through the study of gender and sexual diversity, masculinities and queer studies, racialization and ethnicization, and transnational and Indigenous feminisms.

Women’s and Gender Studies was established as a department at the University of Saskatchewan in 1996, after nearly a decade of advocacy efforts from key faculty members. The department offered a high quality undergraduate program, focusing on the key areas of Indigenous/transnational/international gender justice; 2) queer and sexualities studies; and 3) gender, representation and cultural studies. In 2010, WGST became the anchor program for the newly created Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity (ICCC), a move that enabled the creation of an MA program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies and which further supported the interdisciplinarity of students and faculty. Upon the close of the ICCC, the WGST program continued to support robust undergraduate and graduate programs.

In 2022, the WGST program found a home within the Department of Political Studies, recognizing the shared visions of social justice, critical inquiry, and a commitment to providing space for students to engage meaningfully with their social and political landscapes. Today WGST continues to provide a robust and interdisciplinary scholarship, integrating existing and new approaches to academic research, outreach and community engagement. Students are provided with research opportunities that combine diverse academic fields including Indigenous and international perspectives on social justice, situating them uniquely in Saskatchewan while simultaneously invoking a global sense of place.  

Every women’s and gender studies classroom provides a critically engaged response to present and future needs for leadership in schools, colleges, universities, non-governmental organizations, and the cultural, public and private sectors. Skilled employees and researchers trained in the theories, methodologies and applications of anti-oppressive practice, gender studies, and sexuality studies are in increasing demand in local, regional, national and international contexts, both rural and urban. The interdisciplinary nature of our classes also provide a strong foundation for collaborations among academic units and for creating new research synergies, providing prospective students with a variety of highly rewarding career paths. 

This image was gifted to WGST by Joan Relke to acknowledge the interdisciplinary philosophies of the program. Philosophies which blend together diverse sexualities and genders, transcendence and immanence, heaven and earth, and the spiritual and material.