Women’s and Gender Studies, B.A.

Co-Directors
Dennis Denisoff, English
Jan Wilson, History

The program in women’s and gender studies at The University of Tulsa considers how gender and other intersecting factors, such as race, class, culture, sexuality, and age, have worked to shape the life experiences of people from diverse backgrounds. The program analyzes the contemporary and historical factors that underlie the current statuses of diverse individuals from all parts of the world and explores the various means by which people have sought to achieve equality.

The program’s dual emphases on interdisciplinary and intersectionality offer students analytical frameworks and methodological tools with which to understand people’s life experiences, interactions, and economic and social institutions. Courses promote awareness and knowledge of status-based oppression, people’s interrelationships, and the ways in which civil rights movements throughout history have struggled for equity. The program seeks to contribute to changing the attitudes and practices that either silence people’s voices or that work to devalue, marginalize, or subordinate certain people’s choices and life experiences. The Bachelor of Arts degree is offered in this area.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

1. Understand and analyze different ways in which genders and sexualities impact individuals and societies.
2. Analyze and evaluate facts and ethical positions regarding real-world women’s issues in local and global contexts.
3. Analyze and evaluate feminist, gender, and sexuality theories, and apply them to historical and contemporary texts and situations.
4. Write and communicate effectively in styles appropriate to the program’s participating disciplines.