Director’s Message

Welcome to the virtual world of the Graduate Program in Gender Feminist and Women’s Studies (GFWS). Thank you for your curiosity and interest. This interdisciplinary program is situated in the School of Gender Sexuality and Women’s Studies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. We offer both MA and PhD programs. The program began in 1991 and we are one of the largest Gender Studies programs in the world.

The 100 faculty affiliated with GFWS come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and they support intersectional research and teaching. Faculty expertise is gathered from the area across the university and includes critical disability studies, transnational politics, legal studies, Indigenous pedagogy, sexuality studies, history, education, fine arts, humanities, geography, media studies, philosophy, equity studies, political science, transgender studies, globalization, public policy, migration and refugee studies, Black feminist theory, environmental studies…and more.

GFWS recognizes academic training, community organizing, social justice activism, artistic practice and professional experience as factors that contribute to research excellence. The program values excellence and integrity in teaching and learning. Faculty and students associated with GFWS contribute internationally to contemporary discourse connected broadly to gender, feminism and women’s studies. Students in GFWS explore gender from critical perspectives in relation to social policy, equity, social justice, human rights, and cultural and social movements in Canada and internationally. Students affiliated with our program are members of the Centre for Feminist Research, participate in program governance and organize/socialize through the active student association the GFWSSA.

Graduates from our program have continued in their scholarship as PhD students, researchers and post-doctoral fellows. Many have found academic positions at colleges and universities. Others go beyond the academy as policy advisors, counsellors, artists and curators, directors of NGOs and community workers. Everyone who moves through GFWS emerges with new critical perspectives applicable to everyday life and expanded futures.

Please email us with any questions you may have. We are grateful for your interest.

Patricia Wood
Director, Graduate Program in Gender Feminist and Women’s Studies

_{A photo of Professor Patricia Wood}