Gender and Women's Studies at UBC's Okanagan campus | | UBC Undergraduate Programs and Admissions

Learn about the world and our place in it through a deeper understanding of sexuality, femininity, embodiment and social justice. This dynamic program draws from across the humanities and social sciences.

Why this program?

Complete directed studies, where you will conduct independent research, culminating in a major project.
Complete a co-op job placement to build your resumé, gain beneficial skills, and expand your professional network.
Volunteer as a research assistant with one of UBC's renowned faculty researchers studying sexuality, femininity, and social justice.

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Program information

Campus: Okanagan
Faculty: Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Degree: Bachelor of Arts

Length 4 yrs
Co-op Yes
You can combine your studies with full-time, paid work at top local and international organizations.
Honours No
You can study intense specialization in a single field.

Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study focusing on the historical and contemporary role of gender in global cultures. Part of the Community, Culture, and Global Studies (CCGS) academic unit, this program encourages you to engage in critical thought, challenge stereotypes, and contribute to social change. Courses draw on theoretical analysis, research, history, and literary sources to examine gender issues and the experiences of women.

Experiential learning and research

Take your studies further by enrolling in directed studies, where you will complete directed readings and a research project.

The Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences also supports student research through the Undergraduate Research Awards, which allow students to carry out their own projects over the summer months, while other awards provide opportunities to work with professors on their work.

Or, take your studies abroad with the Go Global program and the Exchange and Research Abroad program.

GWST 100 - Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Power I: An Introduction
Cross-cultural and historical antecedents to gender studies and feminist thought. The social construction of knowledge and inequality through gender, race, sexuality, and class; the cultural and structural forces that create the dynamic for change and resistance in the personal and political realms of gendered lives.
GWST 110 - Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Power II: Everyday Life
Applying the conceptual frameworks learned in GWST 100, considers how gender, race, sexuality and power shape social inequalities in such realms as health, violence, poverty, and work.

GWST 215 - Gender and Popular Culture
Examines how gender, sexuality and race intersect with representation in a variety of genres in popular culture. Considers the production, content, and reception of media texts. Ideological, institutional, social, and personal implications of these representations, and use of media to provoke change.
GWST 216 - Critical Foundations: Feminism and Difference
History of feminist engagements with race, class, nation, and sexuality within an intersectional framework and in the wake of critiques of feminism's exclusivity.
GWST 223 - Critical Sexuality Studies
Overview of the historical emergence of critical sexuality studies. Sexological, psychoanalytic, Foucauldian, feminist, and queer theories of sexuality and gender will be examined.
ANTH 205 - Gender, Sexuality, and the Body
An anthropological exploration of how understandings of gender, sex, and the body are culturally and historically shaped, with a focus on theory as well as case studies. How globalization and transnationalism are changing norms of gender and sexuality is also explored.
SOCI 217 - Introduction to Sociology of Gender
How gender organizes and influences individuals, social interactions, and institutions such as families, media and work; how gender intersects with other structures of inequality.

GWST 323 - Feminist Epistemologies: Gender, Science, and Knowledge
Introduces foundations of feminist theories of knowledge. Examines critiques of the gendering of scientific knowledge and the relationship between scientific knowledge and social inequality.
GWST 334 - Feminist Research Methodologies
Involves the study of the literature of feminist scholarship from a variety of disciplines illustrating the plurality and complementarity of feminist methods.
GWST 335 - Feminist Theory in the Humanities
Examines feminist critiques of the history of Western thought and surveys the development of feminist cultural theory.
PHIL 373 - Feminist Philosophy
A brief introduction to the history of feminist thought is included. An overview of the traditional concept of the feminine in contrast to the masculine will be examined. Lecture topics include: liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, radical and cultural feminism. The approaches that feminist theory has taken to traditional areas of philosophical inquiry, such as the theory of knowledge (epistemology), aesthetics, and the history of philosophy will also be studied.

GWST 419 - Gender, Dress, and Fashion: Histories and Theories
Overview of historical and theoretical perspectives on the gendered development of dress and the modern fashion system. Consideration of the relationship of identity and adornment.
GWST 423 - Trans-(Gender) Feminisms
Overview of the historical emergence of trans-(gender) feminisms. Focus on debates across trans, queer, and feminist scholarship, methodology, and activism. Consideration of the politics of sex/gender transformation vis-à-vis 'race', 'culture', sexuality, class, and social justice.
GWST 425 - Feminist Geographies of (Un)Belonging
Transnational and decolonizing feminist approaches to the geography of power as manifested through contemporary political identities. Focus on relationships between state-mediated categories of (un)belonging such as 'citizen', 'migrant', 'refugee', 'aboriginal', and 'illegal'. Emphasis on borders, border-identities, and multicultural/settler societies such as Australia, Israel, Canada and the United States.
GWST 429 - Sexuality and Space
Interdisciplinary examination of the relationships between gender, sexuality, space, and place. Focus on social investments in race, sexuality, gender, (dis)ability, and citizenship as spatial technologies of belonging and power. Emphasis on queer and critical gender studies approaches to the subfield of cultural geography.
GWST 430 - Femininities
Overview of theoretical and historical constructs of femininity in industrial and post-industrial society. Emphasis on multiple femininities and negotiations of feminine identity.

Life at UBC's Okanagan campus

On UBC’s Okanagan campus, you'll gain all the benefits of attending a globally respected university while studying in a close-knit learning community. Modern on-campus residences are close to academic supports, and surrounded by hiking and biking trails, sandy beaches, and vast lakes. Take part in on-campus events, volunteer in the community, or explore the outdoors.

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Your future

A UBC degree is respected by employers around the globe. Build the foundational skills needed to pursue a career in government departments and agencies, media and publishing, and non-government organizations or services, or to pursue graduate studies.

UBC stories

Emmy reflects on her time at UBC and shares two of her favourite and most formative experiences – studying abroad with Go Global, and completing directed-studies projects.
Emmy Chahal, Cultural Studies, Gender and Women's Studies Read the full story

Program requirements

Canadian high schools
International high schools
International baccalaureate

English-language requirements

English is the language of instruction at UBC. All prospective students must demonstrate English-language competency prior to admission. There are numerous ways to meet the English Language Admission Standard.

General admission requirements

IB Diploma Programme

Completed IB Diploma, including at least three Higher Level courses.

IB Certificate Courses

IB Certificate courses (Standard and Higher Level) may be used in an admissions average if you are graduating from a recognized high school curriculum that can be used as your basis of admission.

IB Math Applications and Interpretations SL, or IB Math Studies, do not satisfy the math requirement for admission to UBC’s science-based programs, the Faculty of Management, the UBC Sauder School of Business, or the Vancouver School of Economics.

Degree-specific requirements: Arts

No specific courses required beyond those needed for general admission

Related courses

The following subject categories are particularly relevant for this degree. Consider taking courses in these areas in your junior year and senior year.

Language Arts
Mathematics and Computation
Second Languages
Social Studies
Visual and Performing Arts

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Why this program?

Experiential learning and research

Life at UBC's Okanagan campus

Your future

UBC stories

Related programs

Program requirements

English-language requirements

General admission requirements

Degree-specific requirements: Arts

Related courses

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