Graduate students may earn a Women’s and Gender Studies M.A. along with another graduate degree at Rutgers. Admission and financial aid are separate processes for each program, therefore, students must apply separately to each program. No special consideration is given to students already accepted in a program at Rutgers. Students who are accepted to both programs, may enroll for both, but technically cannot earn the degrees simultaneously. Thus, after the student completes the first program, s/he must request that credits from the first program be applied to the second degree program. Students interested in this option should discuss it with the Graduate Directors of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the second Department in which s/he is interested.

Introduction

Fall 2020 Flyer

The new Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change in the Masters in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program is designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to assume leadership roles in contemporary social justice activism and human rights.

Students will complete the thirty-credit track by taking traditional courses in feminist theory as well as courses specifically developed for the Degree, including “Social Justice Movements” and “Advocacy: Tactics and Techniques.” These core classes, in conjunction with a range of electives including "Gender and Human Rights and Gender and Development", will guide MA students to best cultivate their abilities to think creatively about short-term tactics and long-term strategies for social transformation. They will examine in detail the inequities and challenges facing diverse women, men, non-binary, transgender, and gender non-conforming human beings in the contemporary world. Students will complete their Degree by translating what they have learned in the classroom into social justice and human rights initiatives through placement in professional settings resonant with their interests, including in: units of the Institute for Women’s Leadership Consortium at Rutgers-NB; non-governmental organizations; and the United Nations.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS TRACK REQUIRES THE COMPLETION OF A PRACTICUM, NOT A THESIS. STUDENTS INTERESTED IN COMPLETING A MASTERS THESIS THROUGH WGSS SHOULD CHECK THAT SPECIFIC OPTION ON THE APPLICATION.

Core and Elective Coursework (24 Credits Total)

Students completing the BA/MA track must complete 9 credits of core coursework and additional 15 credits of elective coursework, as noted in detail:

CORE COURSES

The curriculum for the proposed M.A. track requires the completion of three core courses for a total of 9 credits. Two of the Core courses (516 and 517) have been designed especially for this Master’s track. The Core course listings are as follows:

Feminism: Theory and Practice (988:515)

This course aims to illuminate the interconnections of theory and practice by exploring particular modes of feminist activism and the complex theoretical issues that feminist praxis raises. The course seeks to foster an understanding of the multiple ways that feminist theory opens imaginations to the possibilities for inclusive democratic practices, and expands the repertoire of strategies for realizing social change.

Social Justice Movements (988:516)

When excluded by law from official institutions of governance and subjected to multiple modes of discrimination and injustice, many people turn their energies to the politics of transformation.  This course examines collective mobilization across multiple scales (grassroots, ethnic, local, regional, national, transnational, international and virtual) to create a different world—more attuned to more equitable distributions of social, economic, and political resources. Using both historical and contemporary examples, the class explores how these transformative efforts are influenced by regimes in power and influences beyond the nation-state and analyzes the conditions for social movement success and failure.

Advocacy: Tactics and Techniques (988:517)

Certain skills are essential for advocacy, regardless of the cause one seeks to promote.  This course will assist students in developing basic capacities such a public speaking, agenda-setting, issue identification, event planning, publicity campaigns, harnessing free media, group facilitation, social media mobilization, fundraising, grant writing, networking, coalition building, petitioning, lobbying, organizational planning and budgeting, consensus-building, and participatory decision-making.  Drawing examples from feminist activism and organizations across the global North and South, the class will prepare students for the demands of social change activism and advocacy.

ELECTIVE COURSEWORK

Students must also complete an additional five elective courses (for a total of 15 credits) from among the diverse graduate seminars in WGS and selected courses from cognate disciplines. Eligible electives include:

Agency, Subjectivity, and Social Change (988:520)

This course investigates women’s mobilizations to transform social and political institutions, which also transform women activists themselves.  Examining global feminist movements in the past as well as in the contemporary world, this class seeks to explicate how women’s activism and agency continue to challenge dominant discourses on agency, subjectivity, culture, politics, authority, religion, and society.

Gender and Human Rights (988:535)

The history and discourse of women's human rights. United Nations instruments; reframing of human rights as women's rights; gender-based violence; health; sexuality.

Gender and Development (988:536)

This course analyzes women’s location in economic development processes within theoretical frameworks; reflect upon linkages between the global economy and gendered processes of development; and examines a rights-based approach to gender justice.

Poverty, Inequality, and Gender (988:537)

This course examines the intersection of poverty, inequality and gender by exploring feminist approaches to theorizing, measuring, and experiencing the relationship between capitalist development and gender and race/ethnic inequality and poverty.

Feminist Advocacy for Women’s Rights Through the United Nations (988:445)

The course aims to bridge feminist theory and praxis through readings, discussions and concrete experiences at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and dialogue with feminist activists from around the world. A priority of the UN Commission on the Status of Women is women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work, including the challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls and an emerging issue being the empowerment of indigenous women. The course explores four broad themes:  global strategies for women’s economic empowerment; strategies for the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development; human rights and macroeconomic policies; empowerment of indigenous women and the contributions and insights of feminist perspectives on women’s economic rights and development in general and the possibilities and liabilities of the United Nations as a venue for feminist advocacy. The course will encourage the use of an intersectional lens to explore these themes. 

The Color of Aids: The Politics of Race during the AIDS Crisis (988:396)

In recent years, the visibility of people of color (particularly women) infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in the United States has sparked discussions about the influences of individual and structural factors in how people negotiate risk, protection, mobilization and access to care and medications. This course focuses on AIDS and the way it is represented in scholarly, popular and community discussions. One of our key concerns will be to discuss the role that race thinking has in shaping the representations of communities, the problems, and the solutions identify. The course explores cultural narratives of the spread of HIV among women and men from different racial/ethnic backgrounds, in addition to debating recent controversies caused by phenomena within the framework of contested social meanings of illness and deviance, or what Paula Treichler has aptly called “an epidemic of signification.” The course also explores linkages between how we imagine and represent illness and already existing notions of racial/ethnic/sexual difference. Discussions of selected moments throughout the crisis will help us understand debates about the meanings of race, from the designation of Haitians as a risk group in the earliest stages of the epidemic to current debates about African Americans makes as AIDS carriers and women of color in the epidemic. Discussions of gender, sexuality and the status of AIDS among African Americans, Latinas/os, Asian Americans and Native Americans will foreground the problematic nature of “culture” and “visibility” in health policy, research and care provision.

Women’s Global Health Movements (988:407)

Informed by the history of the International Women and Health Meetings (IWHMs), this course investigates the political vision and organizational structure for women’s health movements around the world. It contrasts early strategies driven by coalitions of activists from the North, which focused on reproductive rights, self-help, and a definition of health-based largely in the physiology of women’s bodies with approaches advanced by activists from the global South, which attend to the social, cultural, and economic factors that affect women’s access to the most basic healthcare.  This course examines how and why contemporary feminist conceptions of health are grounded in a comprehensive framework attentive to international power dynamics, globalization, macroeconomic policy, national and global poverty, conflict and war, and debt crises in various countries.  Beginning with an overview of women’s contemporary health challenges, the class then analyzes the political tactics and strategies women have devised to secure access to healthcare for themselves, their families, households, and communities.  Introducing students to the global institutions, organizations, and policies that impact health, course material also traces how women’s non-governmental organizations have attempted to transform existing institutions and policies of global health governance to enable women in all regions of the world to lead physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally healthier, more dignified lives.

Gender, Economic Inequality & Health (988:408)

Domestic and global economic inequality places significant numbers of people at high risk for health crises even as they are denied access to care.  This course investigates the “pathogenic” aspects of economic inequality.  It examines how systems of unequal resource distribution grounded in class, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality and sexuality contribute to wide disparities of health risk, access to health care, and clinical outcomes.  It explores how global trade and transnational migration affect health costs, health care delivery systems, and the availability of health care professionals.  By tracing links between macro-economic policies and access to health care, the course analyzes pathologies suffered by individual women in the context of structural violence, which is exacerbated by the intersections of gender, class, race, national belonging, and geopolitical power.

Care Work (988:414)

Nursing and teaching—two women-dominated professions—lie at the heart of the “care economy.”  Involving work that requires intensive physical labor, person-to-person communication, and spatial proximity, the intimate nature of care work resists mechanization.  In contrast to the production of commodities, the highly personalized labor of care is driven by human need rather than profit maximization.  This course provides an overview of distinctive gendered professions whose object of labor is the human subject.  In nursing and teaching, skill entails the effective exercise of professional judgment.  Focused on the cultivation and preservation of human capacities, this professional labor resists routinization and automation.  In addition to examining the distinctive nature of these caring professions, the course explores recent efforts to heighten the profit-making potential of the care economy, and it considers the long-term implications of efforts to deskill and outsource care work.

ELECTIVES IN RELATED DISCIPLINES:

Anthropology

Anthropology of Gender, 070: 511
Sexualities in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 070: 516
Anthropology of Violence, 070: 517
Power, State, Nation, 070: 518
Inequality: Race, Class, and Ethnicity, 070:527
Racialization, Immigration, and the Politics of Citizenship, 070:529
Anthropology of Human Rights, 070:537

History

Colloquium on Women and Gender History, 539:510
Protest and Consciousness: African Labor History in Comparative Global Context, 539:518
Seminar in the History of Women, 539:549-550

Political Science

Human Rights and the United Nations, 790:515
Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment, and the UN, 790:5
Women and Public Policy, 790:591
Gender and Comparative Politics, 790:593

Social Work

Women, Work and Single-Parent Families, 910:542
Poverty, Inequality, Discrimination and Public Policy, 910:544
LGBTQ Issues, 910:559

Sociology

Sociology of Environmental Health, 920: 507
Domination and Resistance, 920:570
Space, Place, and Inequality, 920: 571
Sociology of Sexualities, 920:572
Race, Ethnicity, Inequality, 920:614

Completing the Practicum (6 credits)

Overview of the Practicum Experience (988:584-585, 6 credits)

In keeping with the professional orientation of the track, the Practicum will be the capstone experience for students as they complete their coursework. Over the past 25 years, WGS has developed strong working relations with a host of feminist NGOs, INGOs, and research centers and institutes, where we have placed Practicum students past on the east coast from New York City to Washington D.C.

Some students who possess requisite linguistic fluency have completed practicum placements in Ghana, India, Lebanon, Spain, and Vietnam.

Others have done important work with the constitutive units of Rutgers Institute for Women’s Leadership, most notably, the Center for American Women and Politics, the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, the IWL, the Center for Women and Work, and the Center on Violence against Women and Children.

During the time period in which students are completing their Practicum Proposal, completing the Practicum work, writing and defending their Practicum Report, students should register a total of six credits: 988:884 and 988:585. Students cannot graduate without registering for all six of these credits.

Completing the Practicum Proposal (prior to starting the Practicum)

Once a worksite has been selected, the student completes a Practicum Proposal that analyzes the feminist issues that will be the focus of the Practicum. In consultation with the M.A. Program Director and a faculty advisor, each student chooses a Practicum Site and prepares a Practicum Proposal (5-7 pages) that indicates how the student plans to bring theory and practice together in pursuing a specific work opportunity.

The Proposal identifies the issues, questions, themes, controversies, or contradictions that the student hopes to explore through the work experience and research related to that work experience. The Practicum Proposal identifies the set of questions that the student brings to the work experience and the relevant feminist articles, books, films, or other primary sources that the student will use as resources in thinking about the central questions, including a systematic bibliography of feminist scholarship relevant to the practicum project. In addition to discussing previous experience or specific skills that the student brings to the Practicum that will assist in undertaking the work, the Practicum Proposal outlines the specific work that the student has agreed to undertake in consultation with the fieldwork agency supervisor and the faculty advisor. The Practicum Proposal also specifies how this engagement with feminist theory and practice will contribute to longer-term career goals. The Practicum Proposal requires a literature search to identify the scholarship relevant to the work to be undertaken. It also carefully maps the work expectations for and professional competencies required by the placement. Students typically devote approximately one month to the preparation of the Practicum Proposal. The Practicum Proposal must be reviewed by the Site Supervisor, signed and returned to the Director of the WGSS M.A. Program before the student begins work.

Completing the Practicum (180 hours)

Once the Practicum Proposal has been accepted, students may begin their Practicum. This requires a devotion of a minimum of 180 hours in the work placement in the agency, organization, or project pertinent to feminist activism and policy selected for the Practicum. While Practicum placements vary widely, each involves intellectual challenges, responsibility, creativity, and programmatic impact. General office assistance (photocopying, phone answering, reception duties) are not suitable or accepted for the practicum experience.

The Practicum provides students with the opportunity to integrate academic analysis of particular feminist issues with work in a feminist organization addressing those issues. As such, the Practicum is an ideal means to bring together feminist theory and practice.

Students must secure the Practicum Evaluation upon completion of the Practicum and submit to the MA Program Director. Students may complete their Practicum work with pay from the Site itself.

PRACTICUM PLACEMENTS

Students have great flexibility in choosing their practicum sites, yet they must work with the M.A. Director in negotiating with prospective practicum agencies to ensure that the work conforms to professional expectations and that they have the requisite skills to successfully complete the work expected of them. If students seek a practicum placement in an organization in another country, they should possess language proficiency to complete their work assignments in the language of the host nation.

On-Campus Practicum Placements

Rutgers has an extraordinary array of research centers and institutes devoted to the study of women and gender, to advocacy on behalf of women and gender equity, and to the promotion of women’s leadership locally, nationally, and globally.  The track in Feminist Practices for Social Change is intricately tied to the central mission of the Institute for Women’s Leadership—fostering women’s leadership for a just world.  The IWL’s nine constitutive units and a number of related centers and institutes provide diverse opportunities for M.A. practicums, as noted below.

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) is the oldest and most respected University-based research center devoted to the study of women and politics in the United States. It organizes conferences and programs for women public officials, activists and scholars; it conducts research about women and politics, and it recruits and trains young women for political leadership through its award-winning NEW Leadership Program. CAWP is part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Woodlawn, Douglass Campus. http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/

The Center for Women's Global Leadership (Global Center) develops and facilitates women’s leadership in policy-making in local, national, and international arenas.  The Global Center promotes advocacy, organizing and research for women’s human rights and social justice worldwide through its residential training institutes and global mobilization campaigns on behalf of women's human rights.  The Global Center is located at 160 Ryders Lane, Douglass Campus.   http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/

The Center for Women and Work addresses the needs of working women by studying public policies in the field, conducting research on issues of concern, and sponsoring educational programs for working women, policy makers, corporate leaders and community organizations.  The Center for Women and Work is located at 94 Rockefeller Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854 on the Busch Campus. https://smlr.rutgers.edu/content/center-women-work-cww

The Institute for Research on Women (IRW) advances and disseminates new scholarship and thinking on women and gender, and works to strengthen the study of women’s issues across academic disciplines, as well as among individual scholars and activists. The IRW sponsors an annual research seminar, lecture series, conferences and discussion groups exploring path-breaking work in the study of gender and in feminist theory.  The IRW also hosts visiting scholars from the U.S. and abroad who come to Rutgers for a semester or year to pursue their research in the context of an innovative community of feminist scholars.  The IRW is located at 160 Ryders Lane. http://irw.rutgers.edu/

The Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL) is a consortium of nine units dedicated to education, research, and public service. Located at Rutgers-New Brunswick, the IWL examines women and gender, advocates on behalf of diversity and gender equity, and advances women's leadership in all arenas of public life. The Institute for Women’s Leadership works collaboratively to lead activities in three areas: model leadership and mentoring programs for women; interdisciplinary research on women’s leadership; and serving as a catalyst and incubator for innovative programs and resources on women’s leadership. The IWL brings together the expertise of its member units to examine and promote women’s leadership in education, research, the arts, sciences, politics and government, human rights, the workplace, and the world. The IWL is located on the third floor of the Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building at 162 Ryders Lane. https://iwl.rutgers.edu/

The Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities (CWAH) advances research on the aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural contributions of the feminist art movement and promotes university-community partnerships with visual artists, performers, scholars and cultural-makers in the humanities.  It is located on the Busch Campus at 640 Bartholomew Road, #125A, Piscataway, NJ.https://cwah.rutgers.edu/

The Center for Research on Ending Violence strives to eliminate physical, sexual, and other forms of violence against women and children and the power imbalances that permit them. The Center for Research on Ending Violence facilitates a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to research, training, and education aimed at eradicating violence against women and children. https://socialwork.rutgers.edu/centers/center-research-ending-violence

The Margery Somers Foster Center is a unit of Rutgers University Libraries dedicated to developing co-curricular initiatives on visual technology and networked culture. The co-curricular programs promote expressive communication through the use of multimedia while challenging Rutgers students to engage critically with structures of inequality grounded in alternative accounts of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and nationality. It is located in the Douglass Library, 8 Chapel Drive, New Brunswick, NJ. https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/foster

The Tyler Clementi Center examines the impact of bias, peer aggression and campus climate on postsecondary students who experience marginalization or stigma related to their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion/faith, and/or ability among other stigmatized identities/experiences. The Tyler Clementi Center is located on at 106 Somerset Street on the College Ave Campus. https://clementicenter.rutgers.edu/

The Office of Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities (SJE) provides educational, social and leadership development programs and activities for LGBT students, allies, and staff/faculty Liaisons for LGBT Students. SJE coordinates the monitoring of incidents of bias and hate through the Bias Prevention Education Committee. The Office of Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities also fosters all students' engagement with and understanding of the complex issues of power, privilege, and prejudice. SJE promotes students' exploration of modes of advocacy and activism in order to change the structures that exclude and oppress groups and individuals. SJE creates opportunities such as the Social Justice Institute to help students develop their leadership capacity in working with issues including but not limited to race, gender, sexuality, and economic status.

The Practicum Report (35 pages)

Upon completing the Practicum, students must complete the Practicum Report. As the culmination of the student’s M.A. experience, the Practicum Report provides the student an opportunity to integrate insights gleaned from academic course work with challenges posed by particular forms of feminist activism, and by bringing together theory and practice, to contribute to feminist understandings of the issue being explored. The paper could, for example, examine feminist organizational or decision-making issues, substantive feminist policy or service delivery, theoretical questions raised by feminist practice within the worksite, strategic questions concerning the achievement of specific feminist goals. The challenge of the practicum report is to bring together academic treatments of the issue(s) with the experience gained during fieldwork.  Guided by the questions the student formulated in the practicum proposal, the student uses the fieldwork to provide evidence to support or contest particular academic claims, or to offer suggestions for reframing or expanding particular debates, to develop concepts and practices that further feminist ends.

Students typically devote four to six weeks to the completion of the practicum report, working closely with their faculty advisor.  This is a 35-page (minimum) paper. Once the faculty advisor has approved the report, the student meets a final time with the three-member practicum committee to discuss the findings.

Potential Sequencing of Courses for One, Two, or Three-year Completion of The Degree

Students completing the track in Feminist Practices for Social Change must complete their degree work, write the Practicum Report, and defend that Practicum Report within the three-year period stipulated by the Graduate School of New Brunswick.

Application Requirements and Process

The MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change is highly selective of students, not only on the basis of their academic achievements but also in terms of their demonstrated commitment to diversity and social justice.

Successful applicants to the Track must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher and present a demonstrable dedication to feminist activism and advocacy.

The deadline for applications to the new MA Track is March 1, 2020. There is no early decision deadline.

When applying to the MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change, students should complete the application for the WGSS  Master’s Program. The application can be accessed here.

Students should meet the MA Program admissions requirements, along with submitting the following:

A Personal Statement (500-1000 words) specifying your past experiences, reasons for applying, and your areas of interest. It should explain your intellectual and personal goals, why you are interested in pursuing an interdisciplinary degree rather than a more traditional disciplinary one, and how this degree fits into your intellectual and personal future.

• Applicants should stress their interest in activism in social justice/human rights as related to women, sexuality, and gender in the Personal Statement. They should address the following questions:
• Why are you interested in completing this Track specifically?
• What skills and experience do you bring to this Track?
• How will completing this Track assist you in your future endeavors?
• What are some of your goals in completing this Track?

ON THE APPLICATION ITSELF, STUDENTS SHOULD SELECT THE OPTION NOTED AS “MA TRACK IN FEMINIST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE.”  STUDENTS SHOULD BE CAREFUL NOT TO SELECT THE OPTION EITHER FOR THE BA/MA TRACK BY THE SAME NAME, OR FOR THE WGSS  MASTERS WITH THESIS.

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Interested students who possess these qualifications should contact Julie Rajan, Director of the WGSS Masters Program (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to discuss the track and the application process.

FAQs FOR MA TRACK IN FEMINIST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

When is the application deadline? Is there an Early Decision Deadline?

The deadline for applications to the new MA Track is March 1, 2020.

For this track, we do not offer an early decision. 

Where may I access the application?

When applying to the MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change, students should complete the application for the WGSS  Master’s Program. The application can be accessed here.

On the application itself, they should select the option noted as “MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change.”  Students should be careful not to select the option either for the BA/MA Track with the same name, or for the WGSS Masters with Thesis.

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

What does the application require?

Candidates should carefully review requirements for the application as noted: https://womens-studies.rutgers.edu/academics/graduate-program/prospective-students/ma-students

In addition to these requirements:

• On the Application form, applicants must select the option for “MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change.” APPLICANTS SHOULD BE CAREFUL NOT TO SELECT THE OPTION EITHER FOR THE BA/MA TRACK BY THE SAME NAME OR FOR THE WGSS MASTER’S DEGREE WITH THESIS
• Applicants should stress their interest in activist work or interest in social justice/human rights in the Personal Statement

Students who successfully pass the first phase of selection will be interviewed. These interviews may be conducted either in person or via skype.

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Once I have been accepted into the new Track, can I switch to writing a Thesis?

Students who apply to the MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change must complete the requirements of the Track and must complete the Practicum. Students matriculating into this Track can neither complete a thesis nor transfer into the WGSS  Master’s Program with Thesis at any point while completing the Track.

Students interested in completing a Master’s Thesis should apply directly and specifically to the traditional Master’s Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Students who have already matriculated into the MA Track and who then decide they want to complete a Thesis must withdraw from the Track and apply separately for the Masters in WGSS  with Thesis.

May I transfer as a graduate student into the new MA Track?

WGSS  does not allow graduate students from another school at which they are already completing WGSS work or completing graduate work in another discipline inside or outside of Rutgers University to transfer into the WGSS  MA Track for Feminist Practices in Social Change.

Only students who apply to the new Track through the application process will be considered for acceptance into the Track.

May international students apply to the MA Track?

All students may apply to the MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change. 

Please review all application requirements: https://womens-studies.rutgers.edu/academics/graduate-program/prospective-students/ma-students

International applicants should be sure to satisfy all requirements per:

• Rutgers Global for visa requirements and other documentation: https://global.rutgers.edu/international-scholars-students
• TOEFFL scores: https://womens-studies.rutgers.edu/academics/graduate-program/prospective-students/ma-students

May I transfer any graduate credits I have earned before matriculating into the new MA track towards completing the MA track?

As a rule, Rutgers University allows students to transfer up to 12 credits (3 classes) toward their WGSS MA degree. WGSS will consider these inquiries on a case-by-case basis. WGSS  cannot guarantee that any credits will be transferred and cannot allow transfer credits to count toward any of the three core courses required of the new MA track.

In addition, WGSS will only consider for transfer graduate courses that are officially recorded as WGSS courses and in which students have earned an ‘A’.

What is the graduation time for completing this new MA track?

Students must complete the MA within the three-year deadline imposed by the graduate school. Students who, for whatever reason, cannot complete the degree within this time period must request in writing directly to the graduate school for an extension after receiving approval from the WGSS  Masters Director to request such an extension.

May non-matriculating students take courses in this Track?

WGSS does not allow non-matriculating students to take courses in this Track. Only students who have been accepted into the Track or who are enrolled in the WGSS MA Degree with Thesis or the new BA/MA Track may complete courses related to this Track.

What are the degree requirements for the new MA track?

All students enrolled in the MA track must complete 30 credits total, as follows:

• Three Core Courses (12 credits): Feminism Theory and Practices (515), Social Justice Movements (516), and Advocacy Tactics and Techniques (517).
• Five Electives (15 credits) from a range of WGSS graduate courses, including: Gender and Human Rights, Gender and Development, Feminist Knowledge Production, Feminist Genealogies, Feminist Advocacy at the UN
• 6 credits applied toward Practicum Research work (at the time when the student is completing Practicum work)

What is a Practicum and must I complete one to receive the MA degree?

Students must complete a Practicum to graduate.

In keeping with the professional orientation of the MA track, the Practicum constitutes the capstone experience for students as they complete their coursework. A Practicum provides students with the opportunity to experience the phenomenon of praxis: to apply what they have learned in the classroom to actual experience in activist work. Students will complete Practicum work in an organization of their choice focused on work related to women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.

Over the past 25 years, WGSS has developed strong working relations with a host of feminist NGOs, INGOs, and research centers and institutes on the east coast from New York City to Washington D.C. where we have placed Practicum students in the past.  Some students who possess requisite linguistic fluency have completed practicum placements in Ghana, India, Lebanon, Spain, and Vietnam. Others have done important work with the constitutive units of Rutgers Institute for Women’s Leadership, most notably, the Center for American Women and Politics, the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, the IWL, the Center for Women and Work, and the Center on Violence against Women and Children.

During the time period in which students are completing their Practicum Proposal, completing the Practicum work, and writing and defending their Practicum Report, students should register a total of six credits: 988:884 and 988:585. Students cannot graduate without registering for all six of these credits.

In addition to the academic work, what kind of opportunities are available to students completing the MA track in Feminist Practices for Social Change?

Students completing the new MA track have multiple opportunities for advancing themselves through academic and activist work. Some opportunities include:

• Apply to be a teaching assistant for classes related to the WGSS Social Justice Minor for undergraduates
• Participate in the bi-annual WGSS graduate student conference
• Apply for travel funding to present at or attend conferences related to activist work or academic research
• Apply to study abroad in Europe for one semester through the GEMMA Program
• Apply to study abroad for 6 weeks during a summer in Kassel, Germany, through the European Institute
• Complete a variety of certificates in various units and departments through Rutgers, including through The Center for Violence against Women and Children (https://socialwork.rutgers.edu/node/675) or Africana Studies (https://africanastudies.rutgers.edu/academics/graduate-certificate)
• Apply for graduate fellowships, such as to The Eagleton Institute for Politics Graduate Fellowship Program (https://eagleton.rutgers.edu/grad-fellowships/).

Does WGSS provide funding for students completing the MA track?

Currently, WGSS cannot offer funding for any students matriculating into the new MA track. Students, however, may check for job openings throughout Rutgers as well as among units of the IWL Consortium: https://iwl.rutgers.edu/consortium/ (see navigation bar on right-hand side).

The practicum provides students with the opportunity to integrate academic analysis of particular feminist issues with work in a feminist organization addressing those issues. As such, the Practicum is an ideal means to bring together feminist theory and practice.

The practicum comprises three elements: the Policy and Leadership Discussion Series, the work experience, and the written report.

The Work Experience

Each student who chooses to complete a practicum must perform 150-180 hours of work in an agency, organization, or project pertinent to Women’s and Gender Studies. The hours may be paid or unpaid. The work performed in the practicum must be comparable to that of a professional. While practicum placements may vary widely, each should involve intellectual challenges, responsibility, creativity, programmatic impact. While students have great flexibility in choosing their practicum sites, they must be careful to ensure that they have the requisite skills to successfully complete the work expected of them. If students seek a practicum placement in an organization in another country, they should possess sufficient language proficiency to complete their work assignments in the language of the host nation.

The Practicum Report

As the culmination of the student’s M.A. experience, the Practicum Report provides the student an opportunity to integrate insights gleaned from academic course work with challenges posed by particular forms of feminist activism, and by bringing together theory and practice, to contribute to feminist understandings of the issue being explored. The paper could, for example, examine feminist organizational or decision-making issues, substantive feminist policy or service delivery, detail theoretical questions raised by feminist practice within the worksite, or explore strategic questions concerning the achievement of specific feminist goals. The challenge of the Practicum Report is to bring together an academic treatments of the issue(s) with the experience gained during fieldwork. Guided by the questions the student formulated in the practicum proposal, the student should use the fieldwork to provide evidence to support or contest particular academic claims, to offer suggestions for reframing or expanding particular debates, and to develop concepts and practices that further feminist ends.

Each student should consult her/his advisor while planning the Practicum Report and submit a draft to the advisor prior to circulating the Report to the other members of the Faculty Committee. While the length of the Practicum Report will be dictated by the nature of the issue addressed, a typical Practicum Report ranges from 35 – 50 pages.

The faculty advisor decides when the practicum report fulfills the expectations of the Graduate Faculty and is ready for defense. The defense, which generally takes one to two hours, is an opportunity for the students to reflect on the practicum experience and for the faculty committee to ask questions about the final report and the student’s experience. Other members of the Women’s and Gender Studies Community may be invited to the defense at the Students request.

Click here for a list of practicum opportunities

In addition to the four required courses, M.A. students take four other courses to comprise an area of concentration. These courses may be drawn from 988 courses (including proseminars and advanced colloquia) or cognate courses (taught by Graduate Faculty in other departments).

Each M.A. student should choose an area of concentration during the first semester of coursework in order to complete M.A. course work efficiently. Students should craft a concentration on the basis of particular intellectual interests and courses available in any particular academic year.

Models of M.A. coursework with specific M.A. Concentrations

Women & Work

Fall

• 988:520 Agency, Subjectivity and Social Change
• 988:515 Feminism: Theory and Practice
• 510:525 Colloquium in the History of Women
• 578:541 Women Workers and the Labor Movement

Spring

• 988:583 Contemporary Feminist Theories
• 988:602 Research Methodologies or
• 988:603 Feminist Knowledge Production
• 578:566 Work and Alienation
• 910:542 Women, Work and Single Parent Families

Women & Politics

Fall

• 988:520 Agency, Subjectivity and Social Change
• 988:515 Feminism: Theory and Practice
• 790:587 Proseminar on Women and Politics
• 790:593 Gender and Comparative Politics

Spring

• 988:583 Contemporary Feminist Theories
• 988:602 Research Methodologies or
• 988:603 Feminist Knowledge Production
• 790:591 Women and Public Policy
• 970:581 Gender in Development and Planning

Women & Literature

Fall

• 988:520 Agency, Subjectivity and Social Change
• 988:515 Feminism: Theory and Practice
• 350:583 Women Writers of Modernism
• 350:571 Gender, Class, Power in 19th Century England

Spring

• 988:583 Contemporary Feminist Theories
• 988:602 Research Methodologies or
• 988:603 Feminist Knowledge Production
• 350:529 Black Women Writers
• 350:629 Early Modern Women in Poetry and Prose

1. 988:515 Feminism: Theory and Practice
   This course aims to illuminate the interconnections of theory and practice by exploring particular modes of feminist activism and the complex theoretical issues that feminist praxis raises. The course seeks to foster an understanding of the multiple ways that feminist theory has opened our imaginations to the possibilities for inclusive democratic practices, and expanded the repertoire of strategies for realizing social change.
   
   
2. 988:520 Agency, Subjectivity, and Social Change
   This course investigates women’s mobilizations to transform social and political institutions, which also transform women activists themselves. Examining global feminist movements in the past as well as in the contemporary world, this course seeks to explicate how women’s activism and agency continue to challenge dominant discourses on agency, subjectivity, culture, politics, authority, religion, and society.
   
   
3. One course in feminist theory. May be selected from 988:582, 988:583, or other courses to be designated each semester as fulfilling this requirement.
   
   988:581 Feminist Genealogies
   As a methodology, genealogy seeks to trace concepts back not to their origins (a task which presupposes continuity), but to points at which contradictions and contestations erupted in a manner productive of later discursive formations. This course examines key modern theories whose contradictions provoked feminist thought and elicited feminist critiques (for example, Hegelian, Liberal, Marxist, Existentialist and others). Both primary and secondary texts will be examined from perspectives of the first wave of the 19th century feminism, and second and third wave twentieth century feminism.
   
   988:583 Contemporary Feminist Theories
   This course will examine how recent feminist theories have critiqued a variety of traditional boundaries such as theoretical categories of identity, global hierarchies of power, and disciplinary boundaries. The original contributions of feminist theories to conceptual thinking will be explored around key concepts such as agency, identity, difference, location, intersectionality, transnationalism and nationalism, representation, resistance, power, and sexuality.
   
   
4. One course in feminist research and methods. May be selected from 988:602, 988:603, or other courses to be designated each semester as fulfilling this requirement.
   
   988:602 Feminist Methodologies 
   This course focuses on both the advantages and disadvantages of different philosophical, methodological, theoretical, and disciplinary traditions for contributing to our knowledge of central issues in women's and gender studies. The goal is to provide students with the critical tools to utilize and interrogate existing methodologies and to adapt them to the enterprise of feminist research. What counts as authoritative knowledge? What defines good research and bad research? What is the role of the social in the constitution of knowledge? What makes research feminist?
   
   988:603 Feminist Knowledge Production 
   This course is an introduction to many of the methods used in feminist interdisciplinary research. The course looks at how to formulate a research question, collect data, interpret and analyze evidence, and report research results. The course will be a forum to apply knowledge of methods and methodologies to students’ own research and research-activist interests.

Consult the current Graduate Handbook for detailed requirements.

30 Credits total:

• 24 course credits (8 courses)
• 6 credits for Practicum or Thesis

Required courses:

• 988:515 Feminism: Theory and Practice
• 988:520 Agency, Subjectivity and Social Change
• One course in Feminist Theory. Usually either 988:582 Feminist Genealogies or 988:583 Contemporary Feminist Theories. Other courses in feminist theory may also be designated as fulfilling this requirement.
• One course in Feminist Methodology
  • This requirement may be filled by 988:602 Feminist Methodologies or 988:603 Feminist Knowledge Production. Other courses in feminist methodology may also be designated as fulfilling this requirement.
• Four additional courses selected in consultation with the advisor to form an area of concentration related to the interests of the student.

The WGSS MA Program is pleased to allow students to matriculate in the spring semester each year. For Spring '27 Matriculation, applications are due September 15, 2026. For Fall '27 Matriculation, applications are due to December 20, 2026.

The M.A. in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) offers liberal arts degrees that enable students to become active practitioners in a wide range of areas related to this rapidly expanding field of study. The degree is specifically designed so that full-time students can complete the program in one calendar year. The program is structured as a terminal master's degree for students and professionals who seek to deepen their feminist, gender-, and sexuality-related perspectives on activism, policy/advocacy, and research.

Centered at the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University, this master’s degree draws on the strengths of a core faculty with twenty-five members working on various aspects of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies who have made major scholarly contributions to the field. In addition, the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies is part of the Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL), a consortium of nine units at Rutgers University dedicated to the study of women and gender, to advocacy on behalf of gender equity, and to the promotion of women’s leadership locally, nationally, and globally.

WGSS offers two distinct options to complete a Masters in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Either M.A. option may serve as a supplement for professional degrees in fields such as law, social work, human rights and social justice, public health, labor studies, public policy, or clinical psychology. With an increasing emphasis on careers focusing on the delivery of services to women and families worldwide, WGS helps to fill a growing demand for experts versed in women's and gender issues. The M.A. program is designed to emphasize global and multicultural perspectives on these matters.

• Master’s Degree with Thesis
  This option reflects the traditional Master's Degree offered by WGSS. Students completing this option will complete the Masters with a traditional Thesis. This option is best suited for students interested in continuing academic work upon graduation, for example, in a doctoral program. For more information, please see the links listed “MA Program” in the right-hand navigation bar.
  
  
• Master’s Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change:  Fall 2020 Flyer
  WGSS has approved this new Track for implementation in Fall 2020. This Track prepares students interested in activism work in social justice and human rights for professional placement in those fields upon graduation. Students completing this Track will complete core classes different than those required of the traditional Master’s Degree with Thesis. Students will also complete a Practicum rather than a Thesis. For more information, please click here. 

Please note that students must apply for only one option. Once accepted into the MA Program, students may not switch into the alternate option.

PROGRAM FEATURES

Strength of Scholarship: Faculty members have a strong research profile and have published widely in their fields. A number of faculty are also directly involved in activist/advocacy work related to critical issues challenging feminism and racial equality, among others.

Commitment of Scholarship: Courses are taught by full-time faculty members committed to teaching and advising.

Small classes: Enable extensive and personal interaction between students and faculty.

Access to Practicum Sites: Students who complete the new MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change will have the opportunity to complete a Practicum for their degree. This experience will encourage students to relate the academic knowledge they have gained in the classroom to real-life situations and work related to their field of interest. Our department has access to, and relationships with, practicum sites in New York City, such as UN Women, and throughout New Jersey. In addition, the units of the IWL, including the globally-renowned Center for Women’s Global Leadership, have hosted a number of our students through the years. Though students have generally completed practicum work within the United States, students have the option to complete this portion of their degree in sites internationally that have been approved by WGSS.

Research Resources: As a major state university, Rutgers offers extensive resources to support graduate research, including a comprehensive collection of library material related to feminism, gender, and sexuality. Rutgers is a member of the Association of American Universities—the nationwide consortium of leading research universities—as well as the prestigious Big Ten Academic Alliance.

Teaching Experience: Offers potential teaching opportunities through WGSS Social Justice Minor.

Study Abroad Program: As of 2020-2021, the WGSS Master’s Program is pleased to MA students in either option the chance to take advantage of either of two study abroad options. One MA student will be selected to complete up to three classes during a semester abroad (with a majority of expenses paid) in one of a select number of European Universities affiliated with the Erasmus Mundus Master´s Degree in Women's and Gender Studies, sponsored by the European Commission. A number of MA students may also apply to study abroad for six weeks at the University of Kassel in Kassel, Germany, through the European Institute at lower tuition rates.

Accessibility: Close to the Turnpike and NJ Transit, the program is available to students throughout New Jersey and beyond.

Educational Value: As the State University of New Jersey, a Rutgers education offers tremendous value.

Admission to the M.A. program is entirely separate from admission to the Ph.D. program. Students in the M.A. program who wish to pursue doctoral work in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers must apply to the Ph.D. program directly, where they will compete with the general pool of applicants for admissions.

Learn more about the M.A. Learning Goals.