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The Women's Studies Program at Mount Allison was established in 1999 and is administered jointly by the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences. The program honors the memory of Grace Annie Lockhart whose Bachelor of Science degree awarded by Mount Allison University in 1875 was the first Bachelor's degree awarded to a woman in the British Empire. Drawing on a substantial body of scholarship, women’s studies is dedicated to fostering research and study about women’s experiences.
Our Program
A minor Bachelor of Arts (BA) or Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Women’s Studies is offered by the Women’s Studies Program. All students taking a women’s studies minor will take the four core courses which provide an introduction to the principles of women’s studies as well as more advanced study of the theoretical and methodological approaches of feminism. These courses are: WOST 2001, Introduction to Women’s Studies; WOST 3001, Feminist Theories; WOST 3021, Feminist Epistemology and Methodology and WOST 4001, Contemporary Issues in Feminism. Elective courses broaden the focused perspective of the core courses. In the interdisciplinary approach that is characteristic of a liberal arts and science education, these elective courses are offered in the following departments: anthropology, art history, Canadian studies, classics, Latin, Greek, drama, English, French, German, Spanish, geography, history, international relations, music, philosophy, political science, psychology, religious studies, and sociology.
Where to go from here?
A women’s studies minor will enhance careers in a variety of fields, in that it builds new perspectives from which all students may analyze such issues as work, health, sexuality, violence, family, race, class and ethnicity. Many Mount Allison Women’s Studies students have pursued graduate and post-graduate work in several disciplines including women’s studies, history, international development studies, medicine, labour studies, social justice, and equity studies. Others have found careers in government, teaching, social work, archives, and international non-governmental organizations.
Faculty Research
Faculty involved in the Women’s Studies Program are actively involved in research. Included among many research interests are:
• women’s peace groups in Northern Ireland, Quebec, and elsewhere in Canada
• feminist approaches to oral history
• global studies of gender and conflict, feminism, nationalism and militarization
• post-colonialist feminism and eco-feminist theories
• Canadian women’s history and Irish women’s history
• the role which young women play in leading the way in language change
• Acadian and French Women’s literary works and life writing
• gender and stereotypes among Muslims in Canada
• gender, tourism, and labour market decisions in Morocco
• American women’s literature, particularly the nineteenth century and African American women’s literature
• the experiences of women health-care professionals
• how people of different ages (usually women) collaborate with others to solve problems and feminist theories of citizenship.
Undergraduate Research
Women’s studies students have the opportunity to develop research skills as well as skills in critical thinking, reading, writing and speaking throughout their core and elective course work. As students in the program come from a wide range of disciplines, the research focus has been diverse - from utilizing sociological/ social science methodologies to historical and scientific approaches in their research on gender issues.
Women’s studies students have pursued many fascinating research topics including: reproductive technologies, gender stereotypes in children’s literature, global women’s movements, masculinity studies, feminist theories of the body, anti-racist feminism, sexuality, queer theory, feminist perspectives on contemporary conflicts/ peace issues, and women’s history in Atlantic Canada.
Recently, some women’s studies students undertook an archival history project on women’s history, focusing specifically on the Ladies College and the history of female faculty at Mount Allison University as well as local women’s organizations in the town of Sackville. This resulted in a successful student conference entitled, “ ‘We were here’ : A One Day Conference Exploring Archival Research and Women’s History at Mount Allison University,” and an edited collection of student papers is now pending.