Women's and Gender Studies | St. Francis Xavier University

As a field, WMGS critically investigates gender as a category of analysis that intersects with race, class, sexuality, and ability, while challenging oppressive structures of power. We are a vibrant interdisciplinary program with longstanding connections to the feminist community in Antigonish, as well as to fifteen academic units at StFX. Committed faculty members develop programming for students who are intellectually and politically engaged with the Antigonish and StFX communities.

Students in WMGS are active in campus and community life: they volunteer at the Antigonish Women's Resource Centre, participate in organizing community events like Take Back The Night, hold leadership positions in student government, work as research assistants for faculty at StFX, and contribute to student societies on campus. Our students have a high success rate in applying for summer funding through summer research awards and internships.

Rachel Hurst
Coordinator, StFX Women's and Gender Studies

Program History

Watch the Women’s & Gender Studies 25th Anniversary Panel

In the autumn of 1995, the StFX Women's Caucus met to discuss what we could do to improve the climate for women on campus. Caucus members were unanimous in their agreement that StFX needed a Women's Studies Program. The Caucus formed an ad-hoc committee comprised of Ann Bigelow, Clare Fawcett, Nancy Forestell, Peggy Gallant, Wendy MacCaull, Maureen Moynagh, Heather Rowe, and Norine Verberg.

During the autumn and winter of 1995-96, this ad-hoc committee wrote a proposal for a StFX Women's Studies Program which was passed by the Faculty of Arts Committee on Studies, the Faculty of Arts and the Senate during the spring term of 1996. The Women's Studies Program was approved by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Council (MPHEC) in 1996. Nancy Forestell and Maureen Moynagh were instrumental in drafting proposals and negotiating the conditions of the newly formed Women's Studies Program with the administration.

The Women's Studies Program at X officially came into existence in September 1996 with Clare Fawcett as Co-ordinator of Women's Studies and Nancy Forestell teaching Introduction to Women's Studies (WMNS 200) to 32 students. The 1996-97 Women's Studies Advisory Faculty was made up of Ann Bigelow, Clare Fawcett, Nancy Forestell, Peggy Gallant, Wendy MacCaull, Maureen Moynagh, and Margaret MacDonald. In November 2011 the Women’s Studies program received approval from the University Senate to change the name of the program to Women’s and Gender Studies.