The Sconi

An analysis of syllabi from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Gender and Women's Studies department found that the materials being taught challenge the basic biological understanding that men are men and women are women, and the analysis further found that several courses from the Gender & Women's Studies (GWS) department are required for degrees in the university's College of Letters & Science. UW-Madison is a public university that is funded by millions in state and federal tax dollars and annual costs for students range from about $28,000 to almost $60,000 per year. 

According to information provided by the university's Office of Student Financial Aid, the estimated cost of attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the 2023-24 academic year for Wisconsin residents amounts to $28,916 with Non-Residents estimated to pay $58,912 after tuition, fees, course materials, housing and meals, transportation, and loans.

In a 2021-2022 Budget Report, the university reports that state funds account for 15% of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s $3.6 billion revenue, which equates to $537 million. For the 2022-2023 school year, full professors received a salary of $173,500, associate professors received $127,100, and assistant professors received $105,800, according to a Faculty Salary comparison sheet.

The Gender and Women's Studies department employs seven full professors, four associate professors, and 11 assistant professors for a total of $2.8 million dollars annually budgeted for GWS department salaries.

University requirements point out that students navigating through the College of Letters & Science are required to take GEN&WS 101, 102, or 103.

According to the University's website, degrees in "the natural, physical and biological sciences" fall under the umbrella of the College of Letters & Science.

According to his class syllabus, Dr. James McMaster’s Gender and Women’s Study course lists understanding “how categories such as sex, gender, sexuality and race are not naturally given but socially constructed, which does not make them any less ‘real.’” 

“The primary learning goal” of Dr. LiLi Johnson’s "GWS 101: Gender, Women, & Cultural Representation" course, “is to introduce students to the field of Gender & Women’s Studies from a humanities perspective and to develop students’ critical thinking and analytical skills regarding gender and other social categories of identity and oppression,” according to the class syllabus. To achieve this goal, the course requires Allan Johnson’s, “Patriarchy, the System: an It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us”, Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” as required reading materials.

Prof. Pernille Ipsen’s "GWS 101: Gender, Women, & Cultural Representation's" course syllabus states that “social categories like gender, race, class & sexuality are socially constructed and are therefore understood and employed differently in specific cultural and historical contexts.”

For her courses, Dr. Jill Casid encourages students to ‘queer’ their assumptions regarding the "gender binary." According to Dr. Casid, “Queering is an activity of radical questioning, a critical and creative practice of turning taken-for-granted tropes that makes strange the assumed naturalness of binary systems. To queer is to affect the ethical and political activation of speculative theorizing and aesthetics. The work of queering also involves a self-critical approach to one’s own discursive and visual production.”

Dr. Jess Waggoner’s syllabus for "GEN&WS 340: Queer Locations: Space, Place and Desire" encourages students to “interrogate themes such as sex work, migration, homonationalism, metronormativity, trans lives and histories, how the gender binary' developed as a tool of colonial oppression, what a disabled sexual culture might look like, and rural and suburban responses to the metropole. In turn, we will also have opportunities to explore gender and sexuality in Madison.”

In addition to the GWS requirement for degrees in the College of Letters & Science, according to UW-Madison’s Undergraduate Guide, all students must take at least 3 credits of “Ethnic Studies” which “is intended to increase understanding of the culture and contributions of persistently marginalized racial or ethnic groups in the United States.” Gender and Women’s Studies courses would fulfill this requirement. The University asserts that “[b]ecause this increased understanding is expected to have a positive effect on campus climate, students are expected to complete this requirement within the first 60 credits of undergraduate study.”