Our Mission

The WGS Center for Social Justice is an initiative of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program to promote gender justice, equality, tolerance, and human rights through local and global engagement. As a discipline, Women's and Gender Studies critically examines how institutions and social organizations that seem natural are often structured to hide and perpetuate gender, class, and racial inequality. The Center adopts this feminist perspective, recognizing that while questions of social justice concern all human beings, women and children are harmed disproportionally when it comes to the allocation of political power and economic resources.

By participating in programs, classes, and events sponsored by the Center, students receive practical and academic tools to better understand the sources of inequality in their local and global communities and the means to address them. Creating a platform for gender and social justice advocacy and awareness, the Center provides opportunities for students to become engaged citizens. The Center’s mission reflects The University of Oklahoma’s vision of preparing students of all academic majors for working in and contributing to the local and global communities in which we live.

Focus: Local and Global Social Justice

The focus on local and global social justice is to engage students in social justice projects to promote and foster equality and tolerance. The focus is to promote equal opportunities and equal rights by fighting discrimination based on gender, class, race, ethnicity, religion, age, nationality, and sexual orientation. The focus is to facilitate understanding of the continuities between local and global justice issues, to help students understand their roles and responsibilities as local and global citizens. The focus is to assist students in the integration of local and global perspectives and foster their understanding of the interrelationship between global and local engagement.