On behalf of the Gender, Feminist and Women's Studies Student Association (GFWSSA), we welcome you, Masters and PhD students, to YorkU and to the graduate program. If you are a graduate student in the Gender, Feminist & Women’s Studies program at York, you are automatically a member of the GFWSSA. Woo!
The GFWSSA is a social, advocacy, support, and lobbying student group. Broadly speaking, we think about the politics of higher education (as GFWS graduate students, as teaching assistants, as researchers, as contract faculty, as York University members, as feminists, as queers and gender queers, as trans folk, as women, as men, as racialized individuals, as low-income workers, as anti-oppressive and anti-establishment thinkers, and as colleagues and friends!). Specifically, we serve three main functions:
We help each other through the trials and tribulations of graduate school.
We sit on program and university committees to add our voice to issues like curriculum change. The committees range from admissions to political action to formal university-wide committees (you’ll find more information about said committees on this website).
We have social mixers.
As the newest members of our association, you have the opportunity to influence the direction of the program. Participating on a committee and being active in the GFWSSA ensures that students share in the responsibility for their future; it is vitally important that graduate students have a voice at York University. In addition, active involvement creates a sense of community among its members that allows for solidarity and collaboration.
Depending on the climate of the program and the current student body, the GFWSSA fluctuates in presence. What was once a more formal body with a constitution and nominated/elected leadership, has shrunk in prominence. However, in recent years, the GFWSSA has experienced an upswing in energy. We are looking forward to your help to sustain such momentum. Since York is primarily a commuter campus, building community can be difficult. In spite of this reality, and in the face of an increasingly neoliberal, competitive, and isolating academy, our main priority is to foster a vibrant support network that benefits us all.
As you read this, we are navigating the new realities of a COVID19 world, and trying to find ways to continue our roles while embracing the limitations brought on by the pandemic.