Turner-Cooke 1
Jane Turner-Cooke
0470550
CSCT 701
Dr. David Clark
April 23, 2010
Women’s Studies in Ruins: Women’s Studies in the University Then, Now, and Yet to Come
During the last year, Women’s Studies has come under attack in the Canadian news
media. As recently as January 2010, The National Post ran an article entitled “Women’s Studies
is Still with Us”. It was a scathing account blaming women’s studies for everything from the
demise of the family to unemployment. The following is just a short quotation from the article:
“The radical feminism behind these courses [in Women’s Studies] has done untold damage to
families, our court systems, labour laws, constitutional freedoms and even the ordinary relations
between men and women” (National Post Editorial Board 1). The end of the Women’s Studies
program at the University of Guelph was reported in The National Post the day before this
editorial was printed and the author of the news article, Kathryn Blaze Carlson, wrote that “the
discipline had been deemed unworthy of a future at the university” (Carlson 1). At McMaster,
the Women’s Studies program, offered in some form since the 1980s, has been cut from having
major status. The Office of the Dean has ruled that a major in Women’s Studies will no longer
be offered. The classes that remain in Women’s Studies are administered by the Office of
Interdisciplinary Studies. A new M.A. program begins this fall called “Gender Studies and
Feminist Research” which is administered by the same department. While this M.A. program
represents an effort to keep something of Women’s Studies alive at the university, it is a step
backwards in many ways. It is a complacent compromise.
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Women’s Studies as a course of study in the University has existed since 1970. It has
evolved and grown to include a few graduate level and PhD programs in Canada. As a
discipline, it seemed to peak in the late 1980s and has begun a downward spiral in that programs
are being cut in universities around this province. I intend to briefly explore the history of
Women’s Studies as a discipline, or subject of study, since courses began to first appear in the
1970s to where the discipline is—or is not—at this point. Its interdisciplinary-ness has
contributed to the subject’s popularity and demise at the same time and I will explore this aspect
of Women’s Studies as well. Many critics, feminist and otherwise, have written about Women’s
Studies and where it fits in the University of the twenty-first century. Some institutions have
changed the name of the program to “Gender Studies” hoping to distance it from its radical
feminist roots. As it stands, feminist studies and feminist theory are what anchor most Women’s
Studies programs but in order to survive, many programs have had to give in to pressure to
change the name. While this is not ideal, it keeps Women’s Studies in the University which is
where it belongs. Close ties between activism and the study of feminism is what kept Women’s
Studies alive but over the years, these ties have weakened. In this paper I will use “Women’s
Studies” (capitalized) and “women’s studies” (uncapitalized) the way each of the theorists I
engage with have used it in their work. Each term carries a different distinctive connotation
about the discipline (degree of importance and acceptance) and this shows that there is an
ambiguity crafted into the terms. Each term is treated differently depending on the situation.
Respect is built into the title through using capitals while a casual attitude is reflected in the term
that is left uncapitalized. B. Ruby Rich wrote “the act of misnaming functions not as a mere
error but as a strategy of the patriarchy” (30). Language, naming and categorizing is important
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to a patriarchal institutionalized structure like the University. Upper case and lower case letters
always mean something in particular.
Some feminist academics developed a complacent attitude once accepted into the
academy. Some critics believe this happened because of the interdisciplarity of the discipline
and the weak links between professors, instructors and students. Without a department to belong
to collegial relations can be hard to develop between students and faculty. There is no shared
space to meet up in outside of the classroom. I have always found myself, as a Women’s Studies
student, that I spend a lot of my class time outside of Women’s Studies courses defending my
feminist position or explaining feminist theory to students who have never heard of it before or
are very unaware of what the study of women and feminism involves. Without a historical
grounding, my discussion is useless in most cases. “For students today, it may be nearly
impossible to imagine the universities of the 1960s, with very few women faculty, a curriculum
that basically ignored women and gender issues, and an institutional climate that was deeply
sexist, sometimes misogynist”, wrote Margrit Eichler and Meg Luxton in 2006 in a special issue
concerned with the state of Women’s Studies in the academy from the feminist journal Atlantis
(76). Interestingly, much of the literature available on the topic of women in higher education
alludes to women being involved in every aspect of the university other than Women’s Studies.
The literature alludes to the struggles of women entering the academy and gaining acceptance in
fields such as medicine, engineering, science, education etc. Women’s Studies in the University
is in a stagnant position at this moment. As funding for small programs becomes limited,
disciplines like this one disappear from course calendars and websites.
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What is Women’s Studies and Feminism?
“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that
people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or
a prostitute...” --Rebecca West, The Clarion, 11/14/13 (Balcom 1).
Women’s Studies has been defined in McMaster first year Women’s Studies courses as
the study of ending oppression in society at all levels (Balcom 1). When Women’s Studies was
still a program in which to pursue a major at McMaster, the description on the website described
Women’s Studies in this way: “Women’s Studies is the critical examination of women’s lives,
which places women’s own experiences at its centre” and “Women’s Studies provides students
with the analytical skills and the cultural, political, and historical context to address the
contemporary world in all of its complexity” (Balcom 1). It is the study of society with women
at the centre and with emphasis on the real lived experiences of individual women and
marginalized groups. This study integrates the principles of feminism and of feminist theory into
the course so as to evaluate society through a feminist lens. For example, the first year Women’s
Studies’ 1A03 introductory course from this past fall posted to students on ELM a quotation
from aboriginal feminist Lina Sunseri which reads: “If we could all come to understand
feminism as a theory and movement that wants to fight all forms of oppression, including racism
and colonialism, then we could see it as a struggle for unity among all oppressed women and
men. It is this meaning of feminism that I accept, and therefore call myself a feminist without
reservations" (Sunseri in Balcom 1). Women’s Studies has evolved since the 1970s to include
the principles and sentiments expressed in the second quotation. Women’s Studies began as the
academic branch of the Women’s Liberation Movement which was primarily associated with
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liberating middle-class white women from the prison of suburban wifedom/motherhood after
World War II and encouraging them to go out into the work force where they had been during
the War. Feminist theory and feminism has come to mean much more than that, as is indicated
by the quotation from Sunseri. But, is this development and progression been the base of the
cause of the undervaluing of women’s studies as a discipline in the academy? Many critics
believe this is the case.
Generally, there are at least three sets of opinions regarding what has happened to
women’s studies and why. Derrida pointed out in a seminar included in a special edition of
Differences that the very thing Women’s Studies sought to do would be the very thing that would
undo it in the end. It appears he was right. He is quoted in the Caughie/Parks article when he
said: “The risk of failure of women’s studies is the risk of its very own success” (Derrida in
Caughie/Parks 33). He means that by becoming an accepted part of the academe as a department
or discipline means that the success achieved would be gleaned at the expense of the activist
foundation of women’s studies. At that time, women’s studies sought to study the underlying
ideology of patriarchy within the University and society in general. If women’s studies was to
survive along with feminism as an activism then both would have to learn to adapt to the system
already in place and the system is what feminism and women’s studies tries to change or at least
to unearth. By winning acceptance within the University, these feminists would lose exactly
what they wanted to gain and it is through their own complacency that this would occur and did
occur.
“Feminist” and “Feminism” has long been associated with Women’s Studies though all
Women’s Studies professors/instructors are not necessarily feminists and if they are, they are
different types of feminist. Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde are quoted in B. Ruby Rich’s
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discussion of feminist film criticism when she writes “you have to be constantly critiquing even
the tools you use to explore and define what it is to be female” (35). B. Ruby Rich also writes
that “by stretching the name ‘feminist’ beyond all reasonable elasticity, we contribute to its
ultimate impoverishment” (36). Feminism and feminist are both words that must “make a
comeback from the loss of meaning caused by [their] all encompassing over-use” (36). New
terms need to be established because of the “loss of meaning” caused by misuse and over-use of
the terms feminist and feminism. Feminist theory is an accepted philosophy but it is not
universally accepted at the same time. “The trouble is that while ‘common sense’ and ‘feeling’
understand nothing about philosophy, philosophy, on the other hand, understands them perfectly.
You don’t explain philosophers, but they explain you” (Barthes 38-9). Feminist theory as
philosophy must be regarded as a viable approach to a text or situation if the discipline of
Women’s Studies is to survive.
Derrida on Women’s Studies
Derrida says that Women’s Studies risks being “just another cell in the university
beehive” (142). The very system that Women’s Studies is focused on criticizing is the system it
wants to be a part of. Of course, dismantling a system from the outside in is difficult so it makes
sense to critique it from the inside outwards and Derrida wonders how this could possibly work.
He says, “It is necessary to establish departments of Women’s studies which would resemble
their brothers and sisters of literature, philosophy, anthropology etc., but after one had done that,
one would already have found the Law again” (144). By “Law”, he means the rules and
structures built into the university that form the Law for the whole institutional system. “The
more it [Women’s Studies] proves its positivity, its necessity, and brings proof to the masculine
directors of the university—masculine, whether women or not—the more that it legitimizes itself
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by this power, the more, then, it risks covering up, forgetting, or repressing the fundamental
question which we must pose” (143). Women’s studies is an ambiguous undertaking in this way
because its success would mean its own destruction. If Women’s Studies as a discipline
managed to change the patriarchal structure of the University—and of society, a lofty ideal at
best—then where would its place be? Without patriarchy there is no women’s studies because
Women’s Studies is defined by what it is not. Derrida goes on to state that “[t]he best choice
would be to have the two gestures at the same time: to have a Women’s Studies department with
a solid, autonomous structure, without giving up the idea of penetrating all the other fields, to
remain within a department would be a failure” (145). He is saying that Women’s Studies has to
have its own autonomous department from which to operate to penetrate other fields of study.
He does not mean interdisciplinarity—he means a department of faculty and staff dedicated to
offering courses in other fields that are taught from the perspective of feminist theory. This is an
idea like no other I came across. He wants us to consider a different structure for the university
as a whole—across all faculties and disciplines. The debate over Women’s Studies in the
University will continue for the near future at least. The inclusion of it in the academy was a
hasty move spurred on by “student activists demand[ing] courses on women” (Lenton 66).
Derrida writes that “[a]s is the case with women’s studies and any discipline, at a certain
moment, one can no longer improvise or hurry. You have to go slowly, look at things in detail”
(156). I believe this is what caused the collapse of many Women’s Studies programs in the
Academy.
Interdisciplinarity
One position in the Women’s Studies debate is that the interdisciplinarity of the programs
has caused its demise or alternately, more interdisciplinarity is necessary in order for the
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discipline to survive. Caughie and Parks state that Women’s Studies programs need “core
faculty cross disciplinary boundaries” (33). They see this as a positive aspect of Women’s
Studies. They state that “women’s studies has successfully challenged disciplinary models and
methods, transforming the contributing disciplines rather than simply borrowing from them,
[and] it has risked being punished by a university structured by those very disciplines” (33).
They propose that by integrating Women’s Studies into different disciplines, i.e. introducing a
feminist point of view into the discussion of Anthropology or history, Women’s Studies risks
facing punishment as an infiltrator or a trouble-maker. Women’s Studies points out oppression in
language, structure and policy across the University that is evident but not often criticized.
There is another school of thought on Women’s Studies that states that interdisciplinarity
is the solution to the problem being faced in Women’s Studies in the twenty-first century.
Caughie and Parks also believe that while the best approach is “acknowledging and working with
the tension rather than trying to resolve it” (33) that the key to the success of feminism within the
academy is to have feminist courses in every discipline by having “feminist faculty in the
departments where courses are cross listed or co-taught [rather] than on any concerted effort to
reshape the knowledge and methods of those area studies” (35). This is a complacent
compromise and Women’s Studies is therefore forced to work within a system at the University
that is set up to make interdisciplinary study difficult if not impossible. Besides, it sounds like a
stealth operation in that “feminist faculty in the departments” sounds like there would be
feminists covertly planted in every department of the University only to wreak havoc from the
inside once inclusion is achieved. This has already been the approach in some institutions and
that it has not worked up until this point. Besides, it would be a human rights violation to insist
that instructors disclose their politics to the various administrative bodies in the University prior
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to being hired. Audre Lorde would say that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s
house” (112). There is no way to institute an effective women’s studies program within a
patriarchal institution like the University but there is also no way to gain any respect or
recognition for producing scholarly feminist theory from outside of it. Eichler and Luxton says
this phenomenon is called “becoming ‘insider-outsiders’” (81).
Bobbi Spark wrote in her article “The Academic Shunning of Fat Old Women” that
“[i]nstitutionalized male power is merely tacit permission to practise prejudices and the academic
subordination of women. Feminist ideals do not fit university practices” (87). She has a bias in
that she feels herself to be an outsider in the University because of her age and her size but she
expresses concern that the University is an established male dominated institution in which
feminists and women’s studies are cast as infiltrators along with other disciplines like Cultural
Studies and Ethics Studies. Women’s Studies was formulated in the 1970s on the structures of
other new programs like American Studies and Chicano Studies in the United States where the
first Women’s Studies courses appeared in California. The courses began individually and some
were taught as non-credit courses or in continuing education departments. For example, the first
course offered in Women’s Studies at McMaster was offered through the Faculty of Social
Science and was called “Sex Roles and Social Structure” (PAR-L 1). During the mid to late
1980s, majors, minors and programs in Women’s Studies began at many universities across
Canada. They were taught by a variety of disciplines and faculties and it looked like everything
was going well for the discipline.
Derrida states that the success of the field directly undermined the purpose of it. He
stated during the 1984 seminar in his introductory remarks: “As much as women’s studies has
not put back into question the very principles of the structure of the former model of the
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university, it risks being just another cell in the university beehive” (142) as I have already
stated. To be accepted within the university is to be accepted into the very structure that
Women’s Studies seeks to uncover or disclose and change through feminist theory and work.
The more it proves its positivity, its necessity, and brings proof to the masculine/masculinized
directors of the university the more that it legitimizes itself by this power, the more, then, it risks
covering up, forgetting, or repressing the fundamental question which we must pose” (143). By
fitting into the University and finding a home in a department or creating a department of its
own, Women’s Studies gives into what it proposes to undermine in the first place: the
patriarchal structure of society and how its structure creates “us and them” mentality and the
endless cycle of oppressor and oppressed whether the oppressor is male or female, white or
black, middle class or working class. Eichler and Luxton write that “some feminist academics
have become the new Lady Patriarchs, the gatekeepers of knowledge and the creators of new
knowledge” (82). This was always the risk taken by women’s studies; the oppressed once unoppressed would behave in the same way the oppressor had because there was no other example
to follow. Women’s studies has no blue-print to follow to establish itself within the institution
that is the University except to follow the established rules so as to gain a foothold inside and
once this is done, the outsider mentality established before inclusion is cloudy. Women’s
Studies seeks now to shed its white-middle-class-heterosexual roots by uncovering interlocking
systems of oppression: race, class and gender. This is submerging rather than subverting the
notion of Women’s Studies as it was initially meant to be. It was tied inextricably to feminist
activism.
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Ties to Activist Movement and Radical Feminism
This is another aspect of Women’s Studies that critics point to as a reason for its demise
and the only hope for its future in the opinion of some critics. The link between feminist studies
and activism was what established the discipline in the first place. Female students in particular
lobbied for the inclusion of women’s studies courses in universities during and after second wave
feminism (not that there is an established timeline for feminism because that would also
contribute to succumbing to patriarchal models of discourse) and it is feminist activism that is
the foundation for Women’s Studies. Blackwell states that “Women are much better off than
their sisters of previous generations, those who first broke down the barriers and gained entrance
to the ‘ivory tower’” (60). The breaking down of barriers is what built women’s studies and it is
for this reason that the structure holding up the programs is compromised. Women’s Studies was
built on destruction and the debris was not effectively cleared and the integrity of the foundation
was secured before the building of Women’s Studies began at a breakneck pace so that Women’s
Studies was established before someone changed his mind. There is a certain “chill” referred to
when theorists discuss the situation of feminist and women’s studies on campuses. This “chilly
climate” is tolerated. “This metaphor identifies behaviours and the use of language, both in the
classroom and on the campus in general that can create detrimental learning environments for
female students” (Blackwell 62). Feminists tend to include “feelings” and “personal experience”
in discussions and the word “feminist” or “Feminism” each have a connotation that puts
women’s studies students on the defensive in whatever course they are enrolled in outside of
Women’s Studies. Often, Women’s Studies students are the only feminist voices (or voice as is
more likely the case) in a room full of other students who are not educated and informed about
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even the basics of feminist theory. I hate to say feminism is a bad word but in my experience, it
is the other “f” word in the English vocabulary.
Spark argues that “I am targeted by professors who alternately attack me for my views or
force me to be the unpaid feminist educator and defender of all feminist ideologies. I am
silenced by the classism and elitism of feminist and non-feminist, male and female professors”
(88). I do know how she feels. Feminists can be silenced by both male and female professors or
instructors who do not agree with feminist ideology as they understand it. Professors, students
and instructors alike rely on the self-identified feminist in the classroom setting to present a view
that is different and available to be challenged. While I rarely back down from a heated
discussion, I have to admit it is much easier to discuss feminist theory in a Women’s Studies
class with like-minded, committed students than it is to be the lone feminist defending a position
seen as outside and dated by classmates and colleagues alike from all genders and racial
backgrounds. Theorists like Rhonda Lenten consider a return to radical feminist politics the only
venue for the future of Women’s Studies and that “they will need to maintain ties with political
activists outside of academia” (67). She describes the relationship as a bridge between academe
and activism “that needs some attention now” (67). Feminists are in hiding inside and outside of
the University and must come out and stand up for Women’s Studies’ programs. Audre Lorde
blames white women who she says “face the pitfall of being seduced into joining the oppressor
under the pretence of sharing power” (118). Her radical feminist approach continues when she
writes: “it is easier once again for white women to believe the dangerous fantasy that if you are
good enough, pretty enough, quiet enough, teach the children to behave, hate the right people,
and marry the right men, then you will be allowed to co-exist with patriarchy in relative peace, at
least until a man needs your job or the neighbourhood rapist happens along” (119). Lorde wrote
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and published this in 1984 and she also says that “by ignoring the past, we are encouraged to
repeat its mistakes” (117). We have to read radical feminist theory to inform, not necessarily
shape, the future of Women’s Studies. By seeing where Women’s Studies came from, the future
can be mapped out more easily and hopefully with more success.
Gender Studies
Re-naming Women’s Studies programs as “gender studies” is another route that some
universities (McMaster included) have taken to allow women’s studies programs to continue.
There are two strains of thought on this. One is that the naming of Women’s Studies as anything
other than women’s studies denies its roots and causes the whole concept to be weakened and
dispersed. Others think it is a natural progression from women’s studies to something more
contemporary since the discipline explores issues of gender, race, and class in relation to culture
and society. Women have become just another part of a larger discipline so why not call it
something more accessible? The feeling is that men would be more likely to take courses listed
as Gender Studies if the term “woman” is removed from the title. At the same time, this implies
that once “woman” goes she takes “feminist” along with her and that is the main focus in
Women’s Studies (or this is what some think its focus should be). “Feminist” is a word that
needs to be neutralized in the academy. In fact, in Women’s Studies, the naming and
categorizing of nearly anything is criticized as being patriarchal and discriminatory. Women’s
Studies shot itself in the foot by uncovering the relationship between gender, race and class with
oppression and patriarchal ideology. These co-dependent relationships and their study now
overshadow the feminist theory Women’s Studies was founded on.
Eichler argues that “the implication is that while a feminist approach is biased, their own
approach [in Women’s Studies] is not. The majority of women’s studies’ professors do draw a
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distinction between women’s and feminist studies” and it is surprisingly consistent (51). The
main fear of supporters of Women’s Studies is that the name change to Gender Studies as an
alternative undermines “the primacy of women as the field’s proper object of study and thereby
negating the historical connection between the U.S. women’s movement and the academic
institutionalization of feminism” (Wiegman 19). While Women’s Studies appears to be more
academic than feminist to many contemporary feminist scholars it fits into the increasingly
corporatized University as it is in the twenty-first century so why should the name be changed?
The name change is only considered so as to distance the field from feminism and so it seems to
be progressive and inclusionary. It is merely a name and many feminist scholars also believe
that whatever the discipline is called does not matter as much as the existence of the discipline.
Some feminist theorists take this farther to suggest that to return to radical feminism is
the route to take. I have heard Women’s Studies instructors at McMaster say the very same
thing, though in hushed tones and only in an advanced feminist theory course. What does radical
feminism represent in terms of how to proceed? Radical feminists believe that patriarchy is the
problem and that until patriarchy is overturned and replaced with something else, there will
never be equality or equity in any form. They firmly believed while there is still violence against
women and rape in the world, there will never be any equality. I wholeheartedly agree—until
women can walk the streets at night without a companion or a dog, there is no equality. Radical
feminists certainly get more radical than this but the point is the same: the scales are always
balanced in favour of heterosexual white males and until that changes, everyone else will be
“other”.
While its interdisciplinarity, links to activism and radical feminism, and name changing
(to Gender Studies) have not helped to secure Women’s Studies place in the academy, the
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fundamental issue is that too much was done too soon. The University is a long-established
institution with a long history and in forty short years, somehow, Women’s Studies managed to
establish itself as a discipline in the system. That is a remarkable accomplishment but at what
cost? The risk is that the discipline has been influenced and changed by its very
interdisciplinarity and was founded on a white-middle-class platform that has been difficult to
dislodge. There is a lot of debate about Women’s Studies being exclusionary merely because of
the title. Perhaps a change to Gender Studies would allow for less stigmatization of the
discipline and more students entering it from other areas but I wonder if this would just disguise,
in the eyes of some, the feminist nature of the courses. There is a fear of the word “feminist” and
this has to be taken into account. I wonder too if the University is merely carrying out a
carefully crafted plan to remove Women’s Studies from the calendar because it can. By being an
established discipline, it can be dismissed and disregarded because it is on the inside of the
institution. But if it remained on the outside then any research carried out and theories created in
Women’s Studies/Feminist Studies would have no credibility within the University. It is a
double-edged sword. I would, if I was in charge which I am not and never will be due to my age
and radical tendencies, call the discipline what it is: Feminist Theory/Studies. I do believe it
would have to be hidden or protected by an established respected department like English/CSCT
or Philosophy within the Humanities Faculty but I think that would give the discipline the time it
needs to regroup and re-organize. The interdisciplinarity-ness of it has to be established first and
then willing faculty members have to be recruited to teach their strength.
Further, the activist portion of Women’s Studies has to be abandoned in the way it is
approached at this time. There is a certain sense of nostalgia for the time when marching, sitting
in, and carrying signs worked to inform and give credence to a cause but I fear those days have
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past and are unlikely to return. Strategies have to be worked out by committed members of the
academy and the community to lobby the governments and the senates of the universities for
changes that are necessary for progress. I also believe that as long as Women’s Studies remains
in the University in some form or other, victory is to be had. The evaluation and critique of the
Establishment of institutions of higher learning and the government has to continue and the
rights of the oppressed—whoever they are: male, female, black, white, purple, working class
etc.—have to be monitored and Women’s Studies is the discipline to carry this burden as long as
it is not suppressed by bureaucracy and administrations unwilling to share their bounty with the
less fortunate. I truly do not understand why all people are not feminists but that is something I
have to come to terms with myself. There is a fear of whatever is different or radical in our
culture and the history of radical feminism is what remains from the Women’s Liberation
Movement of the 1960s. This is unfortunate mainly because there are worse movements to fear.
I believe in equity since equality is unattainable. Women’s Studies does not want equality within
the University. Women’s Studies wants credit for establishing itself and doing what it does
better than any other department, discipline or faculty: the study of feminist theory and the real
lives of oppressed groups in the twenty-first century.
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us
temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine
change.” ---Audre Lorde, (Sister Outsider 112).
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