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 un-

oppressed 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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