When Women Ask the Questions: Creating Women's Studies in America [Reprint ed.] 9780801868115

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction: Speaking of Women's Studies
Feminist Advocacy, Scholarly Inquiry, and the Experience of Women
Constituting a New Field of Knowledge
Challenging the Traditional Curriculum
Changing the Classroom
Embracing Diversity
The Quest for Theory
Knowledge for What
Critics Inside and Outsidethe Academy
The "Feminist Enlightenment" and theUniversity
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

'

•

W~·,r DR~W

WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIE~ ..

0

i youtube.comJWatch?v=H5ZhSvhpX3k

a

Imported From Fire...

•

0

Jt

lnf1niteMushroom it ju and now you are spre this is not the place. H damaging.

REPLY

Turkeydoodlers L. 1 month ago

••

@ Paste shortcut

REPLY

(1) Skype

X

D

Work

D

money

D

WPS

�New item ... �

� Move Copy Delete Rename to• to• Organize

New folder

{) Easy access •

m Yahoo Finance - Su...

liJ

,. ;If ;If

.... Downloads

;If

� Pictures

;If

·�·-

. -. '

·�

'

Open • � [) Edit Properties C{b :- History •

E!/5 Invert selection

Open

Select

New

This PC > Documents > ShareX > Screenshots > 2020-08

V

CJ

EE Select all

gg Select none

P

n

·� ··�-� ;,:-,,_ .�--

•

;If ;If

20200809124301806.jpg

20200809124302837.png

;If

e

;If ;If

• Desktop

;If

0 documents

he

c:J t. llf"I('

2 items

Meta JesusRoc s Recommended for you New

lf:::...ma r-t Attention Kmart ShOJ>J>ers

REPLY

ltM

Bonhoeffer's Daughter 1 month ago

Thank you Fardemark. My husband and I really enjoy the records you spin ..too fun! ,. 5

••

REPLY

[Compass Series] ....pdf

A

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

Kmart (S.S. Kresge) 1965, Record no. 155

Loi I love your intro :.

•

·-;. �

Record-ology 1 month ago

••

Search 2020-08

--

- View 4 replies from Fardemark and others

,. 5

ion

;If

0 ODELL 0 MUSIC 0 construction girl 0 GREENSHOT

- View 4 replies

,. 9

D>

==

�

ITu:.:l Copy path

Q PIClURES

I have this one The star ones are from 59 Hard to find them I like the mood and industrial

Facebook

ii, Cut

0 TDL

REPLY

:.

11

View

Share

Ci] [j Copy Paste

M

0 Screenshots i Documents

I can imagine this echoing ar ••

D

;t Quick access

The Gregola Record Show t m

,. 9

Home

• 1'

We didn� come here to ••

Library Genesis

Clipboard

YankeeSJ>irit t second a

,.

t

access

REPLY

••

xaenon 1 month ajlo .,_-

M mail

Bird.e 1 week

,. 2

@

YouTube

9.3K views • 2 years ago

BREAKING NEWS: Jobs Numbers Reveal STALLED ... The Hill 0 Recommended for you

... ·>-

Gender and Radic ....pdf

"

New

I

O

The End of Every ....epub

Show all

X

https://archive.org/details/whenwomenaskques0000boxe

When Women Ask the Questions

When Women Ask the Questions

..

'

When Women Ask the Questions Creating Women's Studies in America

Marilyn Jacoby Boxer Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Baltimore and London

I/(· I

c-

.I ,n1en's perspectives, to bring currency to courses and curricu la ,,..,here it is sti!J lacking, and to advance the spread of serious research and teaching about wo1neu i_n higher education and beyond. But it i.s only a beginning. Perhaps, I would like tiven culture ceases to ·be an issue," Karen Offen calls for "rethinking and reclaiming sexu,11 differenceand the category women- in a way that avoids the construction of don1inance/subordi.nation hierarchies." In an essay entitled "Po litics of Intimacy: Heterosexuality, Love, and Power," Robyn Rowland- after acknowledging her awareness of the continuing violence against women- seeks to en vis.ion "strategies for living a radicaJ feminist heterosexuality. Fentinisn1 is not just critique. We a.re also involved in 'anticipatory vision'; in constructing a new kind of society vritb feminist ethics and politics as its base. Pa.rt of that vision must include healthy, loving relationships with ineu." 55 As suggested also in chapter 6, theorizing about "difference" increasingly includes efforts to understand the social constructioll of masculinity, and the diverse "posi -

Critics Inside and Outside the Academy

219

tionalities" of men. It is also important to acknowledge the positive changes already made in m en's behavior. The charge of 1nan-hating" in women's studjes is just one of the criticis1n s that Carol Sternhell addresses in a front-page review in the Wom en '.s Review ol Books. Discussing the works of Patai and Koertge and Sommers, as well as Maher and Tetreault's study of the dynamics of the fen1inist classroom, Sternhell begins by establishing her credentials as a feminist through her years as a student, then a professor of joumalis1n, and later a director of a women's studies progra1n. She conveys weU the sense of exhilaration she found in the "intellectually rigorous" courses that propelled her int.o a career as a feminist scholar, and her dismay over the 11oppression olytnpics, the identity politics pro1nenade" she encountered at a 1neeting of the NWSA. This organization, she states, "depresses all the fen1inists 1 know. The 1nind-numbing litany of race/class/gender/sex-preference/age/ ethnicity/ability/ weight/dry-clearung-fluid allergy often seems to substitute both for serious thought and for serious political action." This is hardly mindless praise for fe1nin ist dogtna, and its prontlncncc helps to disprove Patai and Koenge's assertion that "reforms are not likely to co1n e from within."56 While facing up to these acade1nic fe1ninist Haws, Sternhell finds in the books under review a "portrait [that] is unrepresentative, partial, a series of snapshots taken on a very bad day. " One book (Sommcrs's) she found "so 1nean-spirited and dishonest it's easy to dis1niss"; the Patai and Koertge at tim es accurate but " lopsided, incomplete." Pointing out that " women's studies, like any academic field, can be mined for closed-1nindedness and infighting, but also for evidence of brilliant scholarship and great teaching, " she counters point after point in the two censorious books. While finding herself "stunned" by S01nn1ers's depiction of university life, which portrays tbe inverse of her own experience, Scernbell suffers the greatest "disco1nfort 11 with Maher and Tetreault's endorsement of "positional pedagogy." Acknowledging that the " more interactive, less hierarchical" teaching that they recom1nend is adn1irable1 she also points out that " these 1nethods, and the understanding that all knowledge is partial , are familiar to anyone concerned with progressive education." It is their apparent approval of a classroon1 ,vherc learning was seen not as individual achieve1nent bu t as va lidation of pers()nal experience, where "alJ anyone seen,s to talk ahout ... is race/class/gender, etc.," that, Stcrnhcll dcchu cs, "left n1e feeling depressed. . .. If I really thought wo111en's studies could be 11

220

When Women Ask the Questions

•

reduced to a sharing and sparring of 'positions,' l swear I'd give it all up tomorrow. Maybe today. "57 Academic feminist criticism of women's studie$ is alive and well in the .field's leading organ for substantial hook reviews. Feminist criticisn1 of women's studies is not confined to fentinist journal~, however. Catharine Stimpson, a leader in the field for over two decades, nationall y known as a literary critic, novelist, and public intellectual, and founding editor of Signs, has shared her concerns widely. Writing for nonspecialists in dissent, Stin1pson fo.llowed a sketch of more than two decades of women's studies' develop1nent with a candid portrait of her "doubts and worries" about its future. " Wo1nen's studies has 1nade mistakes," she admits, "tbat have left it open to doubt. To its unheralded credit, a.nalyz.ing them is a feature of the serious feminist literature. I am unquenchably in debt to feminism for a 1noral vision, blueprints for social change, psychological support, and vitality. However, acaden1ic work den1ands the interrogation of moral visions, b.l ueprints for change, and ideas. A syllabus cannot be an agenda .... Wo1nen's studies falters wben it gives up the necessary tension between tbc academy ,md any social and political 1novement, and baldly subordinates 'studies' to 'wornen.' 11~ 8

Stimpson identifies a number of problematic tendencies in wo1nen's studies. These include the oversimplification of complex historical and social phenomena into such categories as "patriarchy" or the "iron triangle, 'race/class/gender,"' as well as overreliance on anecdote, experience, and otLrtllrance in the classroom. Critics fault women's studies, she notes, for having " ignored and evaded the power oi nature in the construction of gender" and for " refusling) to ad1nit how necessary to society the legal, heterosexual fan1ily is." She calls for 1nore open discussion of these issues. Questioning the prevalence of identity politics that divides women, Stimp-. son regrets that "very few clai1n a place in the center." Describing herseU as a Second Waver and a centrist, she attributes more nuanced views to her current students, who she anticipates will work out n1any fen1inist con1plexities in the generational succession to a "Third Wave." Despite her concerns, Stimpson is optin1istic about the future of the younger cohort, whose li ves in a global inforn1ation society include a legacy from women's studies which gives them access to i.· vi; Rosalyn F. Baxandall, " Who Shall Care for Our Children 1 The History and Develop111ent of C hild C.u e in the Uiuted States," in Freeman, ed ., Women (1975)1 88- 102, quotation on 88. n . Freeman, ed,, Women. 3d ed. li 984), xi. 12 . Freem an, ed., Women . 5th ed. 11995), viii. 13. Hu n ter College Wom en 's Studies Collect ive, Women 's /{ealiues. Women 's Choices: A n lntroduct.ion to \.Vomen's S tudies IN ew York: Oxford Universit y Press, 1983), ix, xiii. 14. Hunter College Women 's Studies Collecti ve, \i\lomen's Heal it ies, Women's Choices. 2d ed . tNew York: Oxford Universit y Press, L995), xii- xii i, 16. 15. lbid., 4,

1 31

14. I tha nk Doro th y He Uy for t he figure on s,iles, as of winter 1996.

16. The idea of wom en's s tu dies as m o ral inquiry is discussed in ch ap. 9. I would

like to ac knowledge h ere t h e awaren ess dem ons tra ted by t he editors of the E11cycloped10 of Bioechics, revised edi tion , wh o, recognizing th e historical co ndi t ion of w om en as a b ioethical issue, in vited me to contribute an ess:1y on w o m en's h istory for th at publicatio n. See Marilyn J. Boxer, " Wom e n: H isto ri cal and Cross-Cul turn I Perspectives, 11 Encyclopedia of Bioet hies. s vols., rev. ed ., Warren T. Reich, editor-in-ch ief (New York: Simon and Schuster Macmil-

lan, 1995 1, 5:2554- 60. 17, Sheila Ru th , tssues 111 Peniinism : A First Course i.J1 Women :~ Studies !Boston:

262

Notes to Pages 32-38

•

Houghton Mifflin, r 980), xi; idem, Issues in Feminism : An lnuoduction co Women 's Scudies, 3d ed. !Mo untain View, Calif.: May6cJJ 1 1995), x.ii. rS. Cf. Barbara Hillyer Davis, "Teaching the Feminist Mi nority," in Bunch and Pollack, eds., Learni ng Ou.r Way, 89-97; this essay is also in Women's St udies Quarterly 9, no. 4 [winter 198 1 ). 19. Anita Clair Fel11nan and Barbara A. Winstead, "Old Dominio n Univ1::rsity: Maki ng Connections," in Musil, ed., CoUiage l o Question. 85-86. 20. Abby Markowitz, Towson Slate Univers ity, quoted in Caryn McTigh e Mus il, "Conclusion, " in Musil, ed., Cotirage to Question , 197 , 21 . Flore nce Howe, "Toward Women's Stud\es in the Eighties: Part r," \1\1on1en's Studies Newsleu er 81 no. 4 (fall r979): 1 . 22. Quoted in Butler et al., Liberal Learning, 3. 23 . Author's notes on program administrators' prcconference m eeting, National Wom en's Studies Association ann ual meeting, Uni ve rsity of Oklahoma, Nor· man, June11 , 1995 . 24. Nina Ayoub, comp., " Ne w Scholarly Books," Chronicle of Hi gher Education. May 261 L995, Ai J, and Feb. 7, l997; book revie w section, San Fcanc1sco £xwninec, July .24, 1994, 6. 25 . " Professor Eliza beth Fox-Genovese Interviewed by Carol Iannone," Academic Questions 5 1 no. 3 (summer 19921: 56-65 1 quotation on 56. 26. Project o n the Status and Educatio n of Women, Association of American Col-

leges, "Evaluating Courses for .Inclusion of New Scholarship o n Women," May 1988, l. 27 . For WMST-L discussio n between M.1rch r 992 and May 1995 of policies on crosslisdng of courses with women's studies, send mcssag_c "get c rosslst policie~" (without the quotation marks; note the shortened form of t he word "crossUst"I to [email protected]. Original query, Donna Phillips, 1Ylorchea," Wornen 's Studies Quarterly rR, nos. 1- 2 (spring- s ummer 1990): 24- 38. ,z. Mariam K. Chamberlain and Alison Bernstein, ''Philanthro py and the Emergence of Women's Studies,'' 1eachers College N.ecord 93, no. 3 (spring t 99 2): 55 6- 68. 53. Stimpson with Cobb, Wo m en 's Studies in the United States. 4J; "Give and Take," Chronicle of Higher Education , July 14, 1995, A:1.7 . For detailed information on exte rnal funding of women's s tudies in the 1980s, see Caryn McTighe Musil and Ruby Sales, "funding Wom en's Studies, " in Butler and Walte r, eds., Transforzning the Curriculum. 21 - 34. Musil and Sales stress the point that, ove rall, w0111en's studies is poorly fund ed; furthe.rn,ore, accord1n g co one survey, a large majority (79% ) of progrruns received no outside funds. s4. Brown et al., eds., W.J. S. H .. r-8; Bunon Bollag, "Women's Studies Prograrns Gain a Foothold in Eastern Europe," Chronicle of Higher Ed ucl1Lion, Dec. r 31 • 1996, A14; Beverly Guy-Sheftall with Susan Heath, \No m ens Studies: A Retrospective, report to the Ford Foundation (Ne w York: Ford Fo unda tion, 1995 )1 19-21. See also " Women's Studies in Euro pe," specia l issue of Wo111ea ·s Studies Qull.lterly 20, nos. 3 and 4 (fall- winter L992); " Women's Studies: A World View," Spl.:Cial issue of Ibid., 22, nos. J and 4 (fall- w inter 1994); and ''Beijing and Beyond: Toward the Twenty.first Century for Women," special issue of ibid., 24, nos. 1 and 2 (spring-s umn1er 1996). Jn tl1eir firs t issue, the cd.iLors of tht: European /ournal of Wo1nen's Studies s tate: "from Vil11ius to Dublin, from Thessalo nika to Coi1nbra, wo111en's srudies bas become part of the European academic landscape." European fournal of ,-vomen 's Sni dies 1 1 no. 1 (spnng 1994): 99. Reports o n the devcloprnc nt of women's studies in different coun·

Notes to Pages 51-54

265

tries appear frequently in the journal's "State of the Art" section, for Tu rkey, see Marianne Cnlnell and Anaeke Voeten, "Feminism in Plura l: Women's Studies in Turkey," ibid., 4, no. 2 (May 19911: 219-n. On the politics and impact of women's education in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, see Conwa y and Bonrqu;, eds., Politics of Women 's Education.

Chapter 3: Challenging the Traditional Curriculum

Florence Howe, ''Feminism and the Education of Women I r 975)," in Myths of Coeducation: Selecr:ed Essays, c964- c983 [Bloonlington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 175-205; and idem, " Myths of Coeducation 11978)," in ibid., 206- 20; Linda Kerber, '"Wh y Should Girls Be Learn'd and Wise?': Two Centuries of Higher Education of Women as Seen through the Unfirnshed Work of Alice Mary Baldwin," in Faragher and Howe, eels., Woinen and Higher Education in American History, , 8-42, quotation on 20. On the history of black women's education in the Urnted States, see Linda M. Perkins, "The Education of Black Women in the Nineteenth Century," in ibid., 64- 86; and Jeanne Noble, "The Higher Education of Black Women in the T\ventieth Century," in ibid., 87- 106. See also Ba.rbara Miller Solon1on, !11 th e Company of Educated W o1nen: A History of W om en and High er Education in America (New Haven : Yale Urnversity Press, 198s l2 . Annette Kolo