Women's studies

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Women's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. It often includes feminist theory, women's history (e.g. a history of women's suffrage) and social history, women's fiction, women's health, feminist art, feminist psychoanalysis and the feminist and gender studies-influenced practice of most of the humanities and social sciences.

Contents

[edit] History

Women's studies was first conceived as an academic rubric apart from other departments in the late 1970s, as the second wave of feminism gained political influence in the academy through student and faculty activism. As an academic discipline, it was modeled on the American studies and ethnic studies (such as Afro-American studies) and Chicano Studies programs that had arisen shortly before it. The first Women's Studies Program in the United States was established on May 21, 1970 at San Diego State College (now San Diego State University) after a year of intense organizing of women's consciousness raising groups, rallies, petition circulating, and operating unofficial or experimental classes and presentations before seven committees and assemblies.[1] Carol Rowell Council was the student co-founder along with Dr. Joyce Nower, a literature instructor. A second program followed within weeks at Richmond College of the City University of New York (now the College of Staten Island). In the 1970s many universities and colleges created departments and programs in women's studies, and professorships became available in the field which did not require the sponsorship of other departments.

By the late twentieth century, women's studies courses were available at many universities and colleges around the world. A 2007 survey conducted by the National Women's Studies Association[2] included 576 institutions offering women's or gender studies at some level. Currently there are 678 listed in their online searchable database,[3] with 15 institutions offering a Ph.D. in the United States.[4] Courses in the United Kingdom can be found through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.[5]

[edit] Curriculum and methodology

Many universities that offer degrees in Women’s Studies also offer related classes in topics such as gender studies, women and religion, female sexuality, sex crimes, and gay/lesbian studies.

Daphne Patai, a professor of Brazilian literature at University of Massachusetts Amherst, has criticized women's studies programs:

Many women's-studies programs have allowed the political mission of training feminist cadres to override educational concerns. The strategies of faculty members in these programs have included policing insensitive language, championing research methods deemed congenial to women (such as qualitative over quantitative methods), and conducting classes as if they were therapy sessions.[6]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ SDSU Women's Studies Department
  2. ^ National Women's Studies Association
  3. ^ NWSA searchable database of institutions offering Women's/Gender studies courses and degrees
  4. ^ Artemis Guide to Women's Studies in the U.S.
  5. ^ Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, United Kingdom
  6. ^ Patai, Daphne (1998-01-23). "Why Not A Feminist Overhaul of Higher Education?" (in English) (html). 'Why Not A Feminist Overhaul of Higher Education?'. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/fem_overhaul.html. Retrieved 2007-05-04. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Berkin, Carol R., Judith L. Pinch, and Carole S. Appel, Exploring Women's Studies: Looking Forward, Looking Back, 2005, ISBN 0-13-185088-1 . OCLC 57391427. 
  • Boxer, Marilyn J. (1998). When Women ask the Questions: Creating Women's Studies in America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801858348. OCLC 37981599. 
  • Carter, Sarah, and Maureen Ritchie (1990). Women's Studies: A Guide to Information Sources. London, England and Jefferson, NC: Mansell and McFarland. ISBN 0720120586. OCLC 20392079. 
  • Committee on Women's Studies in Asia (1995). Changing Lives: Life Stories of Asian Pioneers in Women's Studies. New York, NY: Feminist Press at the City University of New York. ISBN 1558611088. OCLC 31867161. 
  • Davis, Kathy, Mary Evans and Judith Lorber (editors) (2006). Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies. London, England; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0761943900. OCLC 69392297. 
  • Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan, An Introduction to Women's Studies: Gender in a Transnational World, ISBN 0-07-109380-X . OCLC 47161269. 
  • Griffin, Gabriele (2005). Doing Women's Studies: Employment Opportunities, Personal Impacts and Social Consequences. London, England: Zed Books in association with the University of Hull and the European Union. ISBN 1842775014. OCLC 56641855. 
  • Ginsberg, Alice E. The Evolution of American Women's Studies: Reflections on Triumphs, Controversies and Change (Palgrave Macmillan: 2009). Online interview with Ginsberg
  • Griffin, Gabriele and Rosi Braidotti (eds.), Thinking Differently : A Reader in European Women's Studies, London etc. : Zed Books, 2002 ISBN 1842770020 . OCLC 49375751. 
  • Howe, Florence (ed.), The Politics of Women's Studies: Testimony from Thirty Founding Mothers, Paperback edition, New York: Feminist Press 2001, ISBN 1-55861-241-6 . OCLC 44313456. 
  • Hunter College Women's Studies Collective (2005). Women's Realities, Women's Choices: An Introduction to Women's Studies (3rd edition ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019515035X. OCLC 55870949. 
  • Jacobs, Sue-Ellen (1974). Women in Perspective: A Guide for Cross-Cultural Studies. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252002997. OCLC 1050797. 
  • Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky and Agatha Beins (2005). Women's Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813536189. OCLC 56951279. 
  • Krikos, Linda A. and Cindy Ingold (2004). Women's Studies: A Recommended Bibliography (3rd edition ed.). Westport, CN: Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 1563085666. OCLC 54079621. 
  • Larson, Andrea and R. Edward Freeman (1997). Women's Studies and Business Ethics: Toward a New Conversation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195107586. OCLC 35762696. 
  • Loeb, Catherine, Susan E. Searing, and Esther F. Lanigan (1987). Women's Studies: A Recommended Core Bibliography, 1980-1985. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 0872874729. OCLC 14716751. 
  • Luebke, Barbara F. and Mary Ellen Reilly (1995). Women's Studies Graduates: The First Generation. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University. ISBN 0807762741. OCLC 31076831. 
  • MacNabb, Elizabeth L. (2001). Transforming the Disciplines: A Women's Studies Primer. New York, NY: Haworth Press. ISBN 156023959X. OCLC 44118091. 
  • Messer-Davidow, Ellen, Disciplining Feminism : From Social Activism to Academic Discourse, Durham, NC etc. : Duke University Press, 2002 ISBN 0822328291 . OCLC 47705543. 
  • Patai, Daphne and Noretta Koertge (2003). Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies (New and Expanded edition ed.). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN 0739104543. OCLC 50228164. 
  • Rao, Aruna (1991). Women's Studies International: Nairobi and Beyond. New York, NY: Feminist Press at the City University of New York. ISBN 1558610316. OCLC 22490140. 
  • Rogers, Mary F. and C. D. Garrett (2002). Who's Afraid of Women's Studies?: Feminisms in Everyday Life. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. ISBN 0759101736. OCLC 50530054. 
  • Rosenberg, Roberta (2001). Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Anthology. New York, NY: Peter Lang. ISBN 082044443X. OCLC 45115816. 
  • Ruth, Sheila, Issues In Feminism: An Introduction to Women's Studies, 2000, ISBN 0-7674-1644-9 . OCLC 43978372. 
  • Simien, Evelyn M. (2007). "Black Feminist Theory: Charting a Course for Black Women's Studies in Political Science". in Kristin Waters and Carol B. Conaway. Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking their Minds. Burlington, VT and Hanover, NH: University of Vermont Press and the University Press of New England. ISBN 9781584656333. OCLC 76140356. 
  • Tierney, Helen (1989-1991). Women's Studies Encyclopedia. New York, NY: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313246467. OCLC 18779445. 
  • Wiegman, Robyn (editor), Women's Studies on Its Own: A Next Wave Reader in Institutional Change, Duke University Press, 2002. ISBN 0822329506 . OCLC 49421587. 

[edit] External links

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