Gender Studies for CSS

By Sir Aman CSP/PMS

WhatsApp: 03235277949

EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN/GENDER STUDIES

AS A DISCIPLINE
Introduction

Development of Women’s studies, as an area of academic study, came into being

during the emergence of Feminism’s second wave and a new dawn of political
activism as Renate D. Klein mentions in her book Theories of Women Studies The
need of women’s studies arose to create awareness among women as well as men
and spearhead the cause of women liberation and their demand for justice and
equality.

The Beginning; 1960s in the USA

The first courses were developed in the late 1960s in the USA, and although some
courses were present in adult and higher education in the UK, it wasn’t until 1980
that the first Masters Degree in women’s studies was offered at the University of
Kent, followed by other masters’ and undergraduate degrees elsewhere.

San Diego State University's 1970

San Diego State University's program was formally approved in 1970. This growth
in academic programs has been paralleled, and perhaps exceeded, by a tremendous
growth in the published literature on women’s studies.

Second Wave Feminism and Development Of Academic Discipline

The academic study of gender has a relatively short history. Its emergence can be dated as
recently as the late 1960s, and its development was triggered by second wave feminism.
Along with developing a critique of gender inequalities, in both personal relationships and
in social positioning (especially economically and politically), second wave feminism began
to draw attention to the ways in which academic disciplines and sets of knowledge acted to
exclude the experiences, interests and identities of women. For example, prior to the
1970s, the social sciences in general, and sociology in particular, largely ignored gender.

The ‘people’ it studied were mainly men and the topics it focused on were aspects of the
social world especially significant for men, such as paid work and politics as indicated in
Feminist Thoughts by Rosemarie Tong. Women were almost invisible in pre-1970s’ gender-
blind sociology, only featuring in their traditional roles as wives and mothers within
families.
 Gender Studies for CSS
By Sir Aman CSP/PMS
WhatsApp: 03235277949

Differences and inequalities between women and men at this time were not recognized as
an issue of sociological concern and were not seen as problems to be addressed. In the
context of second wave feminist critiques, however, a number of disciplines across the
social sciences, the arts and humanities began to pay increasing attention to gender. Thus,
in sociology during the 1970s, differences and inequalities between women and men came
to be regarded, especially by women sociologists, as problems to be examined and
explained. Initially, studies were focused on ‘filling in the gaps’ in knowledge about women,
gaps left by the prior male bias. Attention gradually moved to those aspects of experiences
especially significant to women, including paid work, housework, motherhood and male
violence.

The History and development of Women’s Studies

The first women’s studies course is purported to have been created by American historian
Mary Ritter Beard, who in 1934 constructed a 54-page syllabus for a course titled "A
Changing Political Economy as it Affects Women"

Women’s Studies in Colleges and Universities in USA

There were hundreds of women’s studies courses offered at colleges and universities in the
United States in the late 1960s, and by 1970 formal women’s studies programs were
launched. The first accredited women’s studies course was held in 1969 at Cornell
University in New York and at San Diego State University in California .

Every year after that saw an increase, from 276 programs in 1976 to 680 in 1999. Most of
these programs offered minors, certificates, concentrations, or majors. A Campus Trends
report for the American Council on Education in 1984 found that women studies courses
were offered at a majority of four-year colleges and universities and at 25 percent of
community colleges. Their number has increased substantially. Women’s studies at the
beginning of the twenty-first century enrolled the largest number of students than any
other interdisciplinary field.

The Department of Education estimates that 12 percent of all undergraduate students in

the United States have received credit for a women’s studies course. But the growth in
formal programs does not tell the whole story; many more students enroll in separate
courses than choose to major or minor in the field.

The first scholarly journal in interdisciplinary Women’s studies, Feminist Studies, began
publishing in 1972. The National Women Studies Association (of the United States) was
established in 1977.
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By Sir Aman CSP/PMS
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The first Ph.D. program in Women’s Studies was established at Emory University in 1990.
As of 2012, there are 16 institutions offering a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies in the United
States. Courses in Women’s Studies in the United Kingdom can be found throughout the
Universities and Colleges Admissions Service

When we speak of the ‘evolution’ of Women’s Studies, it is important to emphasize that this
is a multifaceted process. Women’s Studies have differed widely over time, and across
identities, disciplines, and institutions.

TIMELINE

 1953: Rise of the second-wave of Feminism brought on with the help of the English
translation of Simon de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex.
 1970: First official women’s studies program was at San Diego State University.
 1970s: Men’s Studies, sometimes known as masculinity studies, emerged in response to
perceived advantages brought to women by feminist political action.
 “Women’s Study truly is and always will be a field in motion.”(Bonnie Zimmerman,
president of National Women's Studies Association)
 1972: The Women’s Studies Quarterly and Feminist Studies journals are founded as
interdisciplinary forums for the exchange of emerging perspectives on women, gender,
and sexuality.
 1974: The Women’s Educational Equity Act (WEEA) is established to fund research,
professional development, and a variety of resources to schools to bring attention to
gender equity issues.
 1977: The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) is created.
 1978: Congress includes educational services in the Civil Rights Act designed to
eliminate sex bias in school and society.
 1979: The first meeting of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) discusses
the subject of whether women studies were a discipline in its own right.
 1980s: Women’s studies undergoes an intensely self-reflective period as it grapples
with the issues of how to identify the concept of “women,” which had largely been
defined as white, middle-class, heterosexual, Christian, education women of
privilege.(Betty Friedan)
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 1980: The National Institute of Education commissions a series of eight monographs on

women’s studies as well as the Women’s Studies Evaluation Handbook.
 1983: The Task Group of Men’s Studies is formed.
 1984: The National Organization for Changing Men (NOCM) institutes the “Men’s
Studies Newsletter.”
 “Women’s studies will one day fill libraries and create whole new courses in
psychology, sociology, and history.”–Betty Friedan, author of the Feminine Mystique
 1990s: Development of “queer theory” moves to include sexuality studies in
women’s/gender studies.
 1990: Rise of third-wave of feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the
second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity and uses a post-structuralist
interpretation of gender and sexuality as its central ideology.
 1991: The American Men’s Studies Association (AMSA) is founded.
 1992: The Courage to Question: Women’s Studies and Student Learning is published
after The Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) funded a
comprehensive evaluation of women’s studies programs.
 2000s: The great naming debate over Women’s Studies versus Gender Studies**.

Some of the most predominant institutions to have women's studies programs at the
undergraduate or graduate level include the University Of California system, Emory
University, and universities in Michigan, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania,
and New York.

At Present

Many women's studies courses are designed to explore the intersectionality of gender and
other topics. For example, in gender and science research, the sciences are explored and
critiqued through feminism, as when Anne Fausto-Sterling, Professor of Biology at Brown
University, explores biology through the feminist lens.

Presently, Women’s studies is engaged in a heated debate over the move to eliminate the
term women and replace it with gender. The change to gender studies suggests that the
 Gender Studies for CSS
By Sir Aman CSP/PMS
WhatsApp: 03235277949

field needs to be paying attention to the relationships between men and women rather
than focusing predominantly on women’s experiences and knowledge itself.

The main argument against the change to Gender Studies is the claim that this shift will
undo the past forty years in bringing women and women’s perspectives to the forefront in
research, knowledge, and cultural production. But there are also many arguments for the
change to Gender Studies. One is that it is a more appropriate title as it also includes gay,
lesbian, and transgendered individuals.

The naming of women’s studies as gender studies shall develop the discipline to attract
men who will feel more comfortable with the latter term. In the end, though, the change
from women’s studies to gender studies will ultimately be up to the universities and
colleges in which they are offered.

Gender Studies in UK

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the sheer number of women concentrated in the humanities
in comparison to other academic fields made it an area ripe for feminist critique, since
women’s existence in such numbers here was itself the result of the gendered logic of the
workplace.

It was at this stage, during the late 1960s in the US and from the mid- to late 1970s in the
UK, that women’s studies as a specialized area of academic interest began to develop, as
well as rapidly spreading elsewhere around the globe (the first British women’s studies
programs were all taught MAs, emerging first in Kent (1980) and then York and Warwick).

Thus women’s study as a discrete area of study was born, even though the early days were
characterized by a huge rush of energy, where ‘such courses began to be taught, quite
spontaneously and without substantial prior organization, at many US colleges and
universities beginning in 1969.

It was a similar story in the UK and it was only retrospectively that teachers in the field
communicated nationally and internationally and debated what women’s studies was and
could be (the first national women’s studies conference in the UK took place in 1976). Early
on the link to feminist politics was tangible – these scholars were often found beyond the
academy, in women’s liberation newsletters, at conferences and generally networking with
like-minded thinkers.

They saw women’s studies as not only challenging the boundaries of existing knowledge
and developing new areas of study, but also as legitimizing the differing social and cultural
experiences of women. Many women’s studies courses contained a consciousness raising
 Gender Studies for CSS
By Sir Aman CSP/PMS
WhatsApp: 03235277949

(CR) component where the experiences and identities of the students themselves
determined the dynamics of the classroom.

Firmly interdisciplinary in perspective, women’s studies initially resided mainly (if

uneasily) within the disciplines of English, history and sociology, and was dependent upon
the energies of sometimes isolated individuals working within a generally male-oriented
curriculum.

Once women’s studies programs emerged, often gathering together the work of scholars
across the disciplines into one center or as the core team of Masters’’ or undergraduate
degree, the area developed a clearer identity. Rather than seeing its major role as casting a
critical eye over the traditional disciplines, women’s studies could become more broadly a
contestation of knowledge under patriarchy and allow a revaluation of knowledge, art and
experience that had formed the basis of women’s lives.

Even though the ‘women’s studies’ identity suggests a degree of empowerment for feminist
knowledge, it is always pulled in two directions – as a critique that transforms existing
disciplines and as a specialist, even separatist, area of academic concern.

Other Parts of the World

Since American educational institutions, especially newer, less-traditional ones, were

flexible regarding change in curriculum, women's studies grew and expanded in the United
States more quickly than anywhere else in the world.

Before long there were women's studies programs in Japan, Australia, New Zealand,
Finland, Sweden, India, South Korea and Ewha University in Seoul. South Korea began its
first Women’s Studies program in 1977, Taiwan and the Philippines.

By the 1980s there were programs in all countries in Western Europe, in addition to
Thailand, South Africa, China, the Caribbean, and Uganda. Finally, after the change from
Communism in Eastern Europe, programs were instituted in Slovakia, the Czech Republic,
Russia, Ukraine, and others, in addition to Malaysia, Vietnam, and other African nations.

Two series of international conferences gave impetus to the growth of women's studies,
both within universities and in community-based organizations worldwide. The
International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women began in Haifa, Israel, in 1981 and has
met every three years since—in the Netherlands (1984), in Ireland (1987), in New York
(1990), in Costa Rica (1993), in Australia (1996), in Norway (1999), in Uganda (2002), and
in South Korea (2005). Two to three thousand delegates, mostly women, both academics
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By Sir Aman CSP/PMS
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and community organizers, attend to present their work. Each conference draws especially
on that continent's practitioners. Thus the Costa Rica conference brought together many
indigenous women from Central America as well as Latin American delegates. Languages
which were taught during the year were Spanish, English, and a variety of Indo languages.
The fact that this congress continues to meet, without governmental or formal
organizational support, is testimony to the personal importance consigned to women all
over the world providing global scholarships and academic aid.

The United Nations has sponsored four international conferences as a part of its "Decade
for Women," in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985), and Beijing
(1995). The nongovernmental organizations (NGO) forums held in conjunction with each
conference brought together thousands of activists and women's studies groups from all
over the world, consequently reminding those from the developed world of the
connections between education and broader social justice issues.

India established vigorous Women’s Studies research in the early 1970s and became one of
the most active countries in the world to investigate women’s experience and thought.
Even this phenomenal growth hardly captures the excitement that continues to motivate
the ones in favor of Women’s Studies.

In 2015 at Kabul University the first master's degree course in gender and women's studies
in Afghanistan began.

The founding of Women’s Studies was full of drama, as the positive energy of the first
students and teachers met with disapproval from male administrators, male authors, and
male leaders of established departments in the West. Some governments pushed for
Women’s Studies programs as part of the initiative for the progressive growth of their
countries, while the decades of the 1970s and 1980s saw women at the grassroots fighting
established dictators.

There was also a time when celebrated Western intellectuals in sociobiology and
anthropology were asserting women’s biological and intellectual inferiority as a scientific
fact and pointing, in contrast, to the risk-taking and intellectual originality of men.
Women’s Studies were a fad, other naysayers claimed, and one without the slightest
intellectual merit.

Research and Publication

Scholarly journals in women's studies began in the United States early on (1972 for
Feminist Studies; 1975 for Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society; but not until
1988 for the National Women's Studies Association Journal), and before long numerous
 Gender Studies for CSS
By Sir Aman CSP/PMS
WhatsApp: 03235277949

journals starting publishing around the world. In 1999 an informal International Network
of Women's Studies Journals (now the Feminist Journals Network) was formed, meeting
first in Tromso, Norway, then in Halifax, Canada, in 2001 and in Kampala, Uganda, in 2002.

Thirty editors from twenty-seven journals in twenty-one countries were represented in the
membership in the early twenty-first century. Joint publishing projects, including a book
series by Zed Press, reprinting of articles from journals in the "economic south"
(developing nations) by journals in the "economic north" (industrialized nations, mostly in
the north except Australia), a Web site, and a listserv to make members aware of current
issues are all part of their work.

Ellen Messer-Davidow surveyed the number of books and scholarly monographs available
in English between 1980 and 1998 and estimated that 10,200 feminist books were
published during that period. As she says, the print knowledge is so voluminous that
scholars cannot keep track, much less read it all. The topics are superabundant:
"Everything and anything is gendered, gendering is narrated, quantified, or modeled, and
'gender' as an analytical category is interrogated"

Conclusion

Women’s studies programs, courses or modules have also developed across Europe
Australia, Asia and the Middle East, until it has become in Mary Maynard’s words,
‘something of a global educational phenomenon’ even though the scope of the framework
of such courses will depend on cultural context and social and institutional attitudes to the
field. The second wave feminism focused much more on the way ideas and knowledge itself
excludes women’s interests, their identity and the establishment of women’s studies

As of 2012, there are 16 institutions offering a Ph.D. in Women's Studies in the United
States. Courses in Women's Studies in the United Kingdom can be found throughout the
Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

A majority of students still flock women’s studies classrooms. It is also true that many seek
the security of the established disciplines when it comes to naming their degrees,
suspecting, perhaps rightly that future employers may be more willing to take on graduates
with qualifications in disciplines that they recognize and whose value they understand as
indicated in Gender Planning and Development by Caroline Moser. This notion shall soon be
dissipated by an improvement of the application and relevance of gender studies in the
professional arena.