Women's studies
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppression; and the relationships between power and gender as they intersect with other identities and social locations such as race, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, and disability.
[6]: 15 Other scholars joined Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), a network for feminist academics and activists focused on the Global South, created in 1984.
[6]: 15 [7] African scholars among DAWN's founding members were Fatema Mernissi (Morocco), Pala Okeyo (Kenya), and Marie-Angélique Savané (Senegal).
Starting in 1979, the Grupo Autónomo de Mujeres Universitarias (GAMU, Autonomous Group of University Women), which included both Mexican faculty and students began meeting periodically to discuss how feminism could be introduced to various campuses across the country.
[32]: 289 From the early 1980s, women like Juanita Barreto Gama, Guiomar Dueñas Vargas, Florence Thomas, Magdalena León Gómez, María Martínez, Donny Meertens, Yolanda Puyana Villamizar [wikidata], María Himelda Ramírez and Ana Rico de Alonso worked to create an interdisciplinary field of feminist study in Colombia.
[38] Among the contributors for the inaugural issue were Ana Arruda Callado [pt], Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda, Maria Carneiro da Cunha, Mary Garcia Castro [pt], Rosiska Darcy de Oliveira, Valéria Lamego, Miriam Moreira Leite, Leila Linhares, Heleieth Saffioti, Bila Sorj, and others.
[39] The political aims of the feminist movement that compelled the formation of women's studies found itself at odds with the institutionalized academic feminism of the 1990s.
In 1956, Australian feminist Madge Dawson took up a lectureship in the Department of Adult Education at Sydney University and began researching and teaching on the status of women.
[53] They compiled the guide from surveys of UK universities and adding to research previously published by Sue Beardon and Erika Stevenson for the National Union of Students in 1974.
In 1980, the University of Kent launched the first named MA degree in Women's Studies, with Mary Evans leading the development of the course.
[57] Since the 1970s, scholars of women's studies have taken post-modern approaches to understand gender and its intersections with race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, age, and (dis)ability to produce and maintain power structures within society.
[3] Feminist theory refers to the body of writing that works to address gender discrimination and disparities, while acknowledging, describing, and analyzing the experiences and conditions of women's lives.
[62] Associated with the third wave of feminism, Kimberlé Crenshaw's theory of intersectionality has become the key theoretical framework through which various feminist scholars discuss the relationship of between one's social and political identities such as gender, race, age, and sexual orientation, and received societal discrimination.
[67] Standpoint theory, assumes that power lies solely within the hands of the male gender as the process of decision making in society is constructed exclusively for, and by men.
Transnational feminism is concerned with the flow of social, political, and economic equality of women and men across borders; directly in response to globalization, neoliberalism, and imperialism.
[69] Transnational feminist theory is continually challenging the traditional divides of society, in which are crucial to ongoing politics and cultural beliefs.
[76] Feminists use agency in attempt to create new forms of autonomy and dependence from the reshaping of gender relations that is taking place in global society.
[77] Materialism possesses significant ties to the Marxist theories of history, agency, and ideology; though, may be distinguished through the incorporation of language and culture to its philosophy.
[77] Materialist feminism specifically focuses on social arrangements that accentuate the role of women notably the aspects of family, domesticity, and motherhood.
[77] Materialism analyzes gendering discourses in which promote women's marginalization; Thus, one of the most influential aspects of materialist feminism is its attentiveness with questions of ideology and how they relate to history and agency.
[77] In most institutions, women's studies courses employ feminist pedagogy in a triad model of equal parts research, theory, and praxis.
[79] Women's studies programs and courses are designed to explore the intersectionality of gender, race, sexuality, class and other topics that are involved in identity politics and societal norms through a feminist lens.
[80] Women's studies programs are involved in social justice work and often design curricula that are embedded with theory and activism outside of the classroom setting.
Women's studies curricula often encourage students to participate in service-learning activities in addition to discussion and reflection upon course materials.
However, Daphne Patai, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has criticized this aspect of women's studies programs, arguing that they place politics over education, stating "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.
"[81] Since women's studies students analyze identity markers including gender, race, class, and sexuality, this often results in dissecting institutionalized structures of power.
As a result of these pedagogies, women's studies students leave university with a tool set to make social change and do something about power inequalities in society.
[82] Notable women's studies scholars include Charlotte Bunch, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Barbara Ransby.
