Women's Studies

Women’s Studies: Are We “Broad” Enough Victoria Bromley, Ph.D., is an Assistant justice sociale et féministes, pour maintenir Professor in the Pauline Jewett Institute of les politiques transformatives qui ont toujours Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton fait partie du projet féministe. University. She teaches and researches in the areas of feminist activism, gendered vio- lence, critical identity studies, feminist theory, human security, and transnational feminist Women’s Studies programs in issues. Canada have long been engaged in a debate over the names by which they should be Aalya Ahmad, Ph.D., is a Contract Instructor known. Since the 1970s, when “Women’s in the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s Studies” emerged as an academic discipline, and Gender Studies at Carleton University. its naming has been contested (Messer- She is a well-respected activist and union Davidow 2002; Groag Bell and Schwartz organizer. She teaches and researches in the Rosenhan 1981; Salzman-Webb 1972; Sap- areas of feminist activism, popular culture, ler 1972). In the 1980s, debates arose around and international literature. the use of the term “gender” in Women’s Studies, resulting over time in changes to de- Abstract partmental and program titles. Gender Equal- The authors consider the “naming debate” in ity and Social Justice, for example, replaced Women’s Studies and the implications of the Women’s Studies at Nipissing University current tendency to broaden the scope of (2001); Simon Fraser University renamed its Women’s Studies by including terms such as Women’s Studies Department the Depart- “gender” or “feminist” in the name. To this de- ment of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s bate, they contribute an analysis of how neo- Studies (2009); and Queen’s University’s has liberal ideology attempts to contain Women’s become the Department of Gender Studies Studies within the policies and discourses of (2009). McGill University’s Centre for Re- the corporatization of universities. This paper search and Teaching on Women has been calls for renewed connections between femin- reconstituted under the Institute for Gender, ist academics and social justice and women’s Sexuality and Feminist Studies (2009). Carle- movements in order to sustain the trans- ton University too has added “gender” to the formative politics that have always been part more than a quarter-century-old Pauline of the feminist project. Jewett Institute (2008). These changes are not confined to departments and programs: Résumé the Canadian Women’s Studies Association Les auteurs prennent en considération le became Women’s and Gender Studies et «débat sur le nom» en études sur les Recherches Féministes in 2012. femmes, ainsi que les implications de la ten- The concern with renaming depart- dance actuelle d’élargir l’envergure des ments and programs arises at a time when études sur les femmes, en incluant des universities are facing tighter budget con- termes tels que « genre » et «féministe» dans straints and looking for ways to make cuts. In le nom. Ils contribuent à ce débat une ana- this context, Women’s Studies programs lyse sur les essais de l’idéologie néolibérale have undergone relentless and escalating de contenir les études sur les femmes au attacks as Canadian universities move to sein des politiques, et des discours sur les “trim the fat” in economically tougher times tentatives de transformer les universités en defined by a politics of neoliberalism and corporations. Cet article appelle au renou- corporatism. Our central concern in this paper vellement des connexions entre les univer- is to link this political and economic context to sitaires féministes et les mouvements de the naming debate, even as we support the www.msvu.ca/atlantis ■□ 36.1, 2013 33 broadening of Women’s Studies as a field.1 far from narrow and has always included a We are specifically concerned with the de- particular understanding of “gender” as a so- politicization and dehistoricization of the con- cial construction. “Gender” thus functions as cept of gender through an overly broad a modifier, not some stand-alone notion, rendition of gender as a catch-all term. As we broadening understandings and challenging see it, gender is an analytic concept that chal- the power relationships that characterize lenges and disrupts the binaries of gendered- gendered-sexed-raced-classed-aged-abled sexed-raced-classed-aged-abled bodies. De- bodies. Moreover, the politics of these trans- fining gender as a complex social construc- formations inform and are informed by tion opens up a discursive space to examine women’s and social justice movements be- both the normative and transformative prac- yond the academy. The link between aca- tices of power, bringing renewed vigour, deme and women’s movements has thus value, and inclusivity to feminist work. In this been central to many Women’s Studies pro- sense, many scholars in Women’s Studies grams (Messer-Davidow 2002, 87). More- were already “doing gender”; including over, critical questions about the “subject” of “gender” in department or program names study, how to “know,” who speaks, from formally recognizes this work. As such, we which positions of knowledge and authority, aim here to reclaim the broad scope of the and for what purpose, all create strong con- discipline by reframing the naming debate. nections between the discipline and broader Adding gender is necessary to economic and socio-political changes. amend the overwhelming (and not neces- Programs dedicated to the develop- sarily accurate) perception that Women’s ment of such critical thinking are experiencing Studies programs are overly narrow in scope an unprecedented assault from the main- and that Women’s Studies is solely about stream media, occurring via a variety of both women. But we caution here that Gender “traditional” and new media technologies. Studies, as a replacement for a “not-broad- This assault further legitimizes anti-feminist enough” Women’s Studies, may undermine academic enterprises. For instance, Susan women’s political power and women’s move- Cole (2010) observes that January 2010 was ments, subsume feminist scholarship, erase a bleak month for Women’s Studies, women’s women, obscure women’s heterogeneous movements, and feminism in Canada. In this histories, and bolster the neoliberal agenda in month, the National Post, the Toronto Star, constructing a “marketable” degree. In this and CBC Radio’s The Current all participated sense, Gender Studies becomes a less in the attack, featuring anti-feminists as ob- threatening, more “disciplined” discipline, jective evaluators of the state of Women’s which then replaces the “undisciplined” disci- Studies scholarship, without bothering to con- pline of Women’s Studies. sult any Women’s Studies scholars. In this The idea that Women’s Studies is a broader political context, “What’s in a name?” narrow field unworthy of disciplinary status becomes more clearly linked to the very has plagued the work of feminists who existence of Women’s Studies programs and struggled to establish it as the academic arm the literal, figurative, and symbolic contain- of the women’s movement in the 1970s ment of feminisms. So, then, why add gender (Robbins et al. 2008, Messer-Davidow 2002). to the mix and why now? According to Guy-Sheftall and Heath (1995), Emerging out of second-wave femin- the objectives of Women’s Studies can be ism, the establishment of Women’s Studies generally described as deconstructing patri- programs in universities was widely acknow- archy, reconstructing knowledge to include ledged as one of the major triumphs of feminist theories, and engaging in social women’s movements, linked to the broader change that empowers marginalized people struggle for women’s equality (Rupp 2006, (17). Patriarchy here must also be under- 59). Women’s movements helped feminist stood as inextricably entwined with capital- academics to uncover “patriarchal biases in ism, white supremacy, heterosexism, and im- scholarship, to create new concepts and ap- perialism. This ambitious project is obviously proaches, and to suggest alternative ways 34 www.msvu.ca/atlantis ■□ 36.1, 2013 forward for change” (Christiansen-Ruffman oppression that constitute the very premises 2008, 114). Women’s Studies, therefore, has of intersectionality (May 2012; Guy-Sheftall involved a politics of naming women, listening and Heath 1995). Women’s Studies also both to women, and hearing women’s voices. revealed and commemorated the struggles, However, this politics also included and successes, and challenges of feminism, rath- continues to include counter-hegemonic chal- er than allowing feminist achievements, such lenges by women of colour, feminists from as access to reproductive choice, to be the Global South, indigenous women, disabil- complacently accepted as already existing, ity, queer, and trans activists, and scholars “natural” realities. In so doing, a very real link and students who have strongly critiqued the was—and is—maintained between social jus- erasures of difference, the exclusions and the tice movements and feminist scholarship. complicity with imperialism, the ableism and Women’s Studies scholarship, with its fem- heteronormativity that underlie simplistic or inist focus on intersectionality, not only ex- monolithic denunciations of patriarchy. It has poses the underlying realities of systemic been well documented that such voices were discrimination, but works to transform those largely absent in university curricula, regard- realities. less of the discipline, prior to the push to es- When Women’s Studies emerged in tablish Women’s Studies programs (Robbins academia in the 1970s, feminist theory and et al. 2008; Messer-Davidow 2002; Groag praxis became firmly rooted in women’s lived Bell and Schwartz Rosenhan 1981; Salzman- experiences and material conditions. Along Webb 1972; Sapler 1972). Another goal of with the linking of the personal and the politic- this transformative politics was to establish a al, gender was adapted as a useful concept feminist community that opened up possibil- to explore the nature/nurture debate whereby ities for collectivity, collegiality, and collabora- sex came to be understood as biological and tion.

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