Kansas University recently decided to change it’s “women’s studies” major to the more inclusive “women, gender and sexuality studies”. In the article found onLJWorld.com, those involved express both happiness at the more inclusive and perhaps more relevant title, but the program director is also worried that the core of women’s history and feminist influence may be lost in a new program:
“Even though the program is changing, [program director ] Cudd said she wants to hold onto its historical ties. ‘We loathe to lose the women as well because we have this revolutionary beginning with the February Sisters,’ she said. ‘We want to keep that kind of link to our beginning as well.’” (source)
Yet the new program title is a response to the relevance of the term “women’s” studies:
“’The title that’s proposed kind of reflects the diversity of the classes and the diversity of the faculty and the work that they do,’ said Ryan Weaver, a graduate teaching assistant in the program. ‘The work being done in the department isn’t just focused on women and women’s oppression.’” (source)
See, the thing here is that the work being done by the faculty isn’t focused solely on women’s oppression anymore because FEMINISM is not only focused on women’s oppression. I have to applaud the decision (which must have been very difficult) of the university professors to ultimately change what I believe to be a very outdated title.
As a graduate student in a program called “Applied Women’s Studies”, I have severe reservations about writing the title of the program on my own CV. I just don’t agree with an exclusionary “women’s studies” program anymore. Women’s studies has evolved and changed in the same ways that feminism has – with time and with the gradual incorporation of certain liberties and reforms and revelations that have been made in the past few decades. With the genre of “women’s studies” come lesbian and gay studies, comes gender studies, comes sexuality studies, comes MASCULINE studies – and it seems all but impossible to consider one without any influence from the other. This multiplicitous identity – this myriad of standpoints and possibilities – will enable future feminists and scholars to revolutionize stagnant thought patterns that can be persistent when one is committed to *only* learning about women’s oppression, without one foot in the future, without the foresight to recognize that feminism has multiplied and evolved and reached much further than the simple argument of woman’s oppression.
Of course, the one caveat here, that I believe the program director has already addressed – is the absolute importance of learning women’s history as a core, as a base – as a supplement to the omissive history we all learned in high school. Learning about first and second wave feminism is integral and vital to the formation of a critical and thoughtful feminist. It really is my hope that these students will be able to learn the basics of feminism, and that their experience might be more enriched by the inclusion of the basics of lesbian/gay history, or trans history, of the history of sexuality, as well as philosophies, theory, and application.
