Note: I’ve been a bit stunned by the criticism (see the comments towards the bottom here) that this blog has too much of my own personal opinion. Um, folks, it’s a blog. With my name on it. And I pay to put it up, you read it for free. What on earth else could be more personal?
Okay, on we go.
I confess, I did spend some time last week reading through the various Men’s Rights forums that were reacting to my appearance on the Glenn Sacks show. Obviously, there was much written that was hurtful, much that was venomous, and a little that was genuinely interesting. Dear Ampersand of Alas, a Blog, ventured into the Stand Your Ground forum, and more than held his own. What I wanted to focus on today was this page of the thread from that forum, on the validity of degrees in women’s studies. A couple of samples:
He is an archtypical Women’s Studies professor,
which is to say, a person endowed with an academic title that for most
part seems completely undeserved. I work at a major research university
so I have contact with all kinds of professionals, and I’m here to tell
you that among faculty who are honest about the subject, women’s
studies departments and the people who work in them are not considered
legitimate from an academic perspective. Women’s studies wonks may do a
lot of things, but legitimate scholarship ain’t one of them.
Someone else added on:
I don’t want to get started on that - and it’s probably a topic for a
different thread - but the amount of work that you have to do for a
doctoral degree in molecular biology, or physics, or any of a number of
other "real" degrees absolutely dwarfs "writing about your feelings"
and the like in some areas.
I guess if you get a doctoral degree in electrical engineering, you
earn a salary at a company and really produce something computer-wise
for society.
But if you get a "doctoral degree" in interdisciplinary studies
with a major in sex and gay relations, you go on Oprah, write a book
that nitwits read, and earn far more.
The quoted remarks are typical of the tired old canards that have benn thrown for decades at those who work in Gender Studies. I’m not interested in refuting all of the groundless charges in these comments — it would take too long. First quick point: at most colleges and universities in the USA, professors who teach gender studies also teach in other disciplines, like history, psychology, sociology,and literature. (Here’s a list of many of the programs.) Relatively few universities have "free-standing" departments of Women’s Studies staffed by faculty who do not teach outside that department. Second quick point: dissertations in gender studies are never about how one "feels". If you want to find out what most dissertations in the field are written about, I suggest you go here and type in women’s studies or gender studies. Not a lot of fluff will come up — but a lot of world-class scholarship will!
Of course, I don’t have a doctoral degree in gender studies. Indeed, my Ph.D. is in English Medieval History, with an emphasis on ecclesiastical and political affairs. Here’s the link to the abstract of my doctoral dissertation at UCLA: Arms and the Bishop: the Anglo-Scottish War and the Northeastern Episcopate, 1296-1357. Hint, folks: it’s not a page turner. But if you like lengthy footnotes in Latin and Norman French, you’re in luck. (I’m not sure I can read Norman French anymore, but in the early to mid-90s, I sure had to learn how. Anyhow, the first 24 pages are online — read away!)
As early as my sophomore year of college, I had become interested in doing a degree in Women’s Studies. I had come into Berkeley as a history major, but once I took my first class on gender, I was hooked. I’ll confess, however, that I allowed myself to be talked out of having women’s studies be anything more than a pastime. Family and friends, knowing of my desire to teach, told me that a degree in Women’s Studies wouldn’t be taken seriously, using some of the same criticisms that the Stand Your Ground fellows used. I argued with them, knowing from my own experience that courses in gender studies were often more demanding in terms of work load than those in more conservative and conventional fields. (This is true in my own classes: ask any of my students who take my Women’s History course,and they’ll tell you it’s much more work than my Western Civ surveys.)
Like most college students, I did want to be taken seriously as a scholar. And though I knew damned well that gender studies was just as demanding as the courses I was taking in church history, I decided to make medieval religious history my primary area of undergraduate interest. (In honor of my father’s heritage, I also picked up a minor in German literature. Nothing like stumbling through Schiller in the original, right?)
When I started grad school at UCLA in 1989, I was still fascinated with contemporary gender studies. To the bewilderment of my advisers, I took some women’s studies courses along with my classes in paleography, medieval Latin, and the like. I initially hoped to have women’s studies be one of my minor fields for my doctorate; at UCLA, one needed expertise in three "minor fields" outside of one dissertation area. My adviser, however, recommended against any formal association with women’s studies at all; "It doesn’t relate to your real work", he said. I listened to him, I’m sorry to say, and thus completed my three minor fields in:
1. Early Modern European Economic History. (Ask me about proto-industrialization in 17th century Flanders!)
2. The early medieval German church (I’ve forgotten all those bloody Ottos, but I can still get through the investiture conflict in my sleep.)
3. Medieval English philosophy, particularly Ockham and Duns Scotus. (My adviser in this area was one of the first women ordained to the Anglican priesthood,the marvelous Marilyn Adams,now at Yale. Often, say after a surprisingly interesting discussion of the views of Duns Scotus on the conception of Mary, we turned to contemporary gender issues and the church. She always had great cookies in her office).
Bottom line: the "public face" of my grad work had damn all to do with contemporary gender issues. And yet, even as I was researching that exhausting dissertation, I was doing most of my outside reading in women’s studies. The gap between my real interests and my actual work was tremendous, and it was largely a consequence of my own lack of courage. I didn’t stand up to those who dismissed my interest in women’s studies until it was far too late to change the course of my graduate career. (On a side note, I wonder how much my own sex had to do with the lack of encouragement that I received. If I had been a woman, I might have had more support in doing gender work. Or perhaps not. Many of my female colleagues who teach Women’s Studies have reported hearing remarks similar to the ones I heard in my student days).
As a result, today I make a special effort to encourage some of my best and brightest students of both sexes to consider pursuing a Women’s or Gender Studies major. My workload makes it clear to them that it’s not a discipline for the lazy or the self-indulgent! Sometimes, I tell them of my own years as a reluctant medievalist, secretly more interested in reading Ana Castillo than Hildegard of Bingen, more interested in Anzaldua than Anselm. I’d like to think that times have changed. But there remains little question that for far too many people outside the academic world (and for a few old reprobates within it), Gender Studies work is still dismissed with contempt.
Hugo,
I think alot of the comments where from men feeling that you had somehow sold us out. A traitor to the cause.
No graduate level course is easy. Otherwise, everyone would have that degree. I think the question should be is it useful? I, honestly, do not know. A person with a degree in Women’s Studies can teach Women’s Studies. Or am I missing something?
[quote]Family and friends, knowing of my desire to teach, told me that a degree in Women’s Studies wouldn’t be taken seriously, using some of the same criticisms that the Stand Your Ground fellows used. I argued with them, knowing from my own experience that courses in gender studies were often more demanding in terms of work load than those in more conservative and conventional fields. (This is true in my own classes: ask any of my students who take my Women’s History course,and they’ll tell you it’s much more work than my Western Civ surveys.)[/quote]
Well, as someone who faced some opposition to changing to a history major from engineering, I can relate to your sentiments (indeed the onslaught of liberal arts vs science jokes never ended or ends, aka “want fries with that”). In the end, I don’t think all of the contrary advice (to my own desire) I got was necessarily wrong but then I decided towards the end that I had no real desire to go into academia/teaching.
My one wiggle would be in your comparison at the end there. I don’t know the structure of the courses where you teach but when getting my degree, a specialized course such as women’s history or english history (all 10 of us in a cramped room) or islamic civ is going to be harder than a general survey course such as western civ. As a student I wasn’t too happy when a 100 level course required term papers.
Is a course titled “Women in American Society” necessarily a course in gender studies?
When I think of “Women’s studies”, I think of some people sitting in a room discussing feminist issues.
When I think of a women in history class, I think of studying the contributions that women made to their society.
I think the belief that women’s or feminist studies is a bunch of women sitting around talking about feelings stems from the belief that is all women are good at. The belief that all women have to talk about is recipes and gossip is an old one. The gossip paradigm has just moved to academia is all.
Darcy, the course I teach is History 25B “Women in American Society.” We don’t have an actual Women’s Studies department at PCC; what we have are various courses in various disciplines. We call our course “Women in American Society” so that we can deal with both historical and contemporary issues.
I don’t like “great woman” history. You won’t get much about Abigail Adams or Harriet Tubman from me. We spend much more time talking about how ordinary women lived — about marriage practices, medical practices, and the origins of the women’s movement in abolition and temperance movements. And, of course, we spend a lot of time on the history of the body.
I understand the problem of liberal arts majors being looked down upon by science arts majors. I have a bachelor of science degree. The hardest classes for me were the liberal arts classes I had to take. I think everyone’s brain is “wired” differently, so there is nothing wrong with a B.A.degree versus a B.S. degree.
I do think the perception is out there that women’s history classes are a waste.
The quote from above:
We spend much more time talking about how ordinary women lived — about marriage practices, medical practices, and the origins of the women’s movement in abolition and temperance movements. And, of course, we spend a lot of time on the history of the body. helps me understand why it is a good thing.
Unfortunately, most of us only have a finite amount of time to complete the required course work need for our degree. There are many worthwhile courses that are offered but cannot be taken due to time constraints.
When I was in college, the “XYZ Studies” majors were also mostly cross-disciplinary. When I was a senior, I realized I was actually pretty close to having a minor in Black Studies because I’d taken a history course on precolonial Africa, a lit course on the Harlem Renaissance, and a music course on Caribbean folk and ritual music. I didn’t get the minor because having a double major filled up my schedule, but basically the courses were like any other courses, they just happened to relate to black people. I never took Women’s Studies courses but I gather it was pretty much the same.
I’m too infuriated too respond constructively to the sciences=hard, liberal arts=soft stuff conversation, suffice it to say I agree with you. :-)
But on a related note, I think someone (maybe one of the men’s rights people? can’t remember…) asked you to post a reading list. I’d like to second that suggestion. I’m getting into a lot of really cool feminist theology, and that’s what I’m looking forward to studying if I can get into HDS, but I feel woefully illiterate in women’s studies on the secular side. So I’d like to add my voice requesting that you post an introductory reading list one of these days.
“And, of course, we spend a lot of time on the history of the body.”
I’m having trouble seeing how that statement relates to “Women in American Society”. Sounds like bio.
AJ, I mean that we focus on "body history", which encompasses everything from the history of the fashion industry to changing patterns of menarche and menopause to the birth control movement to contemporary debates over cosmetic surgery. We use this book as a source text.
Chris, I’ll see what I can come up with!
History of the body’s all about how the body was viewed–how a woman’s body influenced her place in the world, for instance. (Great Victorian stuff on how educated women’s ovaries would decay from neglect)
Yes, Maureen! I use some of Brumberg’s “Fasting Girls” which touches on exactly that…
The other thing I’ve noticed about a lot of people who put down gender studies is that they find it personally distasteful to discuss how gender has a profound impact on society, history, ourselves. But that is just too bad, of course, because if scholars always refrained from study for fear of causing others to have to ask uncomfortable questions of themselves, we would still live in the Dark Ages.
To the extent that Women’s Studies graduate degrees aren’t taken seriously, I think this has a lot more to do with the structure and culture of disciplines than the subject matter. I suspect it would be a poor strategic choice for a graduate degree because more traditional disciplines are typically very nervous about hiring people who don’t come from that field, while interdisciplinary departments are happy to hire people from standard departments. I strongly considered applying to two interdisciplinary social theory programs (Committee on Social Thought at U. of Chicago and the History of Consciousness at UC-Santa Cruz) because they have amazing, famous faculty and great courses. I was (correctly, I think) advised against this because these programs aren’t good at placing people–there are no undergraduate Hiscon and Social Thought programs for the PhDs to teach in. And in the few openings for interdisciplinary teaching, they don’t have much of an advantage over the hordes of unemployed political scientists, historians, anthropologists, literary theorists, philosophers, sociologists and so on. I think something similar might happen w/Women’s Studies graduate degrees. When my dept tried to Hire a Women and Politics person, all the finalists were from Poli Sci departments. I wasn’t on the search committee, but I think there is a general tendency to go that route because they want to hire “one of us.” Disciplines are conservative (small c) and proprietary; interdisciplinary programs threaten both of those tendencies.
That’s a good point, DJW. I would certainly have had a tougher time finding teaching work a decade ago as a man with a doctorate in women’s studies.
Some of the topics that Hugo touches on (eg, history of body image) would also fit medical anthropology or history of medicine/history of biology. Others (changing age at menarche, reproductive patterns and other demographics, changing family structure) could fit well with economic history. Neither history of medicine nor economic history were considered respectable fields of history until about 1950. Politics and great men were the ticket to tenure in the first half of the 20th century.
I think you are spending FAR too much time justifying yourself to a group of morons who probably have done nothing of significance themselves with their own lives, either educationally or personally…
Pay no attention to them.
Anyway, if people have something of sigificance to say, it doesn’t matter whether or NOT they have a degree or what it’s in…many of the signficant figures of history, have NOT had degrees anyway from Jesus Christ to Lech Walesea, a carpenter and an electrician, respectively…
Don’t bother responding to these attacks…
Gender studies is a relatively new discipline.
I’m sure Hugo is confident with a lot of his ideas, but there is room for much debate. Much refinement is needed before “Gender Studies” or even Sociology for that matter is considered a hard science with established theories/models/etc (predictive ones that is).
I see a lot of self fulfilling prophesy in Gender Studies, and a lot of distortion. Particularly about the extent to which “white heterosexual males” are “privileged.”
I’m not denying privilege. However, I would also argue that women have not been entirely oppressed through the history of the Western world. Indeed, many women going back for sometime exerted massive influence on the course of history.
So I guess you could say right now what Gender Studies really needs is a “scale of reference.” One that can more narrowly define what constitues privilege, who really benefits from it in a measurable away, etc. Also a better definition of what oppression means and how it has changed over time.
A lot of people buy into feminism without putting forth the effort to learn about feminism in a contextual way and they have this distorted view of both genders that they project far into the past. Our perception of ourselves and of others has changed a great deal over time. I wonder, at varying times in the past, what role sex has played in that. How can we come up with a model that consistently explains these perceptions with reference to economic and political systems people find themselves in, cultural influences… Even long term weather patterns. All this stuff has an influence over the evolution of concepts through time.
BTW, Hugo, I am reading your thesis because it sounds interesting to me.
And just so I am not misunderstood. I totally respect Hugo’s approach. As a pioneer, he will be challenged quite a lot… and rightfully so. This is how we refine and advance our ideas.
I once took a course in the History of Women Artists, taught by a very pro-feminist woman. In the confines of that particular curriculum, women artists were treated as the equals of the “great men” of their time… for example, Judith Leyster would be as important as Rembrandt and Elizabeth Vigee Lebrun was as famous as Gainsborough.
However, this same professor barely made a mention of these women artists in her general survey course. In that course it was all about the men… and their portrayal of the nude woman.
I would ask then if those women artists that were clearly so important “in the absense of men”, really were “important” in the development of art through the ages ? And if they were (which I would agree to) why are they not taught in the general survey courses? Their exclusion only lends to the bias that studying the achievements of women artists is less academically important than studying the men.
Hugo, there is someone posting on other sites that you have slept with some of your students in the past. I hope this is not true. How do you respond to this?
Anne, one possible answer is that the general ed course had requirements that the prof had to meet (at PCC, we call them “terminal measurable objectives”). For example, in my Modern Europe course, I am required to discuss the Enlightenment and Napoleon; I am not required to discuss the suffrage movement in Britain or on the continent. These requirements can drive the syllabus, I’m afraid.
The key is to get the TMOS (as we call them) changed. Make sure that if we are going to talk about the Enlightenment, we talk about Wollstonecraft. Make sure that with the French Rev, we talk about Olympe de Gouges and so forth. Happily, I am at the point in my career at the college where I have input to the revision of TMOs.
I went to that forum, and some of the stuff I read made shocked me… but not in the way you probably think. stuff like this (especially the first post on the second page. As a man who values loyalty above nearly everything else in women, that post made my blood run cold…)
-_- Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a feminist perspective on female infidelity before…
Hugo: “I’ve been a bit stunned by the criticism (see the comments towards the bottom here) that this blog has too much of my own personal opinion. Um, folks, it’s a blog. With my name on it. And I pay to put it up, you read it for free. What on earth else could be more personal?”
It’s common to criticize blogs for being too personal as opposed to blogging about more “serious” subjects - subjects deigned by middle and upper class white male bloggers (and some in the media) as “important.” Women and teen journalers are not considered “real” bloggers for this reason. I have a couple of links in a new post on my blog that go into this very subject.
Women and teen journalers are not considered “real” bloggers for this reason. I have a couple of links in a new post on my blog that go into this very subject.
Really? I think the blogosphere is too big for that to be true. It may be that some are, but that may also be because they spout things that are “wingnuttish?” I personally do not see that as factual. Msy be the blogs are uninteresting? May be the folks with the blogs are not getting the word out? I think the blogosphere is too big for there to be any sexism. It (for now) is the last bastion of freedom of speech. If someone has something to say that interests a large group, then he/she will have a large audience. Alot of the blogs that are bantered about are old, well-established blogs. Personally, I think anyone that sees a sexist policy in an unregulated, unfettered literary work, may be looking too hard for conspiracy theories. Even if there is sexist/agist work going on, what does one do? Regulate it? By whom? One the problems with traditional media is regulation.
teen journalers are not considered “real” bloggers for this reason
that certainly rings true; since I put my age on my blog the responses (read: hatemail) I’ve got have taken a whole new spin, discrediting what I’ve said by virtue of my age not actually refuting any of it.
Van, you so don’t want to go there.
Van, read the link to “Women and Children Last,” on my blog. It explains how primarily middle and upper class, white, male bloggers insulate themselves by linking to each other, and how other forms of blogger expression, such as journaling, are ignored by the media. The media makes it sound as if most bloggers are middle and upper class, white, male pundits, when that’s not the case. They merely get the most media exposure.
“Bridging The Gap,” which I also link, is a very good paper on gender and blogging.
I’ve noticed that gender in the blogosphere gets a lot of airplay, especially during the every-three-months “where are the women bloggers” debate, but age doesn’t.
However, I would also argue that women have not been entirely oppressed through the history of the Western world. Indeed, many women going back for sometime exerted massive influence on the course of history.
To the extent those women were monarchs and members of the ruling class, sure. But what of ordinary women?
“Hugo, there is someone posting on other sites that you have slept with some of your students in the past. I hope this is not true. How do you respond to this?”
Well I saw this one coming a mile away…some people have too much time on their hands truthseeker and YOU appear to be one of them…
“-_- Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a feminist perspective on female infidelity before…”
Well I’m not a feminist but an independent woman thinker, a mother, a grandmother, dated, married and now divorced. So from ALL those perspectives I will NOW give you my own opinion on female infidelity…
It makes no sense…
Menwsnewsdaily already put out the definitive article on this and it showed that over 70% of women interviewed claimed they were getting absolutely NOTHING out of a one-night stand or casual relationship… NOTHING…other then the stray case of crabs or some other far worse social disease….and to be honest I bet the other 30% weren’t getting much either, but lied about it out of either embarrassment or confusion…
AND to go one step EVEN further, if I dare and I do, I’d bet most women in a STEADY relationship could say essentially the same thing, but don’t for a whole variety of reasons…
The bottom line is that MOST men are totally incompetent in bed and the ones who are semi-competent are probably so riddled with an assortment of social diseases that you shouldn’t be near them with a ten foot pole anyway…
Like this business of teenage girls having sex…
This is the most ridiculous waste of time for most teenage girls that I’ve ever encountered. Frequently I used to have teenage girls visiting my house, friends of my daughters. When they were younger I used to run taped shows of Maternity Ward and the like when their friends came over, as a cautionary tale so to speak…
Very frequently we discussed the subject of WHY they were having sex at such young ages and, of course, inevitability the complete incompetent of the teenage boys they are having sex with came up and you know what I told them…”Guess what it doesn’t get any better with age…so just start saying no right now…”
I’m happy to say MOST did…
In spite of Sex and the City and various media today constantly painting these sexcapades that modern life seems to demand as benefitting BOTH sexes…sadly it still appears that women frequently having sex means she’s just being ’screwed’ a lot, in more ways then one…
So let’s quit it ladies…not from a morality standpoint but from a “what a freakin waste of time” standpoint…
Go home read a book, post on a blog, rent a movie…it’s gonna be a heck of a lot more fun for you, trust me on that…
Please…
Anyway, hope I helped Blue Mako. I know it’s just my opinion and others might feel differently…Feel free to post this on Stand Your Ground btw, if you think it will help…
Keep your nose out of my personal affairs, and I’ll keep my nose out of yours.
You’re getting your “definitive” news on what women think from an outfit like Mensnewsdaily, organ of the men’s rights movement?
About the media, etc. not taking women and teenage bloggers seriously…have you seen the NY Times article about ‘mommy-bloggers’ that ran a couple days ago? It pretty much trashed all of them as selfishly exploiting their experiences with their children to allow them to keep some sence of self after having kids (okay, not in so many words…but it implied it pretty strongly). It even lumped sites like dooce.com in there, and while dooce.com is certainly self-indulgent blogging (and I love dooce, so you don’t need to defend it to me, but it really is just all about what she’s thinking) it apparently has value to a lot of people because she has a HUGE readership. Same with other blogs mentioned in the article. Anyway, point being that there’s someone out there who doesn’t take women bloggers seriously…you never see them doing profiles of sites like Echidne of the Snakes, etc., who won’t stop talking about ‘real issues’, its always Mimi Smartypants and Finslippy (both of which I like, but if you’re looking for issues blogs, it doesn’t really fit) and then they go ‘Women only blog about their periods!’ and wonder why they can’t find serious women bloggers. Might be because they’re ignoring them. I mean, also, there’s a lot of stupidity in assuming that a blog has to be a personal chronical or an issues blog and not both, but I won’t go into that. Also, the stupidity of assuming that if a blog by a woman mentions abortion rights that its automatically irrelevant and ‘about their periods’ likewise doesn’t really justify response.
“You’re getting your “definitive” news on what women think from an outfit like Mensnewsdaily, organ of the men’s rights movement?”
That and other sources and life…
BTW, whenever you post personal info about yourself on an anonymous message board you leave yourself open to people responding in a way you might not like…
That’s life too…
Sorry…
I’m sure your granddaughter would be proud.
“I’m sure your granddaughter would be proud.”
Click (blank) Ignore…
“Go home read a book, post on a blog, rent a movie…it’s gonna be a heck of a lot more fun for you, trust me on that…
Please…”
You said it right on the nose. And there is nothing wrong with looking at it from a morality standpoint either.