Women’s Studies

as Women’s
History

February 3rd , 2009

WGS201: Introduction to Women &

Gender Studies
Waves of Feminism
 1st
 Early First 1792 – 1848

 Middle First 1848 – 1919

 Late First 1920 – 1950s

 2nd 1960s & 1970s

 3rd 1990s - ??

 4th and/or Post-Feminism ???

Thesis
 Women’s studies developed at a particular period in
the history of the United States, of American
higher education, of feminism, and in the lives of
women brought up to believe in the reality of the
opportunities we were promised. (Boxer 35)
Women’s Studies
Program
 1970 1

 1975 150

 1980 300

 1985 450

 1990 600

 2000 >650

 2009 >700
Women’s Studies
as Backlash
 The founders of women’s studies belonged to the
post-1950s generation of mothers and daughters.
(37)
 Post-Structuralism – the movement that “unfixed
the center” (decentered the patriarchy) – also
entered the US in the 1950s

 The Women’s Studies movement was in part a

response to the “Stepford Wives” mentality that
“limit[ed women’s] roles outside the family”
and created mothers as “targets of Freudian-
imbued misogyny.” (37)
Women’s Studies
as a movement
 The Civil Rights movement of the mid- and late-
1960s “elicited awareness among many women
of the need for political action to liberate
themselves from constricted societal roles. (37)

 Women’s Studies programs “depend on volunteer

labor, and faculty contributions of time and talent
go unrecognized and unrewarded.” (38)
Some effects of
WMS
 “A girl today may learn at two, three, or four to
name parts of her body that went unrecognized
by some of us until . . . twenty, thirty, or forty.
(38)

 Jessica Simpson
 New Curves – US Magazine

 Skinny or Fat? – Chicago Tribune

 Weight Gain – Pop Crunch