Women in College: How Women's Studies Was Born
by Carrie Richards

Originally published Oct. 2, 2000 on studentadvantage.com.

This is the seventh in a series of articles and columns on the lives of women in college today.

The year was 1969, and the place was San Diego State University. There, students, faculty and community members gathered to form a group that would change the face of academia.

That group, the Ad Hoc Committee for women's studies, met to discuss a question that had been nagging faculty and students nationwide for years: Why were women's history and women's issues lacking from the country's academic programs?

The committee did more than address the question: It drafted and created the nation's first women's studies program. A modest curriculum of 10 classes, it nevertheless quickly caught the eye of the media.

One year after the program's inception, Newsweek declared it "one of the hottest new wrinkles in higher education." Betty Friedan, of The Feminine Mystique fame, argued at the time, "women's studies will one day fill libraries and create whole new courses in psychology, sociology and history."

She was right. Women's studies programs have multiplied in the 30 years since San Diego's fledgling experiment. Today, students can take women's studies courses at over 700 institutions.

Some courses exist in independent women's studies departments — think "Introduction to women's studies" — but most of the topics covered fall under a wide range of disciplines, from economics to English, political science to biology.

Courses range from the mundane — University of Nebraska at Lincoln's "Women in Contemporary Society" — to the esoteric — Amherst College's "Bad Girls," a study of the "villainization" of women from the late 19th century to the present.

As in all disciplines, women's studies students cite various reasons for taking the program. "I think the only way for women to better their position in society is to educate themselves in the history of women's oppression and the methods of change," Susan Rella, a senior women's studies minor at Drew University in Madison, N.J., said.

Natalie Lacireno-Paquet, a public policy Ph.D. candidate at George Washington University, said she took her first women's studies course as an elective during her undergraduate days at McGill University because she was interested in equity issues.

"The course spoke to me," she said. "It asked questions not asked in other classes, presented different perspectives, and put women in the center of the topic of study."

Despite the efforts of many of these programs to expand their focuses and, with it, their student following, an overwhelming percentage of those enrolled in women's studies courses are female.

Princeton University's women's studies program was founded in 1983. It added "Gender Studies" to its name two years ago in hopes of attracting males to the department. About 15 to 20 Princeton students receive a certificate in women's studies each year — the school has not yet made it a major. In the program's 17 years, only three or four of those students have been men, said Program Manager Barbara Gershen.

Within the sphere of women's studies programs, colleges diverge widely in their missions. At The College of New Jersey in Trenton, the Women's and Gender Studies program boasts of "[enabling] students to understand changing social patterns and the effects of institutions and culture on behavior," according to the program's Web site.

In contrast, students in Syracuse University's program "examine the imbedded practices of male dominance while drawing on resistance efforts and strengths of women across different ethnic groups and cultures," as stated on its Web site. One listed goal of Syracuse's program is "empowering one's personal life and the lives of others."

You Call That a Major?

In the early '90s, Columbia Teachers College conducted a study on the first generation of women's studies graduates. The study included a selection of responses women's studies scholars received when they told people of their coursework.

One woman said typical responses included "polite interest, polite disinterest, puzzlement [or] hostility." Frequently, these women had to defend their choice of study. No, they told people, we are not majoring in home economics. Yes, they told people, ours is a discipline, and it is relevant and scholarly.

Times have changed, as is evident from the mushrooming of women's studies departments throughout the country. But the programs and their students are still waiting to see the accepting nods they hope will follow when they answer the question, "So, what are you majoring in?"

"There's a definite stigma," Rella said. "There's the idea it has no real application in the outside world."

Drew University senior Sue Brennan, a women's studies major, said people don't consider hers a bona fide major. "They think you just talk about women and their issues, when in fact it's a real subject with a set of theories behind it," she said.

"Most people that I associate with don't react badly when they hear that I focused my education on women's studies," Lacireno-Paquet said. "Some have been curious, wondering what that means and wondering what kinds of things I study. Some have asked what one does with such a degree."

What does one do with such a degree? Lacireno-Paquet parlayed her interests into an M.A. in public policy, with a concentration in women's issues. Following the completion of her doctorate, she intends to find a position teaching public policy at the university level, possibly focusing on women.

"Our [former] students are doing a number of things," San Diego State University's women's studies department chair Dr. Susan Cayleff said. "Some go on to higher degrees or professional schools. We have people doing screenwriting and people working in reproductive rights and violence against women."

Most of her program's graduates, Cayleff said, focused their careers or post-graduate education on women's issues.

"I'll always use my women's studies background," Brennan said, "no matter what I do, even if it's not directly related to women's studies."

Rella, an English major, said women's studies might not help her find a job or earn significant money, but would serve more as a guide for how she lives her life.

Too Narrow a Focus?

Criticisms about the discipline typically charge that women's studies programs provide students with a narrow perspective or arm them with knowledge of only a limited set of issues.

Adherents continue to glow about the discipline's virtues, however. Many argue the programs give students a variety of perspectives; since the field is inherently interdisciplinary, professors teaching women's studies courses could hail from any number of departments within the school.

Gershen asserted that since the very purpose of the study was to open up discussion about issues never before given a voice, it was ridiculous to insinuate that women's studies gave students a limited viewpoint.

"In my experience at [George Washington University], the program has not been narrow or prescriptive at all," Lacireno-Paquet said. "Many different perspectives are presented and independent thinking is encouraged."

For example, her courses have examined not only "explicitly feminist explanations," but mainstream, traditionally conservative and liberal positions as well, she said.

Colleges and universities, competing fiercely for students, are responding to the growing demand for women's studies programs. "An institution that doesn't offer courses where men aren't in the center are generally acknowledged not to be scholarly or rigorous anymore," Cayleff said.

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How Women's Studies Was Born
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