Prior reports on the field (Part 2)

In the next phase of her report, Stimpson the content of Women’s Studies classes and the shift from a primary focus on women’s subordination to a concentration on women’s strengths (35-36). Significantly, even in this early report, the issue of Women’s Studies in a global context arises (46), as does the notion that Women’s Studies is no longer necessary because of women’s social advancement (49). She presents the challenges for the field at the time as balancing the uniqueness of Women’s Studies, the need for its own courses and programs, and its “mainstreaming” or movement into the center of academia (53). These, too, remain continuing tensions in the field.

Stimpson argues that a strong emphasis on research is essential to the success of the field—“hard questions continue to demand the accumulation of facts and the construction of theory” (55) and calls for an assessment of the academic field as well as expansion into community colleges and graduate programs. She perceives as possible obstacles the lack of faculty “stability” (56)—the prevalence of adjuncts and joint appointment positions. Other future tasks include making research centers less dependent on outside funding and “the reconstruction of gender relations” (58).

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College, was asked by the Ford Foundation to write a follow-up report with Susan Heath in 1995. In addition to summarizing Stimpson’s report, Guy-Sheftall’s Women’s Studies: A Retrospective cites other texts she considers critical in assessing the field, such as the February 1989 issue of Women’s Review of Books. Guy-Sheftall’s report is particularly important in terms of its emphasis on race and the need for all students to learn about cultural diversity.

The section of her report titled, “Intersections: Race and Gender” (13-18), focuses on two trends—curriculum transformation programs such as the New Jersey Project, designed to integrate issues of race, class, and gender, and analyses of differences among women. The latter led to the recognition of prominent feminist scholars in Native American, Latino, Asian, queer, and Black Studies, among other fields, as well as increasing criticism of mainstream feminists for focusing primarily on the experiences of white middle-class women. Guy-Sheftall describes the work of Spelman College in creating curriculum that de-centers the experiences of white women as an example for other institutions (16-17).

Like Stimpson, Guy-Sheftall looks at emerging trends in the discipline, reminding her readers that Women’s Studies must continue to become increasingly international. She observes, too, that “Few undergraduate colleges offer courses that incorporate the new scholarship on gender and science; this omission continues to perpetuate the notion that the sciences are an objective, value-free scholarly endeavor” (22). In contrast, she praises the feminist research conducted in professional fields and anthropology (22-23). Significantly, these points remain valid more than a dozen years later, as do Guy-Sheftall’s closing strictures, first, that “

we must debunk the myth that women’s studies has taken over the academy . . . women’s studies is barely in the front door on hundreds of campuses” (27), and second, that research on gender, families, and people of color should infuse public policy discussions (28). She predicts, accurately, that “Transcending the boundaries of race, ethnicity, class, geography, and language in the interest of a feminism that is more expansive, more responsive to a diverse group of women around the world will continue to be a major challenge to women’s studies in the 1990s” (28). This challenge continues today, for all the progress that has been made in these areas.

Another valuable aspect of Guy-Sheftall’s text is a list of questions in the preface. These queries would be useful in any assessment of the field, and many of them would be pertinent to reviewing individual programs as well. For instance, she asks, “Is there an adequate conception of the variety of feminisms or is there a hegemonic party line” and “Has women’s studies altered the major disciplines especially in the humanities and social sciences?” A similarly useful list is located at the end of the document (26-27)—it consists of recommendations made by NWSA to the Association of American Colleges in 1991.

In the fall of 1999, the Spencer Foundation offered its report on the field through a working conference titled, “Women’s Studies and the Study of Women: What Do We Know About Them and Their Influences?” A report on the conference, available on the foundation’s web site, reiterates many of the issues raised in Stimpson’s and Guy-Sheftall’s reports (and, significantly, both women attended the conference), such as the relative invisibility of women of color in the field and the need for more changes at the graduate level. At the same time, this report cites strengths of the field, with Bonnie Thornton Dill of the University of Maryland inserting the term “polyvocality” into the conversation, whereas others expressed concerns about how a fading commitment to social justice affects Women’s Studies programs and the individuals they serve. The role of feminism in institutional change also received considerable discussion in terms of the improvement of working conditions for women faculty and the increase of women in administrative positions.