Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Expanding The Concept Of Affirmative Action To Include The Curriculum, Nancy Topping Bazin

Women's Studies Quarterly

At Old Dominion University, a state university of 14,500 students in Norfolk, Virginia, the concept of affirmative action has been expanded to include the curriculum. From my perspective as a Women's Studies Director who also serves on the University Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunities Committee, I would like to share the story of (1) how this came about, (2) what it means, and (3) what questions and problems it raises in terms of my work as Director of Women's Studies.

The President of ODU strongly supports affirmative action in hiring. Because we have an energetic Coordinator of International Programs, the President …

Newsbriefs, Sharon Rae Jenkins, S. F., F. H.

Women's Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Issues Of Race And Class In Women's Studies: A Puerto Rican Woman's Thoughts, Angela Jorge

Women's Studies Quarterly

This paper was read at The Scholar and Feminist VII Conference, Barnard College, April 1980. A longer version will appear in The Scholar and Feminist VII: Class, Race, and Sex—Exploring Contradictions, Affirming Connections, edited by Amy Swerdlow, to be published by G. K. Hall in 1981.

At the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, where I am a tenured assistant professor, I am teaching for the first time a course called Machismo and the Changing Role of Women in Hispanic Culture. This course is also the first and only one of its kind, although Old Westbury has had …

Your Audience May Be Greater Than You Think, Mary Ann Millsap

Women's Studies Quarterly

To the Women's Studies Newsletter:

The National Institute of Education, which commissioned a series of eight monographs on women's studies as well as the Women's Studies Evaluation Handbook, has, since March 1980, been in the publishing and distribution business, mailing the 2,500 copies of the monograph series and handbook both to preset mailing lists (e.g., all women's studies programs, centers for research on women, libraries subscribing to this Newsletter, women's caucuses and commissions on the status of women in the professions, and higher education associations) and to those who have responded to various solicited and unsolicited notices in …

Integrating Women Into The Liberal Arts Curriculum: Some Results Of "A Modest Survey", Ann Froines

Women's Studies Quarterly

In 1978, the Women's Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts/Boston initiated a survey to examine the impact on the liberal arts curriculum of the new scholarship on women. We were looking beyond the courses offered by Women's Studies, since one of the goals of our program, like others, had been to promote the transformation of the male-centered curriculum. During much of its first decade, Women's Studies had focused on developing its own courses and scholarship. By 1978, the Women's Studies Program offered annually ten courses taught by its own faculty, as well as cross-listing another twenty courses regularly offered …

Legal News: Cornell University, Alice H. Cook

Women's Studies Quarterly

Friends:

I am writing to ask your support for the Cornell Eleven, a group of present and former members of the faculty who are filing a class action suit against Cornell University alleging sex discrimination in hiring, promotion, equal compensation, and other personnel practices.

We (the Friends of the Cornell Eleven) believe they have three of the four vital components of a successful suit: (1) strong cases, (2) good legal assistance, and (3) courage. What they lack is the fourth component: (4) enough money to carry this through by themselves.

Legal News: Suny/Stony Brook, Judy Wishnia

Women's Studies Quarterly

To the Editor:

After nearly five years of litigation, the class action suit charging the State University of New York at Stony Brook with sex discrimination (Coser vs. Moore) is about to go to trial. The suit, scheduled for the Winter 1980 calendar of the First Eastern District Federal Court, includes twenty-eight academic and professional women who are name plaintiffs, among them several members of the nursing faculty at the Health Science Center. The University is charged with discrimination against women in hiring, promotion, tenure award, and salaries. In addition, the suit includes cases of women professionals who were given …

"Out" At The University: Myth And Reality, Toni A. Mcnaron

Women's Studies Quarterly

For the first eleven years I taught at the University of Minnesota, I stayed in the closet I'd fled to within the first month of recognizing my lesbianism. During those years, I was awarded tenure quite early (the end of my third year); I won both a collegiate and an all-University award for outstanding teaching; I almost got a book on Shakespeare's last plays published; I was active in my regional professional organization. During those years, I experienced increasing pain at the dislike my immediate superiors [sic] had for me, no matter what I did. I learned quickly …

Teaching Black Women's Heritage, Betsy Brinson

Women's Studies Quarterly

In Fall 1979, I began teaching a course on Black Women in American History at the Open High School in Richmond, Virginia. The course was designed primarily as independent study with a weekly seminar discussion, and the students received three hours' social study credit. Because of my inexperience with teaching the subject matter, I limited the class to six students and was delighted to have all young Black women choose the course.

Our basic texts were Gerda Lerner's Black Women in White America and "Generations," an issue of Southern Exposure Magazine devoted to Southern women. We also used a wide …

Front Matter, The Feminist Press

Women's Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Women's Studies: The Case For A Departmental Model, Madeleine J. Goodman

Women's Studies Quarterly

The underlying premise on which we in women's studies have campaigned, and campaigned successfully, for the augmentation of academic curricula by a new and multifaceted field of studies during a period of relative austerity and even retrenchment in the academic world is the recognition of the serious effects of long-term neglect of such studies by the established disciplines. History, we say, and have demonstrated, has not been the history of women. Literature studies have not heard the voices of women, and studies of art have not seen through the eyes of women. The prevailing models of human evolution have been …

Nwsa News And Views, Elaine Reuben, Pat Gozemba

Women's Studies Quarterly

FROM THE NATIONAL OFFICE

By Elaine Reuben

I am pleased to be able to report that NWSA has been granted tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The outcome of our application was never in doubt, but the administrative process took a good while to complete.

Technically, that process will continue: the notice accompanying the form announcement of our tax-exempt status indicated that we will be under continuing scrutiny, since it appears, to the IRS, that we are likely to engage in significant lobbying activities.

The Academic Job Crisis: Some Possible Responses, Emily Abel

Women's Studies Quarterly

The following article is a revised version of a paper originally presented at the Second National Women's Studies Association Convention in Bloomington, Indiana, and at a meeting of the Pacific Southwest Women's Studies Association. The Pacific Southwest region introduced a resolution at the 1980 Delegate Assembly calling for NWSA endorsement of policies beneficial to part-time faculty (see Women's Studies Newsletter VIII:3 [Summer 1980], p. 23); the resolution was passed.

I wish to suggest a perspective from which the National Women's Studies Association can discuss the current retrenchment in higher education and the job crisis in particular. Above all, it is …

Unesco Document By Twelve "Experts On Research, And Teaching Related To Women," Paris, May 1980, The Feminist Press

Women's Studies Quarterly

In May 1980, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) invited twelve "experts on research and teaching related to women" to a special meeting in Paris. The experts were Julinda Abu Nasr, Director of the Institute of Women's Studies in the Arab World (Lebanon); Alya Baffoun, Center for Economic Study and Research (Tunisia); Teresita Barbieri, Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Social Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Uruguay); Lil Despradel, sociologist (Dominican Republic); Florence Howe, Professor of Humanities, State University of New York/College at Old Westbury (United States); Herta Kuhrig, Director of the Forschungsgruppe …

Editorial: Goodbye, Women's Studies Newsletter: Hello, Women's Studies Quarterly!, The Feminist Press

Women's Studies Quarterly

In the fall of 1972, the Women's Studies Newsletter appeared for the first time, as four pages of national news about women's studies in schools and colleges. We were "national" at least in part because there were no "local," "regional," or even campus-based newsletters. Since then, the Newsletter has followed the growth of women's studies across the nation—in schools and colleges and in such nontraditional settings as prisons, nursing homes, and community-based women's centers. The network thus created became the core for the National Women's Studies Association's beginnings in 1977. It is not surprising that now, in 1980, one can …

Back Matter, The Feminist Press

Women's Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

The Women's Studies Conference In Berlin: Another Chapter In The Controversy, Peggy Mcintosh

Women's Studies Quarterly

Those who read the Winter and Spring issues of the Women's Studies Newsletter in 1979 may remember accounts of controversies among women which surrounded feminist thought, teaching, and research in all of West Germany, and especially in Berlin. The next chapter in the controversy, though far from the last, occurred last April at the Free University of Berlin, where three hundred people attended a conference on "Aims, Content, and Institutionalization of Women's Studies and Research," sponsored by Berlin's Senator for Education, and by the President of the Free University of Berlin. Foreign participants were invited from Sweden, France, Italy, The …

Hq 1100 - Hq 1870: A Librarian's View Of The Second Nwsa Convention, Linda Parker

Women's Studies Quarterly

In the introduction to the NWSA Convention program, the Convention Coordinators refer to the necessity of building networks, disseminating new information and research, launching new campaigns for change, stirring new insights, and nurturing our growth as individuals. These concepts could form a feminist librarian's motto. Many libraries are bureaucratic monoliths which may seem impervious to change, but change is occurring because feminist library workers are challenging institutional policies and practices which form barriers to both women workers and women library users. Feminist librarians join NWSA for the same reason as anyone else—"to further the social, political, and professional development of …

Writing It All Down: An Overview Of The Second Nwsa Convention, Catharine R. Stimpson

Women's Studies Quarterly

Few conventions about education have either much cheer or tenderness. Those of the National Women's Studies Association do. In this, too, NWSA is unusual. One of the many good events at the 1980 Convention at Indiana University in Bloomington was a workshop that Frances Doughty of the National Gay Task Force gave. She used letters, photographs, and other archival remnants to portray a "lesbian friendship group," women who were either friends or lovers for thirty years. The audience touched its past with blissful curiosity. Then Doughty told a story about a famous member of the group: Janet Flanner, the writer. …

On "Unfeminist Behavior" At The Convention, Judith Markowitz

Women's Studies Quarterly

To the Women's Studies Newsletter:

I left Bloomington after the NWSA Convention both elated and concerned. As one of the Program Coordinators I was generally happy with the Convention and appreciative of the many "thank yous" I had received. Most of the women to whom I spoke expressed satisfaction with the meeting and felt that the time they had spent in Bloomington had been energizing and educational. I want to thank each woman for her support and positive feedback.

Yet, as I left Bloomington, my elation was tinged with anger and concern because I had witnessed a great deal of …

Building Coalitions Between Women's Studies And Black Studies: What Are The Realities?, Ann Cathey Carver

Women's Studies Quarterly

When the idea of building coalitions between women's studies programs and Black or Hispanic studies programs was mentioned to me, my initial reaction was, "Fantastic! Women of all races and cultures have so many things in common, there should be many areas of cooperation for the mutual benefit of both programs—especially in this period when budget cuts and the 'back to basics' attitude are rampant on campuses across the country." Then I began to think seriously about the possibilities of such coalitions. To do so, I had to shift my focus from the hypothetical "what should be" to the concrete …

Editorial: Everywoman's Educational Health On The Road To Equity, The Feminist Press

Women's Studies Quarterly

We have not often used this space to announce new projects. But we are doing so because the project is both timely and important. This fall, The Feminist Press, with the cooperation of NWSA and other major organizations, is launching a two-year project called Everywoman's Guide to Colleges and Universities. The title of the project will also be the title of a paperback designed to supplement the guides produced for those college-bound.

To produce this book we will collect information from all two- and four-year institutions of higher education in the United States. The theme around which this information will …

A Journalist's Personal View Of The Nwsa Convention, Ann Colbert

Women's Studies Quarterly

For me, the National Women's Studies Association Convention this May was many things: for me as an Indiana University News Bureau writer, it was a chance to generate publicity both about the Convention and about the university; for me as a member of the Women's Studies Program Coordinating Committee, it was the culmination of a great deal of hard work which began last fall and continued through the Convention; for me as a returning woman student, it was an affirmation of much that had helped me grow into an effective human being. When asked to write about the Convention, I …

Front Matter, The Feminist Press

Women's Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

A Report On Research Sessions At The 1980 Nwsa Convention, Charol Shakeshaft

Women's Studies Quarterly

I cannot stress how important for . . . the future of human experience it is to take the development and explication of a feminine perspective in ... research seriously and to devote all our talents and energies collectively to its accomplishment. -Jane Anton

As research on women has increased, researchers have become increasingly concerned about how appropriate the existing research methodologies are for the study of women. In one of the earliest critiques, Rae Carlson argued that current research paradigms, which she characterized as involving manipulation, quantification, and control, not only impose restraints on the understanding of female psychology, …

On "Elitism" And The Gifted, Markita Price

Women's Studies Quarterly

Dear Editor:

At the recent NWSA National Convention in Indiana, a delegate spoke against the use of the word "gifted" in the title of one of the sessions. She said that the word was elitist. Because there were people applauding her remarks, I would like to clarify the assumptions and blatant stereotypes she used in denouncing the gifted.

The Astraea Foundation: A New Resource For Women, Nancy Dean

Women's Studies Quarterly

In 1977 a group of 12 women from New York and Connecticut formed The Astraea Foundation to support the efforts of women to develop economic independence and foster personal well-being. The by-laws establish the Foundation as multiracial and multiethnic; its Central Board as at least 5O percent minority in membership; and its aim to provide financial assistance to those who have little access to funding. Now incorporated and tax exempt, the Foundation has completed its first disbursement cycle, awarding 55,000 to groups from the Northeast region of the country who fulfill its multiracial, multiethnic, and feminist criteria.

Where does the …

Newsbriefs, The Feminist Press

Women's Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Encounter With American Feminism: A Muslim Woman's View Of Two Conferences, Leila Ahmed

Women's Studies Quarterly

April 1980. The Barnard Conference, "The Scholar and the Feminist"—my first direct as opposed to page-mediated encounter with American feminism. And then it came home to me: how simple the one-dimensional experience of reading; how easy, ordered, and amenable to order it makes things seem—coherent and amenable to coherence. Sitting in that hall, listening to papers that often clearly drew on the rhetorical strategies of an oral tradition, quite different from those in scholarly writing, even in that feminist scholarship self-consciously dismantling the rigidities of tradition; being aware of the responses of a highly-and diversely-responsive audience; straining to catch …

Problems And Pleasures Of Prek-12 Involvement In Nwsa: A Report After The 1980 Convention, Martha Schultz

Women's Studies Quarterly

Women's studies is the educational strategy of a breakthrough in consciousness and knowledge. The uniqueness of women's studies has been its refusal to accept sterile divisions between academy and community, between the growth of the mind and the health of the body, between intellect and passion, between the individual and society.

Women's studies, then, is equipping women not only to enter society as whole and productive human beings, but to transform it....

The National Women's Studies Association actively supports and promotes feminist education, and supports all feminists involved in that effort, at every educational level and in every educational setting. …