Education Commons^™

Examining Feminist Consciousness In Lgbtq University Constituencies, John P. Cullen, Angela Clark-Taylor, Catherine Faurot, Alysha Alani, Catherine Cerulli

New York Journal of Student Affairs

There is little data on the perception of LGBTQ constituencies toward feminism. We conducted focus groups on our campus and within the surrounding community on perspectives of LGBTQ students, university-employed gay men, community-based transgender individuals, and community-based gay men toward feminism. We analyzed findings using Bem’s gender schema and Ridgeway’s construct of individual, interactional, and institutional aspects of gender identity. Our results show the majority of our LGBTQ focus groups held positive views toward feminism, associating it with equality for all genders and social justice, with the exception of community-based gay men, who negatively associated feminism solely with women’s rights.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1990, the New England Journal of Public Policy published a special issue on Women. The subject was women & economic empowerment. The authors found that while women had made significant gains during the 1970s and 1980s in many spheres relating to the workplace, true equity with respect to their male peers was still elusive, and gender bias, despite remedial legislation, continued to be the acceptable norm.

Seventeen years on, another group of women, under the direction of guest editor Sherry H. Penney, herself a contributor to the 1990 journal, looks anew at some of these issues and expands the …

Providing Access To Power: The Role Of Higher Education In Empowering Women Students, Margaret A. Mckenna

New England Journal of Public Policy

Access to education opens the doors to future economic power — but are opportunities for women limited by the very way that institutions of higher education think about women students? Women comprise the majority of college students today, but the institutions they attend may not be serving their educational needs. This article explains that women's needs are different from those of men and illustrates how educators can respond to that difference, offering a "feminist environment" in which female students can meet their own educational goals.