What is Women

1
What is Womens Studies?

• Womens Studies is the examination of womens
  experiences that recognizes our achievements and
  addresses our status in society.

2
What is Womens Studies?

• Outgrowth of the Second Wave of Feminism
• Academic component of feminist activism
• Begins in 1970s- 2 programs
• 1996- 620 programs
• Centers the history,culture, and lives of women
• Footnote to center
• Focuses on traditionally silenced
  histories/lives
• Gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity
• Interdisciplinary
• Biology, anthropology, english, history, law

3
What is Womens Studies?

• Critical and Feminist
• Focuses on power, oppression, domination
• Not neutral
• Questions status quo
• Connects theory and practice
• Creates Knowledge and Social change
• Personal
• Connects the study of women and gender, class,
  ethnicity, sexuality to our lives

4
Key Terms

• Sex
• Either of two divisions of organisms
  distinguished respectively as male or female
• Gender
• the cultural definition of behavior defined as
  appropriate to the sexes in a given society at a
  given time

5
Key Terms

• Patriarchy
• Social organization marked by the supremacy of
  the father in the clan or family and the legal
  dependence of wives and children (dictionary)
• The manifestation and institutionalization of
  male dominance over women and children in the
  family and the extension into society in general
  (Gerda Lerner)

6
Key Terms

• Feminism
• The belief that women and men are inherently of
  equal worth. Because most societies privilege
  men as a group, social movements are necessary to
  achieve equality between men and women, with an
  understanding that gender always intersects with
  other social hierarchies. Estelle Friedman
• I think the alternative to being a feminist is,
  in some sense, being a masochist. Either were
  whole human beings or were not. Gloria Steinem

7
Key Terms

• Feminist
• A feminist is not just someone who envisions a
  different world but someone who creates a life
  that will change it
• Darice Jones

8
Key Terms

• Womanist
• A black feminist or feminist of color
• From the black folk expression of mothers to
  female children, You acting womanish, I.e. like
  a woman. Referring to outrageous, audacious,
  courageous or willful behavior