The Spencer Foundation: Women's Studies and the Study of Women report

September 30-October 1, 1999

Women's Studies and the Study of Women: What Do We Know About Them and Their Influence?

Amy Richter and Ramona Thomas

On September 30 and October 1, 1999, the Spencer Foundation, with the assistance of Catharine Stimpson (New York University), convened an interdisciplinary group of scholars to formulate research questions on the changing place of women's studies and the study of women within American higher education. (Attachment A includes an agenda and list of participants.) The primary purposes of the conference were to explore a set of useful and significant questions that illustrate the past, present, and future of women's studies and the study of women in higher education in the United States; and to develop a research agenda that addresses the role of women's studies and research on women as they contribute to issues of curriculum and knowledge in higher education.

Much of the conversation among the conference participants considered the emergence of women's studies within the academy and sought to identify the impact of its development upon students, faculty, and the university. In order to reflect the range of issues and questions raised, this report is organized into two sections. The first section summarizes the panelists' comments and questions raised during the five distinct conference sessions. For each session, panelists were asked to share their thoughts about the critical issues relating to that particular topic along with the compelling research needed in this area. In addition to summarizing the panelists' remarks, moderators for each session were charged with identifying common themes, issues, and challenges. The second section highlights the major themes and issues recurring throughout the meeting. These emerged from both the panel discussions and small breakout groups that took place after several of the panels. This section also includes sets of research questions relevant to future study in the field.

Summary of Conference Sessions

Origins and Evolution of Women's Studies

The opening session of the conference on Thursday, September 30, considered the origins and evolution of women's studies. Each panelist was asked briefly to address the following questions: how did women's studies begin and how has it grown, what academic and nonacademic influences led to the greater interest in women and women's studies, and what do we know about the history of women's studies? The panelists for this session were Bonnie Thornton Dill, University of Maryland; Myra Dinnerstein, University of Arizona; and Linda Kerber, University of Iowa. Domna Stanton, University of Michigan, who served as the moderator for this session, began by emphasizing the "demanding agenda" of this particular panel, which was asked to consider the academic and nonacademic origins of and influences on the study of women.

Bonnie Thornton Dill (University of Maryland) introduced the idea of "polyvocality," which she used as a metaphor for her comments. She stressed that one of the ongoing challenges in women's studies in the United States is creating a polyvocal discourse or analysis of women in a society that looks for simple "sound-bite" answers. "A large part of what I know about the origins and evolution of the field reflects a movement from a narrow and more linear story to a complex and intersectional one. For African-American, Native American, Asian-American, and Latinas in the United States, we have moved from not being considered legitimate subjects of study to defining and theorizing about our own experience." Dill asserted that race and gender have found a "niche" in the discipline, which has clearly had an impact on the study of race and gender. However, she maintained that, in many ways, this has not changed the mainstream of the field. "Part of the impetus for the origins of contemporary women's studies was the need to tell our own story in our own words, the need to recover that story and to create intellectual and social space for our thoughts. We continue to face both national and global inequalities, and it is important that we not lose the fire and passion which inspired so many of our early foremothers."

Myra Dinnerstein (University of Arizona) discussed how feminist politics and scholarly interests were driving forces in the evolution of women's studies. "The women's movement was the watershed moment-the time that brought us to consciousness and changed our lives." The university became the site of these politics by establishing feminist programs, creating a curriculum, engaging in research, offering students a new way of thinking about the world, and challenging the institution and the disciplines. Dinnerstein asserted that at a time when women's studies seems established, there appears to be an ambiguity or uncertainty about the concept of women's studies, which sharply contrasts the convictions once held about its "rightness" twenty-five years ago. The difficulties involved in developing a true, interdisciplinary approach to women's studies continue. Moreover, the postmodern questioning of the concept of "women" raises questions about whether women's studies continue to be relevant. Dinnerstein questioned whether research with more practical applications for the "everyday lives of women" still has a place in the women's studies research agenda. She noted that at a time when women's studies seem most established there are challenges to the field from within and outside of the academy. She concluded that the management of these issues over the next several years will help determine the future of women's studies.

Linda Kerber (University of Iowa) focused her comments on structure. She noted that the field is facing "a deeply weakened academic system that relies on part-time and adjunct faculty," which, along with the deterioration of tenure in an increasingly corporate university, is a major concern for younger scholars. Kerber stressed that there is a strong need to "re-imagine" what it means to raise the next generation "wholesomely" and to re-imagine issues such as maternity leave, child care, and child rearing. She raised cautions and concerns about pushing younger faculty into "gambling with their academic and biological clocks" and stressed that the solutions to these issues are not simple. She also raised a question concerning how can we ensure that feminists will flourish throughout the academy. One answer, Kerber asserted, is that feminism must be sustained outside the academy. "We are here because citizens and activists outside the academy, within our loyal audiences, created the demand for what we do." Kerber concluded that a rebellious faculty has sustained feminist scholarship thus far, but "the trouble is that they do not look so rebellious anymore." She explained how earlier generations dedicated their lives so that the next generation of faculty would have less to rebel against, though, in an oxymoronic kind of way, they (the older generation) still want them (the next generation) to be rebellious.

Domna Stanton (University of Michigan), the moderator for the session, identified several themes from the panelists' remarks. The first was the social context that led to women's studies and the women's movement and what has become of this movement from the late 1960s until now. The panelists suggested that the women's movement is in a very different place. They also wondered to what degree we are really still concerned with issues of women's rights, social justice, international human rights, and changing the lives of women both in the United States and abroad. The second theme involved changes in the academy, particularly since the late 1960s. "How do we relate this weakened academy to what Myra Dinnerstein called the uncertainty regarding women's studies?" What is the correlation between the "weakened and uncertain academy" and the uncertainty surrounding women's studies? Does it somehow relate to the proliferation, dissemination, and permeation of women's studies in the academy and its relationship with ethnic, sexual, gay, lesbian, and African-American studies? Given the panelists' remarks, Stanton questioned whether there still exists a feeling of integrity or "oneness" with women's studies, which she argues never really existed. She challenged participants to ask whether the kind of intellectual work to which they are committed, and have done historically, still has the kind of impact on the world such that it can still be considered a kind of political intervention. She concluded, "we have somehow lost the connection of that work to the greater social landscape."

Consequences for Academe in the Disciplines and Professions

The first panel on the second day of the conference, Friday, October 1, considered the consequences of women's studies for the disciplines and professions. Focal questions panelists were asked to address included: What has been the influence of women's studies and related research in higher education? How has women's studies influenced the disciplines and the professions? The panelists for this session were Deborah Rhode, New York University; Barrie Thorne, University of California, Berkeley; and Sylvia Yanagisako, Stanford University. Carolyn Allen, University of Washington, served as moderator for the session.

Deborah Rhode (New York University) began by asserting that the state of women's studies and the women's movement, in general, is a tale of personal progress. Women are no longer visibly absent and overlooked, as was true historically, and this has changed significantly over the last few decades. However, Rhode stated that much has remained the same. "While research on women and gender has dramatically altered the academic landscape, I think the progress has created its own obstacles to further change. Women's growing opportunities are taken as evidence that the women's problem is solved." Most law schools, for example, like most Americans, generally do not perceive gender inequality as a serious problem. She noted that there is now a "smattering" of gender courses in professional schools, but they are "add-ons" and marginalized. "We have not successfully managed to mainstream these issues and I don't think we know enough about the dynamics of denial that keep people from thinking that these ought to occupy a central place." The challenge, for those who work on policy-related issues, is to figure out how to get from here to there, to create a society in which the wife's responsibilities, roles, and opportunities are truly equal. Rhode argued for more clarification of aspirations and quests for equality.

Barrie Thorne (University of California, Berkeley) focused on the social processes assumed in terms such as discipline, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary. The academy is presumed to be a "meritocracy," but Thorne asserted that it is a bureaucracy and, in many ways, an exclusionary club. She used the Middle Ages, complete with castles, baronies, and "invading nice barbarians" as a metaphor. Women's movement into the infrastructure, along with a self-conscious movement of other excluded groups (e.g., minorities, gays, and lesbians), called attention to the gap between the claims of meritocracy and the actual practices of exclusion and structuring of fiefdoms. "We helped one another scale the walls to get into these castles and we have succeeded to a certain degree. We were trying to do more than just get into the separate castles. We have been trying, at least originally, to critique the way the borders were drawn between the fiefdoms, and also the culture that goes on inside and across the castles, in order to get in." Thorne suggested looking at different sites of collective activity. She noted that there is still a lot of contact across disciplines in women's studies programs and networks within colleges and universities, but that this is also where many of the "worst tensions" come out.

Sylvia Yanagisako (Stanford University) discussed some of the consequences of different roads taken in anthropology and its engagement with women's studies, gender studies, or some of the theories of feminist studies. She asserted that anthropology "is arguably the social science discipline that has been the most open to not only the study of women but the study of gender from this theory of perspectives." This is evidenced in the widespread attention to the cultural production of gender ideology, gender inequality, and gender relations in ethnographic studies done throughout the world. Another indication is the presence of feminist anthropologists in all the leading research departments of anthropology in the United States and Britain. However, their success in integrating feminist theories and perspectives has led to an unmistakable backlash against cultural anthropology by non-feminist anthropologists in other sub-fields of the discipline (e.g., archeology and biological anthropology), which have been considerably less swayed by the feminist perspective. "Anthropology is the dilution of the cultural wars being fought within the discipline. One of the battle lines is clearly between those scholars for whom the study of culture without a gender analysis has become unthinkable and those for whom it's a sign of the unscientific subjective, and ultimately political depths, to which this discipline has sunk." She said this battle is also being fought within schools of humanities and sciences. "What are we to do with the recognition that our very success in bringing feminist theory and feminist methodologies to the core of the discipline may well signal and work towards its increasing marginalization in the academy?" she asked. "In Deborah Rhode's words, you might say anthropology has become part of the women problem and, in Barry Thorne's metaphor, the castle that we overtook is under siege and sinking."

Carolyn Allen (University of Washington) introduced what she called the "yes, but" problem. "Yes, there's been a knowledge explosion in women's studies, but the movement has not been as successful or influential as we might have wished it would be in the traditional disciplines. We see lots of information on women, but it has not moved political change forward very much. We have had assimilation of knowledge in my discipline (literary studies), but we have not had a feminist revolution in my discipline." Allen said this paradox characterizes many of the relationships between women studies and the study of women on the one hand, and traditional disciplines on the other. She stressed that the issue of backlash, which Yanagisako raised, is an important one to take into account. Allen asked: What kinds of scholarly projects would help advance the study of women to increase its impact on the disciplines of the professions? What kinds of projects might further loosen traditional disciplinary boundaries and increase their fluidity? She questioned the importance of continuing with interdisciplinary work as the hallmark of women's studies and the possibility of developing a stronger sense of what it constitutes. Could the enterprise be organized around central questions rather than around particular disciplines or departments? Like interdisciplinarity, she asserted that the notion of intersection is still completely under theory. "I don't think we know what it is. We know we want to have intersections, but we don't know how to think about it really." Allen concluded by asking: "Is the study of women most successfully advanced under the rubric of women's studies, or are there others that we might consider?"

Consequences for Academe: Pedagogy and Governance

This session focused on the consequences of women's studies for pedagogy and governance in higher education. Each panelist was asked to briefly address one or more of the following questions: how has women's studies influenced pedagogy and the administration and governance of the university, did it change ideas of what the classroom should be like, and how have issues of governance within the university changed? The panelists for this session were Carol Gilligan, New York University; Elizabeth Minnich; and Linda Perkins, Hunter College. Jean O'Barr, Duke University, was the moderator for this session.

Elizabeth Minnich began the session by discussing the larger cultural context within which feminist scholars exist. She identified three major strands that describe what is happening currently and how each "somehow implicates us." The first strand is the series of rights and access revolutions over the past thirty to forty years that have been profoundly effective (e.g., women's, civil rights, disabilities, ethnic, farmers, peace, environment). Each had a language of rights and access and addressed these and other issues in complex ways that have "left us thinking about liberalism in new ways. Beginning variously with rhetorics and arguments and dreams that had to do with rights and access, we went into demands for full recognition that was both group and individual, and that challenged every single frame." Second, Minnich asserted that the reactions to those revolutions are equally profound (e.g., anti-affirmative action). She also noted that the reaction to family values and the re-centering taking place is an effort to "retrieve the old male-centered patriarchal family, which always privatized the majority of human kind and removed women from public life. The rhetoric now is to get back there to undo such efforts." Last is "the ascendancy of technologies and unfettered capitalism." Together they fracture and shift everything, and make both of those earlier languages hard to sustain. "We have postmodernism that speaks that language: fluidity, performativity, power, or analysis." There is a shifting into this new kind of language and tension around it. Minnich stated that instead of looking at and controlling the process, people are looking at results and paying no attention to how they got there.

Linda Perkins (Hunter College) talked about a variety of policy issues that are coming out of women's studies and influencing the field, particularly institutional policies influenced by women's studies and the study of women. She noted the proliferation of women's studies programs, women's centers, research centers, diversity requirements, and how issues of gender and women are now incorporated in many institutional activities and policies (e.g., sexual harassment, equity in sports, and other Title IX issues). Perkins asserted that more controversial issues are emerging within the women's community (e.g., spousal hires). She questioned how these issues will affect tenure and what kinds of discussions and concerns exist around these topics. "Historically, policies on nepotism always worked against women, yet we fast-forward to the 21stcentury and there are a host of issues that still need to be discussed." One major issue involves faculty with children, both male and female. Issues of children and childcare, how they factor into the tenure process, and faculty balance between their personal and professional lives remain. Perkins noted, however, that there are some generational differences in opinion about these issues. She stressed that institutional and departmental affiliation matter, as some are "more friendly toward family issues and accommodating spouses and partners" than others. Perkins concluded by asking, what policies and accommodations should institutions make for women, and what are some of the issues that surround these kinds of debates?

Jean O'Barr (Duke University), the moderator for this session, focused her comments on some of the structural obstacles, questions, and issues that exist. She emphasized that policy concerns and cultural context are important and used her time to pose several research questions and issues that emerge from these structural concerns. First, what kinds of policies are coming from women in administrative leadership positions? Is there a difference? How much of a feminist agenda is being followed, and what is the relationship between feminists on campus and these (women) administrators? She noted that there is a record of what happens to women in politics, for example, in terms of following a feminist agenda, but that not much is known about women in higher education. Next, O'Barr commented on the "medieval traditions of funding within universities"; that is, the fact that most of the funding structures are so deeply rooted in departments. She suggested looking very carefully at the funding structures and their relationships to interdisciplinary work and work on gender, women, and other related areas. Her third suggestion related to the issue raised by Elizabeth Minnich regarding the enormous amount of fluidity, which O'Barr maintained is "all around us." "There is so much change in many ways, but at the same time there is so little that there is an awful lot of possibility for people and agendas that come out of nowhere and have negative consequences." O'Barr's last set of structural questions concerned the professionalism of graduate students. She noted that undergraduates seem very willing to find a place in women's studies or feminist scholarship to try to answer many of the questions that "are part of a liberal education." However, at the graduate level, particularly with the job market, feminist voices have not been raised much in the debates about the absence of positions and the changing nature of the job. O'Barr concluded that incorporating perspectives developed in feminist scholarship and women's studies to areas outside the classroom and faculty meetings is "an ongoing and profound challenge."

Carol Gilligan (New York University), the final panelist for this session, discussed issues relating to pedagogy. She began by discussing the challenges of teaching within patriarchy. She described feminism as a movement to end patriarchy or to analyze the structures of patriarchy in which we live and work. "Patriarchy is very easily heard as an accusation of men, but I mean it as a system of living which is detrimental in different ways to both women and men." The university is one of the major arenas in which this struggle is currently taking place. Many do not want to have that conversation because "to talk about gender means, on some level down the analytic road, to talk about patriarchy, which is a gendered order of living. It literally means a hierarchy with fathers at the top." Gilligan asked several critical questions.

"What are effective teaching strategies within patriarchy?" What strategies help both men and women students move towards an incisive, feminist analysis of what it means to live in patriarchy and successful actions for transforming it?
"How do you talk about differences without splitting? Splitting also leads to disassociation, which is our capacity as people to separate ourselves from parts of ourselves." What is the nature of the problem and how does that impact the pedagogy of the entire university?
Education is inherently about transformation and processes of change. However, it has been mistaken for socialization, which suggests that it is a problem of induction or initiation. An issue that has been very central within feminism and in the women's movement is transforming patriarchy. How do we move ahead now and how do we move ahead effectively and intelligently? How do we theorize and visualize the nature of this transformation?

Consequences for Men and Women in Higher Education

The panel for this session considered the consequences of women's studies for people in the academy. Central questions guiding the discussion were: what are the effects of women's studies and research on women for faculty in women's studies programs and in the disciplines, how does women's studies influence administrators' roles and responsibilities on campus, and what are the effects for students? The panelists for this session were Helen Astin, University of California, Los Angeles; Larry Gross, University of Pennsylvania; and Mary Romero, Arizona State University. Margaret Wilkerson, The Ford Foundation, was the moderator for the session.

Helen Astin (University of California, Los Angeles) began the session by asking: "What has been our impact? Have we really made a difference? Has our study of gender moved toward eradicating societal inequalities? How much have feminists changed the academy? For me, that has been the question all along. Has our work enlightened higher education in terms of issues of equity and justice?" Astin shared some findings from some national data on faculty, which she has analyzed to determine whether there have been changes in the academy. She found that every year, larger proportions of faculty claim to study women and gender and incorporate readings about women and gender in their classes. Nevertheless, Astin suggested looking more closely at such reports to understand what they mean. She then asked what kind of politics should be used in challenging the academy. Astin said she used to use "guilt" and would point to the treatment of women (e.g., inequities in salaries, reward structures, and penalities). She maintained that she is taking a new approach-one that pays more attention to women faculty. She stated that women are the best teachers and that research shows they are more student-centered and more concerned with the learning process. While higher education comes under criticism for not paying attention to students, for not engaging in the community, and for not being accountable, Astin declared that academic women are models of how faculty should be in terms of caring about students and the larger society. She concluded that developing stronger cross-generational relationships and sharing more personal and historical stories would benefit the next generation of scholars in the field.

Larry Gross (University of Pennsylvania) stated that the presence and activism of the feminist community have crossed lines that are usually not crossed in universities. They have brought together students, faculty, and staff, and have broken down many of the hierarchies that tend often to divide universities. Despite the rhetoric of family and community, feminist presence and activism have really influenced the terms of the debate, sometimes in very strategic ways. The ability to "work across those hierarchical boundaries makes you think differently. The feminist initiative created an opening to ask questions and raise issues in precincts where they were not normally talked about" (e.g., gay, minority, African American, and Latino studies). Gross raised questions about dealing with "freeloaders" when engaged in social change. Freeloaders are people who "did not pay their dues but are happy to emerge and step to the head of the parade." He stressed the need to think about how you take advantage of such conditions and face the reality that you are often making changes that other people will benefit from. Gross stated that the key struggle ahead, as it relates to the impact of women's studies and feminism on the academy, lies in the framing of issues, a struggle which has been won within the academic world, but lost in the public world. "We've taken refuge in being analytically precise in a way that, in terms of public rhetoric, is often not big strategically."

Mary Romero (Arizona State University) focused on ways of measuring the impact of women's studies, which has challenged the basic principles, theories, and methodologies of many disciplines. "The impact can be measured in terms of university requirements, such as the integration of gender in required courses in the disciplines and the textbooks that are being used, especially in the introductory courses." However, Romero maintained that the transformation in the curriculum has not occurred at the graduate level as successfully and that there needs to be more discussion about the hidden curriculum that gets developed in the graduate school. She questioned whether gender or feminism have become part of required methodology courses and why students report that they are often advised against writing "gender" dissertations "because they are not as marketable." One can also measure the impact in terms of the development of sex and gender sections within professional associations. Romero's other remarks focused on the unintended consequences of the success of women's studies and on issues to consider in developing strategies for the future. She asserted that an unintended consequence of success is the way that "we may have placed women faculty in vulnerable positions in terms of research, teaching, and service." An issue to consider in developing strategies for the future is to develop coalitions with other programs on campus. "We need to address the ways in which feminism has been appropriated, particularly the language. Feminism is really about larger issues of humanism and social justice than just those embodied in the female."

Margaret Wilkerson (The Ford Foundation), the moderator for this session, emphasized several points after the panelists' remarks. First, she stressed the importance of "telling our stories." She asserted that young doctoral students, who have an array of choices and possibilities, "are desperately trying to find their way and make their choices. They are asking us to tell our stories." She urged participants to tell those stories across race and gender lines. Wilkerson also discussed the role of the media and suggested examining existing and conducting new research on communication in this changed media climate. Wilkerson's third issue involved "the situation of women's studies in the academy." She asked to what communities women's studies should be accountable. "Should we think about accountability in terms of our intellectual enterprise? Within the academy, what are the intellectual spaces that we should be opening up, and what are the other organizations, units, departments, disciplines, or interdisciplinary programs to which we should have real connections and collaborations?" She concluded that it is "absolutely critical that we somehow get a grip-on technology" and stressed that women's studies scholars become more involved with the uses of technology and be a part of that conversation.

Summary and Speculation for the Future

The final session of the conference summarized the previous sessions and speculated about the future of women's studies and the study of women. Focal questions for the closing session were: What does the future hold for women's studies? What are the critical issues and significant research questions for the field? The panelists for this session were Judith Allen, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Spelman College; and Judith Resnik, Yale University. Catharine Stimpson, New York University, the consultant-scholar who helped organize the conference, also served as moderator for the closing session.

Judith Allen (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) posed several questions relating to interdisciplinary research in the field that she would like to see answered.

Are there any real prospects for recruiting scholars from the sciences to interdisciplinary women's studies? How could such recruitment be fostered?
What are the implications of location and academic identity on one's research profile?
What are main the obstacles to truly interdisciplinary research in women's studies? What kinds of themes, problems, and questions in women's studies are explored most beneficially through interdisciplinary research? What sources of endowment and foundation support have been available to researchers undertaking such interdisciplinary topics and approaches?
What kind of tenure and promotion performance criteria have been or are being developed for complete and joint appointed women's studies faculty? Are these faculty more or less likely to achieve tenure and promotion than feminist faculty located in other disciplines and fields?
How could a national professional organization for women's studies that would serve the informational research and advocacy needs of the field or fields be developed? What are the key informational needs of these fields?

Beverly Guy-Sheftall (Spelman College) also used her time to discuss six researchable questions.

To what extent has women's studies or feminist scholarship influenced K-12 education? "I think we have not mentioned at all very much the impact of feminist scholarship on K through 12."
"There are a number of different kinds of colleges and universities in which women's studies has not emerged by and large (e.g., community colleges, tribal colleges, most historically black colleges)." What are the barriers that continue to operate in women's studies departments in unfriendly environments?
How do we teach women's studies at the undergraduate level, particularly the two primary or core courses (introduction and feminist theory)? Is new scholarship about difference reflected in these two courses?
Who takes women's studies at the undergraduate level and why in this "post-feminist" generation? "Are we doing a better job of attracting women and men of color to women's studies?"
What is the nature of collaboration between women's studies and ethnic studies programs in particular, and what prevents such collaborations in certain institutional contexts?
Has women's studies faired better in institutions where there are feminist administrators?

Guy-Sheftall asserted further that there is a range of research questions under the general rubric of feminist pedagogy that is not talked about much in women's studies gatherings. For example, are older notions about effective feminist pedagogical practice still compelling? One of the core ideas in the "older notions of feminist pedagogy was creating safe spaces." She asked whether that is still a useful pedagogical strategy in "new" women's studies classes, which are more heterogeneous in certain kinds of ways.

Judith Resnik (Yale University) began by stating that what she wants for the future is more interesting young women engaged in creative projects, like several of the women who participated in the conference. She then asked, "How do I, within the academy, welcome such people, aid them, enable them, inform them, give them power and authority to hear and be heard, help them to create their own power and authority to enable more like them so that they can use their knowledge, power, and authority both for pleasure and for their own enjoyment of it as well as for enabling other people to have access to such pleasure and energy? "What is the relationship between those aspirations and the entity called women's studies?-What is the relationship between the study of women,-[the] production of knowledge and deployment of that knowledge in reference to women,-and the existence of women's studies?-Does the study of women need to-have a site, a place, a literal space identified either physically, materially, or epistemologically within a university?" Resnik suggested looking at places that have women's studies and those that do not (e.g., professional schools, business, medicine, and engineering and computers). She also suggested looking at women's studies as a form of affirmative action-intellectual affirmative action. She maintained that the optimism and pessimism that reside in conversations around affirmative action reside in conversations around women's studies and the aspirations for the study of women.

Catharine Stimpson (New York University) stressed that the questions of origins are far deeper than the 1960s and should include a look at four critical moments. "We really need to look critically and across the institutions at certain moments—the moment when the question of difference became a dominant concern.... The next critical moment is where the study of women is supplemented (not supplanted) by gender studies...The next critical moment is gay, lesbian, and queer studies, which are part of the poststructural moment. A fourth critical moment is feminine oppositional research....When did that take hold? What material did women's studies give to that group and what have been their strengths as well as their weaknesses?" She noted that this particular meeting focused on national women's studies, but stressed that "we must be comparative internationally. It does take different forms and I think when we study women's studies internationally we will see the limits of talking about race, class, and gender." Stimpson raised issues around "the paracurriculum," which is the study of women and gender outside of the academy, outside of formal education. She suggests researching women's clubs, reading groups, and television (public television and cable channels that take on women and gender as their issues). "What is happening on the web? What information is being traded about...women and gender?" Stimpson stressed that we should not forget that this is an intellectual movement. She also asked, what is happening to the study of gender in the sciences? "Much of the study of women has been humanities and interpreted social sciences....Unless we make alliances with arts and sciences and with the neurosciences, unless we talk to geneticists and they to us, it will [lead to] an impoverished intellectual future."

Summary of Major Themes

Although discussion of the five conference topics ranged widely, questions and comments fell roughly into five broad and interrelated themes. Throughout the conference, participants repeatedly articulated the need to revisit the origins of women's studies; called for greater knowledge about the current state of the field; emphasized the potential value of comparative studies; identified the larger university structures that continue to shape and limit women's studies' place in academe; and highlighted some of the challenges facing the future of women's studies. In order to reflect the range of researchable questions raised, this section of the report discusses the five themes identified above and represents the stream of ideas and questions throughout the conference. When possible, we credit the conference participant who made a particular point; however, many questions were raised several times by multiple participants during the course of the meeting. Under these circumstances, no attribution is provided.

Origins of Women's Studies

Several participants emphasized the need to, in the words of panelist Domna Stanton, "defamiliarize" themselves with their own history. Scholars present when women's studies first entered the academy (as many of the conference attendees were) saw the need to revisit this "founding moment" with some historical distance. Indeed, the notion of a single founding moment or "myth or unified origin" was challenged throughout the conference and identified as a rich subject for research. Panelist Bonnie Thornton Dill invoked the concept of "polyvocality" in her remarks and emphasized the need to remember and investigate the multiple origins of women's studies as an intellectual pursuit located within the university. How did these multiple sites of origin-both inside and outside of the academy-interact and shape one another? What alliances failed to develop and why? Significantly, during the small group discussions, many participants emphasized the need for research on "paths not taken." In other words, why has women's studies taken the forms that it has within the academy and what other models were proposed at the outset? Were there efforts to work more closely with African-American studies and ethnic studies programs that were emerging at the same time? Under what circumstances did such efforts thrive or fail?

Although the origins of women's studies emerged as an important question, there was nonetheless a broad consensus that these origins were ultimately rooted in movements for social justice. This observation raised an array of questions that sought to determine whether women's studies had remained committed to its earlier social justice agenda. However, several participants reminded the group that the women's studies movement was an intellectual and scholarly movement with a set of intellectual concerns. Indeed, one researchable question is: What is the nature of those intellectual concerns? During the first session, Myra Dinnerstein asked whether the relationship between women's studies and social justice was intact; this question was reformulated several times during the course of the conference. How has this relationship been reshaped at specific key moments in the field's history (the emergence of "difference" as a dominant concern or the rise of gender studies, queer studies, and feminist oppositional studies, for example)? As feminist scholars have produced and employed postmodern theory, have they also moved away from a social justice approach to women's studies? How might this shift be influencing the training of graduate students? Is scholarship itself a political intervention? How have specific scholars successfully combined activism and scholarly research? All such questions demand a revisiting of the social and political origins of women's studies as well as an understanding of the current state of the field.

Current State of the Field

In order to evaluate the progress of women's studies and its impact upon university life, more information is required about the present. Many of the questions raised in the smaller breakout groups suggested the need for basic research on the state of the field. For example, how many women's studies programs exist? How many are departments with the ability to tenure faculty? What courses are offered and how are they staffed? How are graduate programs conceptualized? Helen Astin observed that increasing numbers of college faculty claim to do research on women and gender, but what exactly do they mean by this? Having the answers to such basic questions is the first step towards framing broader questions about the merits of departmental status or the consequences of joint appointments.

The "Introduction to Women's Studies" course emerged as a rich site of both scholarly and personal interest. Panelist Barrie Thorne and many other participants expressed a belief that this introductory course serves as "a site of optimism" for women faculty and students; it remains an energizing enterprise still grounded in the social justice agenda of the origins of women's studies. In short, the introductory course is "still about changing women's lives." However, to what degree does this perception, often rooted in personal experience and anecdotal evidence, still hold true? What is the current role of the "Introduction to Women's Studies" course? How many and which students take it? What texts do they read? What are the different pedagogical models employed? Who teaches the introductory course? France Winddance Twine noted, for example, that this course often serves as an important site for training graduate students. What is the impact of this course on undergraduates after they leave college? What is the impact on self-esteem and career aspirations? How does the influence of undergraduate training in women's studies move into graduate training in the professions?

As such questions were raised repeatedly throughout the course of the meeting, many participants noted that this is precisely the type of information that a strong and vital national organization might gather and publish. This observation, in turn, raised another group of researchable questions: Why does women's studies have no such national organization? Such an absence underscores the need to understand better the history of the National Women's Studies Association and to evaluate its capacity to meet the needs of the field in the future. Related questions were raised during the final session of the conference when several participants wondered whether the National Women's Studies Association was in a position to conduct research, provide needed information, and, thus, serve as an advocate for the field. Are there other emerging organizations that might play such a role?

Comparative Studies

As the gathered scholars discussed the state of the field, they repeatedly pointed to the need for comparative study within the United States and beyond. Panelist Sylvia Yanagisako, for example, noted that the study of women has fared differently across academic disciplines. How does women's studies look different in a variety of settings - at research universities, four-year colleges, women's colleges, and community colleges? Moreover, comparative ethnographies of different programs would provide considerable insight into the specific circumstances that have shaped the fate of women's studies within the academy. What are the social, political, and intellectual implications of these differences? What are the obstacles that prevent women's studies from taking root in particular institutions? How does women's studies compare to other interdisciplinary programs?

Likewise, several of the small breakout groups suggested that autobiographies and biographies of influential women's studies scholars and teachers would provide considerable insight into a field in which "the personal is political." How have women successfully negotiated their way in the academy? How did they balance personal and professional demands, and how did these two realms interact and influence each other? What advice might they offer to a new generation of women's studies scholars? This last question points to the need to understand better the generational differences and divides that shape the current women's studies community.

Finally, what are the alternatives to the American model of women's studies? For example, Mariam Chamberlain noted that in other countries, research centers play an important role in mobilizing political concern for womens' issues. Where is women's studies located internationally-in universities, government organizations, research centers, and non-governmental organizations? How do these different sites shape the nature of the field? In other words, how do different institutional structures shape the production of knowledge?

Larger University Structures

Has the university proven a hospitable site for women's studies and the study of women? Has the presence of scholars committed to studying women transformed the university in meaningful and lasting ways? These overarching questions shaped much of the discussion of university structures. Research is needed on how women's studies has influenced the institutional structures of university life. Panelists Linda Perkins and Mary Romero identified the following institutional sites and policies as fruitful for further inquiry: doctoral programs in women's studies, diversity requirements, campus women's centers, harassment policies, and the creation of units or sections devoted to women's scholarship within professional associations. As panelist Linda Kerber observed, women's studies first entered into a university system that was strong. How have structural changes within academic life (e.g., the rise of adjunct faculty, the decline of tenure, and the decrease in the number of portable fellowships) shaped the fate of women's studies and women's lives within academe? What types of structural changes are still needed (e.g., leave for pregnancy, child rearing, or other types of care taking) to enable women to thrive in the university?

Many comments noted that the study of women has made considerable inroads in a variety of disciplines and has achieved a certain level of institutionalization. Yet, how does institutionalization vary across institutions and disciplines? For example, how have efforts to "mainstream" women's history into history more broadly fared? Have some fields (e.g., anthropology) proven riper for transformation than others have? If so, why? Does the presence of a strong feminist influence within a discipline or field lead to backlash against or marginalization of that particular mode of inquiry (e.g., cultural anthropology or literary studies)?

While acknowledging that women's studies and the study of women have gained an institutional toehold within the academy, Estelle Freedman and many other participants also pointed to the on-going marginality of scholarship devoted to women. Under what circumstances does this marginal status serve as a source of strength or provide needed critical distance? How much of this marginality is a problem and to what degree is it the product of a university structure that privileges the disciplines?

Participants addressed the issue of marginality at some length in the small group discussions. The questions generated in these groups included the following: Is the problem of marginality redressed when women's studies is created as a separate, tenure-granting department? What is the impact when women''s studies programs have the power to tenure faculty? Do teaching women's studies, holding a joint appointment, or publishing in an interdisciplinary feminist journal "count" in decisions for promotion and tenure? Are jointly appointed faculty more or less likely to receive tenure than feminist faculty members located in a single discipline? When and where have women gained leadership positions within universities? What difference does it make when women are in positions of leadership within the university administration? Valuable research would also consider alliances among women in faculty, administrative, and clerical positions within the university. How are such coalitions built?

The structures that shape intellectual life in the academy are not simply about knowledge production, but they influence the distribution of resources and reflect important hierarchies within the university. Can scholars whose primary professional identities are tied to the disciplines ensure an ongoing institutional presence for women's studies? According to panelist Judith Allen, such a question underscores the need to explore the infrastructure of knowledge production and understand what is meant by "disciplinarity," "multidisciplinarity," and "interdisciplinarity" within academic life. What are the implications of location within the university for the type of research conducted? Does it make a difference whether faculty members are tenured in women's studies, jointly appointed, or affiliated with a single discipline? How is interdisciplinary work, to which women's studies claims a commitment, funded? What enables interdisciplinary collaboration within a university and what impedes it? For example, how extensive is university support for team teaching? What are the obstacles of interdisciplinary research-funding channels, disciplinary bias, and institutional criteria of scholarly merit?

In trying to place women's studies and the study of women within the structures of the university, participants' comments also addressed the divide that still separates the academy from public life. How have feminist scholars effectively shaped public discourse on issues involving and important to women? Is the knowledge produced by women's scholars perceived as useful outside academe? Alternatively, in the words of panel moderator Margaret Wilkerson, to what communities should women's studies be accountable? How are women's studies scholars having an impact upon medical schools or biotech programs? Panelist Beverly Guy-Sheftall raised the question of women's studies' influence on K-12 education. What is the relationship between women's studies in the academy and the "paracurriculum" of women's clubs, reading groups, public historical sites, and more popular media? Research that recasts the university as "the real world" and not some rarified sphere apart could contribute to efforts to build intellectual and political alliances beyond university walls. For example, what is gained by studying the university as a corporate workplace where women battle for resources and prestige?

Future of Women's Studies

Looking to the future, research is also needed to identify scholarly questions that can produce and sustain interdisciplinary scholarship and draw in scholars from the sciences. How might this be done and what impact could it have on the field? Are there compelling models to draw upon? Suggested topics that might sustain interdisciplinary women's studies scholarship included violence, motherhood, immigration, poverty, and the body. Conference participants also identified several important areas in which women's studies should seek to make allies and exert influence. Larry Gross suggested that among the most important of these areas is that of science and technology. For example, several comments emphasized the need to meet the challenges of new technologies and to shape software development to ensure the presence of a "female voice." Bioengineering was also identified as an important site ripe for gender analysis.

Many of the big questions facing the university have important implications for women's studies and its practitioners. Valuable research will address itself to issues of spousal/partner hirings and policies on faculty with children. Research is also needed on graduate training and the academic job market. Is a Ph.D. in women's studies an asset or a liability? The rise of for-profit education is another area in which women's studies must engage. What is the curriculum in the new for-profit educational institutions? Is women's studies present in this new educational model? How can a place for women's studies be secured in the changing landscape of American education?

A Note from The Spencer Foundation

The Spencer Foundation sponsors occasional conferences to stimulate research on important issues in education. We thank Catharine Stimpson, who helped organize this conference; Amy Richter, who helped to write this report; and the individuals who participated (see attached listing), who offered many good ideas. We hope that interested researchers will find the theoretical, methodological, and topical issues raised at the conference thought provoking. The Spencer Foundation welcomes well-designed research proposals on the issues and ideas discussed in this report.