Academic departments being created or developed by men does not make them “Men’s Studies”. If you believe otherwise, please provide an argument in support of that belief.
Kimstu, it’s great that you’re able to keep your politics out of your teaching, and I’m sure that the same is true of the overwhelming majority of teachers and professors. But I can tell you from personal experience that it ain’t always so. At least two of my college professors pop to mind. One taught several political sciences courses that I took, was the department chair, and served as faculty representative and advisor to the student government. The other taught political communications. Both made no secret of their liberal affiliation, and did their utmost to present it whenever possible in classes. (Of course, at the time, I shared many of their ideas, so I didn’t mind. 
) I suspect it’s easier to get away with at smaller private colleges.
More importantly, though, it would appear on the face that there is more of an opportunity for topics which are easily politicized to be taught in a politicized way. As you say, the history of pre-modern science doesn’t lend itself to leftist politics; but women’s studies sure can. Especially when it comes to classes which study theoretical concepts in gender and gender relations, there is potential for teaching which emphasized not just that certain ideas exist, but that those ideas are true as well. And given that those courses are likely to have attracted professors who lean left anyway, well, I wonder how much play the ideas of, say, Feminists for Life are given?
That’s what concerns me–programs which emphasize the “rightness” of some of the political ideas that arise. I have no doubt that there are ways of teaching these courses apolitically, but I also suspect that most of them are not being taught that way.
Take, for example, the list of program courses in the Women’s Studies program at Vassar. Do you think that courses like “Construction of Gender: Women in American Popular Media,” “Lesbian Sex & Politics in the US,” and “Brave New Families” are being taught apolitically? I doubt it. I have no evidence that they aren’t, but I know enough about academia to be skeptical that these courses are all taught from an emphatically left-wing perspective, and that students are taught that those political ideas are the correct ones.
Obviously I’m using a sample size of one, and picking only a few course names, but I suspect that an in-depth review of women’s studies programs at major universities would reveal much the same. Sorry, but that bugs me. If these ideas are going to be taught, then they should be taught, not simply propagandized.
Ah, so you’re claiming that not only is the entire field of women’s studies and every women’s studies class ever taught “second-rate”, but that a school that requires students to take a single women’s studies class is keeping them from learning “real, top-notch academic subject subjects”, even when that school also requires students to take courses in virtually every other major academic discipline, including mathematics and the hard sciences? Goodness. I think you’ve proved that women’s studies isn’t the only discipline that can make people softheaded and irrational.
I am not exactly sure what your objection is to the presence of politics in such courses. Even the tiniest bit of background research reveals that many of the theoretical and methodological tools used in gender studies are essentially Marxist, or at the very least, historical materialist. I do not think the academy is trying to pass off these classes as politically “unbiased,” which serious left-wing feminists would say is either impossible or merely an excuse to silence their voices. Removing obvious tendentiousness does not necessarily free a learning environment from bias, it simply exposes it to a different set of biases. If you don’t use postmodern techniques in your scholarship, then by definition you are employing others.
As in all things, caveat emptor. Some people are going to get suckered in and indoctrinated. This phenomenon seems to be a universal one in the humanities and social sciences. Politico-intellectual trends have come and gone, each with its share of standard-bearers and followers. Yet each has provided useful scholastic tools that are rarely discarded completely by the academy.
Uh, yes.
Well, maybe it could be part of a course that includes Uri Geller’s contribution to modern physics and Miss Cleo’s contributions to mathematical modeling of time series. 
No, I’m claiming that in general women’s studies courses represent 2nd rate academics.
The required course in math is typically a shallow requirement. E.g., it won’t come close to reaching women’s math. (i.e., Noetherian rings.) In my experience, required science courses are also pretty weak.
Your comment “virtually every other major academic discipline” is loosely worded. Do mean that your school requires at least one course in Optics, mechanics, wave motion, relativity, quantum mechanics, chemistry, organic chemistry, zoology, botany, Latin, Greek, calculus, differential equations, probability, statistics, matrix algebra, accounting, American History, Ancient History, European History, Oriental History, Geography, basic writing, creative writing, poetry, art, art appreciation, music composition, music appreciation, philosophy, symbolic logic, …I’ll stop here.
Lamia, I invite you to make your own list of non-required courses and honestly look at all the fields of knowledge that your school treats as less important than Women’s Studies.
Given your chosen name, Lamia, one naturally expects vicious, devouring insults. Given my name, I respond, “Merry Christmas,” and “Happy Hanukah.” ;j
Please define “historian of Women’s Studies”. Is that a scholar of women’s history?
You are correct (IMO) that Goldin is an a) fine economic historian an b) female. She has also received the following grants from the NSA:
“The Evolution of the Female Labor Force in America,” 1987-1989
“The Evolution of the Female Labor Force in America,” 1984-1986
“The Evolution of the Female Labor Force in America,” 1981-1982
“The Family Economy in the Late Nineteenth Century,” 1979-1981
“Black and White Female Labor Force Participation Rates, 1870 to 1880,” 1975-1977.
The preceding is mere substantiation from her online CV: I seem to recall some insightful work of hers on the intrawar female labor market.
If you have some familiarity with these scholar’s work and they are historians and you are unfamiliar with Claudia Goldin’s work… well, that sounds unfortunate. To me. But my assumptions may be skewed.
Hm. I was commenting on the contention that women’s studies could not be effectively undertaken outside of a women’s studies department. I disagree with that. I was also pointing to a possible disadvantage of insularity. If women’s studies practitioners lack familiarity with the work of Claudia Goldin, that looks to me like a symptom of insularity. (Big if, admittedly).
Again, IANAE. I welcome other POVs.
Finally, I was hoping to see some examples that show the (research) advantages of having a women’s studies department. That may be a tall order.
December: There has been some back and forth on the Mead book. Defenders point out that Mead was comparing Samoan mores to 1920s US mores, not Samoan mores to 1990s US mores. (Radical claim: US 1990s attitudes and Samoan 1920s attitudes were both more lax with respect to sex than US 1920s attitudes). Defenders also note that Coming of Age was Mead’s popular work, and that whatshisface might have taken a look at her scholarly output as well. IIRC.
flowbark, I’m not prepared to debate Margaret Mead. I once heard her speak around 1970 in Philadelphia. She was impressive and had something to say. To this day, I remember her discussion of what she called a “Post-figurative society.”
Your point is a fair one. Just because she got it wrong in COAIS, when she was a rookie, that doesn’t refute her later work.
Well, I would hope that book wouldn’t be taught any more. When I was in college in the early 1960’s, it was mighty popular.
Well, maybe COAIS could be part of a course that includes Uri Geller’s contribution to modern physics and Miss Cleo’s contributions to forecasting, by means of mathematical modeling of time series.
No, I’m claiming that in general women’s studies courses represent 2nd rate academics.
The required course in math is typically a shallow requirement. It won’t come anywhere close to reaching real women’s math. (i.e., Noetherian rings.) In my experience, required science courses are also pretty weak.
Your comment “…that school also requires students to take courses in virtually every other major academic discipline,” is loosely worded. I’m sure you do not mean that your school requires at least one course in Optics, mechanics, wave motion, relativity, quantum mechanics, chemistry, organic chemistry, zoology, botany, Latin, Greek, calculus, differential equations, probability, statistics, matrix algebra, accounting, American History, Ancient History, European History, Oriental History, Geography, basic writing, creative writing, poetry, art, art appreciation, music composition, music appreciation, philosophy, symbolic logic, …I’ll stop here.
Lamia, I invite you to make your own list of non-required courses and honestly look at all the fields of knowledge that your school treats as less important than Women’s Studies.
Given your chosen name, Lamia, one naturally expects vicious, devouring insults. (BTW why DID you choose that name?)
Given my name, I respond, “Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah.” ;j
That is an inflammatory assertion. To the extent that it is absolute, it should be easy to falsify with a single example of high quality scholarship.
Y’know what, I hope there was supposed to be 
smiley in there somewhere, because otherwise, I resent that remark. Just because someone female wants to major in a subject that doesn’t automatically lead to a practical career field, they must be looking for an MRS? What about your philosopher friend? Was he trying to get his MR?
Major academic disciplines:
Physics: Subdisciplines - Optics, Mechanics, Wave Motion, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics
Chemistry: Subdiscipline - Organic Chemistry
Biology: Subdisciplines - Zoology, Botany
Classical Studies: Subdisciplines - Greek, Latin ( obviously these disciplines inhabit a nether realm and could conceivably make up separate departments of their own or be subsumed in a different one, my example here is just a coomon one )
Mathematics: Subdisciplines - Calculus, Differential Equations, Probability, Statistics, Matrix Algebra
Business: Subdisciplines - Accounting
History: Subdisciplines - American History, Ancient History, European History, Oriental History, Geography
English: Subdisciplines - Basic Writing, Creative Writing, Poetry
Art ( hey, you got one! ): Course - Art Appreciation ( really not a field at all, but a basic course category, as there aren’t a lot of academic “art appreciators” )
Music: Subdisciplines and course: Music Composition, ( Music Appreciation is again, not an academic field per se )
Philosophy ( you got another one ): Subdiscipline - Symbolic Logic
Your major academic disciplines largely aren’t. Women’s Studies is an interdisiplinary field. As such it is hard to define as easily as the above. However as it subsumes a diverse variety of topics I have no problem labeling it a “major academic discipline”, something I wouldn’t extend to vary narrowly designed area of focus like Linear Algebra.
Is requiring an introductory course offering in Women’s Studies more useful than requiring the student take Wave Motion? Abso-fucking-lutely. There is not even a question. Few people need to know anything about an esoteric field like Matrix Algebra. Whereas an introduction to gender studies, women’s literature, etc. would be useful for anybody to make them a more rounded human being.
Now a more appropriate question is, is requiring an introductory course in Women’s Studies more important than requiring an introductory course in the Physical Sciences? Absolutely not. Both are appropriate. However I doubt you’ll run across any college programs that jetisons a basic science requirement for the sake of a basic women’s studies requirement.
If I was writing up a set of academic requirements for a Bachelor’s degree, would I require a course in Women’s Studies to graduate? No. I would require at least one, possibly more courses in an interdisciplinary humanities field of choice, including women’s studies, ethnic studies, etc. . Such exposure is important for personal growth. However different curricula are tailored to meet the academic goals of a specific university. Requiring a women’s studies course at an all-women’s college seems pretty reasonable to me. If you don’t like it you can attend school somewhere else.
- Tamerlane
[Nitpicking hijack]1) Matrix algebra is a pre-requisite for intermediate statistics. Ergo, it’s not esoteric. (It is, however, a subset of linear algebra).
- Your list does not contain a single social science. (Interestingly, neither did December’s)
[/Nitpicking hijack]
My cousin’s daughter graduated from McAlister, a fine small college, with a major in English. She’s now selling bagels.
Would you require grammar?
flowbark: I was deliberately using december’s list and I stand corrected re: Matrix Algebra ( which no doubt I always just referred to as “algebra” ).
december: I would require freshman and sophmore level courses ( minimally ) in composition, which would include grammar, yes. Virtually all universities do.
As for MY imperfect grammar, I trust it is sufficient to at least very crudely get my point get my point across.
- Tamerlane
december- I think you missed my point. English Lit may not lead to a practical career for all, but just because a woman is majoring in it doesn’t mean she’s only at college to look for a husband, which is the implication of MRS.
Yeah, I did that deliberately. Riiiight.
Damn it.
- Tamerlane
I am not sure what you mean by “non-required” courses. My school does not offer underwater basket weaving. To the best of my knowledge, every course in our catalogue can be applied towards at least one of our basic graduation requirements. We get to pick which courses we want to take to fulfil those requirements. No particular course is “required” or “non-required”, but we must take a certain number of hours in each of the major fields of study recognized and offered by the school. For instance, we must all have one year of a foreign language, but we may choose the language ourselves. I do not believe this is a particularly unusual policy, and am rather surprised that I must explain it in such detail.
In terms of graduation requirements, with the exception of physical education, there is no major field of knowledge recognized and offered by my school that is treated as less important than women’s studies and several that are treated as more important in that they have a larger minimum required number of hours. In terms of full-time faculty and number of courses offered there are few departments that are not treated as more important than women’s studies, and that includes physical education.
The academic departments called “Women’s Studies” would more appropriately be called “Women’s Perspectives”. What you get when you take the courses offered there are not Studies of Women per se – indeed, Women as Subject Matter forms only a small part of Women’s Studies – so much as Studies, from the Woman’s Vantage Point.
It is in that light that I am saying that the traditional academic department created and developed by men tends (rather monolithically, although I’m sure there are exceptions) to exist as “Men’s Studies”.
As I said, there are certainly disciplines where that doesn’t make the faintest bit of difference (except perhaps in the informal areas like traditions and commonplace attitudes within the field)–neither microcytology nor calculus appear to suffer from curtailed vision or truncated subject matter as a result of being “Men’s Studies”, and the added perspectives generated by an influx of female cytologists and mathematicians has not constituted a feminist revolution in either area.
But in the areas I mentioned previously (to which others could add, easily enough), it has and does make a difference. The education you get from the conventional departments that teach these subjects is incomplete precisely because the perspectives of the discipline are observably male perspectives AND because in these areas a female perspective (particularly a female perspective sharpened by the premise that conventions about “women’s place” and the “masculinity” of the academy to begin with, i.e., a female perspective harmoniously attuned to equal rights on the basis of gender) has tended to result in different theory, different practice, different research interests, different research methodologies, different research topics, and so forth.
Does that constitute sufficient argument?
Thank you for responding, AHunter3. I now understand why you chose the words you used - however, I still think using the term “Men’s Studies” (or even “Men’s Perspectives”) to refer to traditional departments founded and developed by men is a misnomer.
Why do I think this? Because the perspectives of men as a group are not given in a typical course of any kind that I am aware of. Individual men have their perspective given if it is germane to the subject matter (say, Lincoln’s perspective of the Civil War in a history class), but men as a class are ignored.
On the other hand, the women’s studies classes that I’ve heard about (I have not taken any myself, but have conversed with a couple women studies majors on the subject) make it a point to focus on women as a class as well as individual women. Perhaps I am misunderstanding and women’s studies classes tend to focus on the perspective of individual women. If so, I am open to being corrected on this.
Regardless of whether all the perspectives given in a non-women’s studies class were male, the class was not about being male or anything even close to that. Perspectives were not given because they offered a diverse selection of male views and thoughts; they were given because they fit the subject matter and were deemed important to that subject matter. But in a women’s studies course women are the subject matter. Perspectives are chosen so that there is a diverse collection of women’s thoughts and views.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this. I’m just saying it’s a fundamental difference between a traditional course and a women’s studies course. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to call such a traditional course a “Men’s Studies” course.
If such courses had set out to show men’s perspectives and had made it a point to offer a diverse collection of men’s thoughts and views (not just the views of historically or scientifically important men), and perspectives on maleness itself, I would not have a problem with calling them Men’s Studies.
(By the way, my first post was too curt. There was no excuse for that. I could have asked the same question in a much better way. Sorry.)
I have some sympathy for AHunter’s position. It is entirely plausible, IMHO, that women as a group are more apt to ask certain questions that men may ignore. A discipline whose members belong to a single gender is likely to suffer from that deficiency.
For example, "Until relatively recently, most medical studies examining heart disease were conducted using male subjects. Because the incidence, timeline, symptoms, and survival of heart disease and its consequences is different in women, doctors and researchers questioned whether the results from these studies were truly applicable to women."
I would speculate that the all-male experimental design may have been a result of males thinking of themselves as the “typical” humans, though they make up only 49%? of the population.
Margie Profet is another example of a female scientist whose unique perspective was perhaps not entirely unrelated to her gender.