Originally Posted by
Method Man
Often times, people make unsubstantiated, unfair assumptions about disciplines like women's studies without even taking the time to so much as engage the literature. It's sad, really, and there's no need to hypothesize about why this is so, whether a result of fear, arrogance, insecurity, or otherwise, the end result is a lack of understanding and, truth be told, we're enriched whenever we broaden and challenge ourselves. This post will, hopefully, present an opportunity to problematize some of those assumptions - and to challenge people to explore women's studies and feminist perspectives for themselves.
The illusion of modernist objectivity maintains all the currency of a geocentric universe. Today, many practitioners realize that all of our scientific endeavors represent specific, rather than universal, traditions and feminist perspectives have proven tremendously influential in this regard. I'd recommend checking out some of Dr. Donna Haraway's work, especially Simians, Cyborgs, and Women and Primate Visions. She's been highly influential in the field of women's studies, but her background includes a Ph.D. in biology from Yale. She discusses how scientists transpose their biases upon their studies and, thus, their subjects, citing, as an example, Robert Yerkes' famous study of masculinity and femininity in chimpanzees. It's of critical importance to unveil the latent biases that have become so interwoven within various "objective" disciplines, as well as within various cultures, if we are to achieve any progress with respect to gender/sexual equality or, more broadly, social justice.
Now, Haraway's work may be a bit daunting for those without a solid grounding in biology, but I still consider it a great place to start for those interested in the intersections between women's studies and the physical sciences. (though, of course, physical and social overlap when you get in to fields like primatology.) While it may not be the most immediately accessible work in the world, unfortunately women's studies scholars and, too often, women in general find themselves placed in a double bind situation. If their work is not dense and technical, it's considered insubstantial and devoid of intellectual or methodological rigor. If their work is "too" complex, then they're faulted for being out of touch, too specialized, beholden to the ivory tower. It is, however, an excellent example of work in the women's studies rubric that defies stereotype, challenges attempts to marginalize women's studies as somehow "lesser" academic work.
It's sad that people continue to assail upon fields like women's studies. Our conception of society as a whole improves as we analyze it from a wider variety of perspectives, just as one cannot gain a complete view of a building by leafing through photographs taken from a single vantage point. Every discipline has something unique to offer the world. For years, economics and psychology were considered "soft" disciplines, but the world needs more than just biologists, engineers, and so on. Fields are, often, resistant to the neat conceptual boxes people attempt to shoehorn them into. There are countless areas of overlap and intersection, like Implicit Analysis Tests someone mentioned earlier in this thread, for example, that combine elements from fields like psychology, sociology, computer science, statistics, women's studies, african american studies, and so on. There's much to be gained from syntheses like this, and combining qualitative and quantitative reasoning is hardly a rarity in this day and age. Yes, some individuals or even academic departments attempt to segregate themselves - but often those with an interest in practicality and real world applications can scarcely afford to resist interdisciplinary approaches. The world is simply too complex to engage otherwise.
Just today, I made the comment that some of our employees "manned up," to which she corrected me, they "womaned up." (The people in question were 2 women and a gay man). It is these kind of comments that infuriate me. Maybe the curriculum of their school just touches on certain subjects, but I just feel like they've taken all of these courses, and learned nothing from them. I don't know if the school is to blame, (it's a Cal State), or they are just too dense to absorb the subject matter and truly understand, but I refuse to believe that standing up for the ability to correct someone over a
stupid phrase so the word woman is included is what they learned in their women's studies courses.
Thank you for your input, I just wish I could meet more of these women (and men) that you speak of, who actually have a desire to learn and understand what women's studies has to offer, instead of coming away with a man hating attitude.
