Outsiders within: Outsiders Without?

Author(s): Ann Froines

Source: The Women's Review of Books, Vol. 15, No. 5 (Feb., 1998), pp. 20-21
Published by: Old City Publishing, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4022855
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or 'daughters,' has been very confusing rather than in transformation or change.
for me and other women I know. It's partlyStill others need to uphold the existing
the paradoxes, such as that the 'home' de- power relations within their "home" de-
partment doesn't (for me, at least) seem partments in order to continue seeing

outsiders without?
much like a home.... On the other hand, women's studies-or another marginal
even though most of my intellectual and status-as a refuge from the "home." That
emotional network is in women's studies, ambivalence sets up the "home" vs. "re-
the family metaphors at work there are treat" opposition of the traditional depart-
by Ann Froines
equally damaging in the expectations for ment versus women's studies. In fact,
endless nurturing and accessibility that many women's studies programs have re-
they confer on women faculty." A chroniccently had to address what happens when T wenty-five years ago, when I became coordinator of a brand new
state of ambivalence is created when the the "retreat' itself becomes embattled and - women s studies program at the University of Massachusetts-
academy regards women's studies as the divisive, as we intemalize the demands
Boston, I never asked myself, "What will women's studies look like
Ladies' Auxiliary. and responsibilities of greater institution-
alization. in 25 years?" The question simply didn't occur to me, nor, if I may
H , _ oW DOES THIS AMBIVALENCE manifest hazard a guess, to most others of us working for women's studies
itself? The "real work" of the acad- A S LONG AS THE INSTITUTrION, our col-
programs. We were too busy developing strategies to obtain more re-
emy goes on, business-as-usual in leagues and often our students
traditional departments, and most women think that labor within women's sources, planning and teaching new courses, and promoting our vi-
faculty working within those departments studies is done out of "natural" care-giving sion of interdisciplinary women's studies to anyone who would lis-
must do two sorts of labor: the first, that or affinity, 1 see a great challenge in the in-
ten.
for which they are hired, promoted and re- stitutionalization of women's studies. In-
warded; the second they are told-that structors are not going to relinquish It is a measure of our growth and ma- tion between transformation approaches
which they do out of their commitmentwomen's
or studies work any more than rec- turity as a field, and our institutionaliza- and developing distinct women's studies
interest. And so they perform the domestic
ognition of the second shift-in Hoch- tion in higher education, that today, as we
programs. In effect, the debate dissolved
work of academe-the nurturing, sustain- schild's model-will compel women to celebrate our 20th or 25th anniversaries, into a challenge to institutionalize and co-
ing, fostering of students, a labor made stop caring for their families. But how we
canare asking, "Where will women's stud- ordinate both approaches to creating the
" natural" because of their interest in fur- we use our ambivalence and exhaustion to ies be in another generation?" new field.
thering a women's studies agenda. Their effect a revival of women's studies resis- Now that many of the students I teach Judith Allen argues persuasively that
committee work and administrative ap- tance within the academy. are younger than my daughter, I have women's studies programs are not autono-
pointments cover the business of the aca- One way to confront our collective am- reached a point of confrontation with my mous enough, are too dependent on the
demic world; their ostensibly naturalized bivalence is to protest more forcefully to own identity as a first-generation women's good will of other departments and often
care-giving is, they are told, their pleasure the institution about the unpaid labor of studies activist. Conversations with col- have their scholarly and curricular author-
to do or, they tell themselves, their women's studies work. While women's leagues confirm that many of us in my ageity questioned within the institution. By
duty-as feminists-to uphold. The sec- cohort are exploring the significance of
studies is itself a field of study and a meth- 1997, forty percent of existing programs
ond shift then winds up hurting women's generational changes, both in women's
odology, it is also a resource for students were offering majors leading to the BA,
studies faculty's "home" careers while studies as a field and in our students.
who come to us for personal as well as aca- BS or other undergraduate degree, but
what Hochschild terms the "smooth demic counseling on abortion, sexual as- Discussions of the "state" of women's only a handful of these programs are, or
choicelessness" of many male faculty and sault and harassment, or career matters, in studies are appearing more frequently in function like, autonomous departments,
administrators allows them to neglect any- addition to the daily work of educational journals like Women's Studies Quarterly with tenured and tenure-track faculty. Be-
thing but what they see as "their own advising that often gets short shrift in tra- and NWSA Journal. This is a very good cause women's studies curricula are so de-
work," most often research. ditional departments, especially for trend, representing a more formal and sys-
pendent on the teaching of other faculty
Evidence of this professorial ambiva- women students. While this may not be tematic approach to taking stock of our who have to answer to their own depart-
lence and conflict shows up in unusual our province or our training, students do growth and development, in contrast to the
ments, our programs remain vulnerable to
places. When I became associate chair of expect more from women's studies fac- casual sharing of information in confer- both political attacks (the "backlash") and
women's studies at the University of Wis- ulty, and many women faculty do act altru-ence sessions, or between individual pro- institutional downtums, Allen argues. (To
consin and then director of the women's istically in mentoring and advising. This gram directors. Women's studies institu- some extent, all liberal arts departments
studies research center, I found the follow- often unrecognized and unremunerated tions do have a history of some systematic are vulnerable to these changes in the ex-
ing internal memo to new administrators atpart of our labor must be logged, made ex-data collection, however. Since the 1970s temal environment. The next ten years
the end of a memo: "If you ever did any rat plicit and counted as part of merit and pro-
various Feminist Press publications, in- might show us whether women's studies is
psych you' 11 do okay. But this time you're motion advancements. cluding Women's Studies Quarterly, have more vulnerable or more resistant than we
the rat and there's no pellet of food at the Because women's studies instructors compiled useful information. During currently think.)
end." are often stretched to the limits of their 1997-1998, the National Women's Studies With a few exceptions, the intellectual
This is resistance to-or at least recog- abilities and plagued by fatigue from their Association, in cooperation with the Uni- and administrative marginality of
nition of-the ambivalent state of institu- extra shifis, they might be tempted to letversity of Illinois at Urbana, is developing women's studies has not diminished no-
tional bureaucracies, but where does this reeducating the academy slide, hoping that a single database with information on ticeably. At UMass-Boston a few years
ambivalence go? Another feminist scholar students and colleagues will understand
women's studies programs, degree op- back, a part-time faculty member teaching
I know from the Southwest skips every the sacrifice involved in doing both jobs.
tions, courses and faculty. a history course titled "Women in Social
third English department meeting, if only Most often, students and colleagues don't; In a retrospective issue of Women's Movements" was admonished by the his-
to show the effect of her absence, a strat- rather than understanding, there is resent- Studies Quarterly (Spring/Summer 1997), tory department chairman to teach about
egy that Hochschild accounts for as the ment-on both sides. While the piece of which reprints articles from its twenty- the anti-abortion movement as well as the
"willed illness." Others find their strength
the academic pie allotted to women's stud- some years of publication, Judith A. Allen, reproductive rights movement, in the in-
in opposition to the "home" department ies becomes smaller and smaller, women' s Director of Gender Studies at the Univer- terest of "balance." (At the time, the de-
studies faculty cannot do more of the sec- sity of Indiana, has a provocative, partment had nineteen full-time men and
ond shift for less. As one of my most ac- forward-looking essay on the challenges two full-time women, and had largely ig-
complished women' s studies colleagues, of institutional adaptation facing the field. nored or resisted the new scholarship on
Susan Stanford Friedman, writes, "In try- Some of the themes raised in this impor- women and gender.) The original course
ing to cover so much, the women's studies tant essay provide a framework for the ob- proposal for "Women in Social Move-
teacher or student self-destructs, a super- servations I want to make here. ments," created by a founder of the
woman bumned to a crisp by impossible de- women's studies program in the 1970s,
mands." T nHE FIRST MAJOR DEBATE about the in- didn't include a variety of move-
Whichever metaphor one uses-the stitutionalization of women's stud- ments-radical to conservative, feminist
shrinking pie or the bumn-out in professo- ies focused on autonomy versus in- to anti-feminist-but focused specifically
rial lives-the response should not be si-
tegration. But from the practitioners' point on progressive social movements. The
lently accepting the double load, but nego-
of view it turned out to be no debate at all. chairperson apparently felt that the
tiating the insatiable needs of the academy If our goal was to transform the entire cur- women's studies-affiliated faculty mem-
with the most pressing ones of women 's riculum, the integration side argued, it ber didn't have sufficient authority to de-
studies. In the long run, in an academic would be dangerous to allow women' s fine the boundaries of her own course. As
culture that still clings to its patriarchal studies to develop into a "feminist ghetto."
the NWSA's 1991 report, "Liberal Leamn-
origins yet professes to want to create In practice, however, autonomous pro- ing and the Women's Studies Major," also
equal citizens of us all, women studies grams, or even departments, with a central points out, our field still has to rearticulate

RADICAL TEACHER alone can't fix the dysfunction. It should core of interdisciplinary courses could its goals, its domain of scholarship, its
A socialist femiiuist magazine tliat come as no surprise that the next genera- hardly become ghettoes, since most of the very rationale, each time programs request
exp)lores tihe politics of Icachling in
tion of academics will simply repeat this courses taught still drew upon interested faculty lines or other resources.
publ)liC schlools, comiununiity colleges,
umniversitivs andl otlicr settiiigs.
ambivalent academic "family" structure as faculty from a variety of traditional Some women's studies scholars have
Suibseription rates (3 issties): permanently disgruntled labor-unless (mostly liberal arts) departments. Curricu- argued that our institutional marginality
$6.(>(> 1Parl time. UJnemployved; $10.0() Regitaru:
the academy sees it in its best interest to lum transformation projects, usually has followed, in part, from our own defini-
15(X) linstittitions, limradies; $35.00 Slstaillining.
lR.adicil leiter, 1'0. Box 102. Cambridge, confront the inequities of the second shift- funded by outside grants, have frequently tions of our field or discipline. In a Sum-
MA (>2142
ing of women's studies work. been led by faculty who see no contradic- mer 1992 Signs article, Alice Kessler-

2 The Women's Review of Books / Vol. XV, No. 5 1 February 1998

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 Harris (citing the work of Patricia Hill ies courses on the first day of class. Yet Employment Sectors," to appreciate the
Collins) assesses the "outsider within" these same young women take our courses,
structural sources of conflict between
perspective feminist scholars take with re-
CI suspect that many even major in women's studies, perhaps in black and white professional women
spect to the traditional disciplines, observ- women' s studies practitioners greater numbers than do self-identified (Women of Color in US. Society, edited by
ing that "The institutional parallel to the feminists. Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton
outsider within perspective is the outsider
have often felt more effective in
While I don't expect to give up my Dill, Temple University Press, 1994).
status of women's studies within an insti- the work of institutionalization feminist goals for women's studies, I do Our students are also expected to de-
tution that has its own rules and regula- have to remind myself that for student- velop knowledge, skill and attitude leam-
tions." She wonders whether women's
than in the work of connection
centered teaching to be effective, I must ing objectives; for each of these categories
studies programs' collective, more demo- with the women's movement, have a good understanding of my students' we explore what characteristics make an
cratic practices have undermined our viewpoints and needs. I am trying to listen effective advocate or leader. We've hoped
credibility in hierarchically organized in-
even as we have stated a com-
to their voices rather than lament the fact that women's studies graduates will be
stitutions, and she attributes some difficul- mitment to this latter goal.99 that they are not like my generation. After women who try to "make a difference"
ties to the challenges of maintaining a dou- all, how could they be? wherever they are working, when they are
ble identity as both "activist-based" and Our students at UMass-Boston. for ex- raising children, when they interact, or in-
"institutionally located." Institutional con- position possible. A lot of people have ample, are very concemed about the in- tervene, in discriminatory settings. Why
straints, such as the need to teach large continued to see us as marginal, a very few
creasing costs of their education. Our not make these goals more explicit in our
sections, may clash with our transforma- have actively tried to undermine us, but classrooms
we contain a very diverse groupteaching,
of and then develop readings and
tive pedagogical goals, for example. Or have done our best to adapt to those chal- women students, a minority of whom iden- assignments that emphasize how women
the pressure to act more like conventionallenges. How many other women's studies tify as feminists, but almost all of whom have been and can be advocates, leaders
departments may weaken our commit- faculty directors feel this way? have a vocational purpose in seeking a BA and change agents?
ments to interdisciplinary and multicul- I suspect that many women's studies degree. A significant percentage of them In our curriculum, for example, courses
tural perspectives. practitioners, whatever their New Left, are relatively recent immigrants or interna- about media, women writers, Native
Judith Allen makes a good case for civil rights, antiwar, or women's liberation tional students-a growing trend. Many American women, or public policy that in-
adopting strategies strengthening women's
movement origins, and however fervently liberal arts majors feel uneasy or apolo- clude the theme of women's leadership
studies' position within the academy by they endorse a connection with the getic about their lack of specific career could have assignments which focus ex-
abandoning the formulation that women's women's movement, have often felt more goals; others are pursuing certificates, in plicitly on the abilities that constitute lead-
studies is the "academic arm of the women'seffective in the work of institutionalization
addition to their majors, in areas like Ad- ership. A media course can emphasize
movement," with its primary loyalties to than in the work of connection with the diction Counseling, Criminal Justice, or written and oral communication skills; a
women or groups outside the "corrupt" women' s movement, even as we have Gerontology, because they have a particu- public policy course can analyze the ele-
academy. Instead, she argues, women's stated a commitment to this latter goal. lar
I interest or see a vocational opportunity ments of persuasive position papers or suc-
studies' academic activities are a crucial know I have. there. cessful legislative advocacy.
form of cultural politics, and women's stud- Allen is convinced that we could have My students ask me: What can I do with Women's studies curricula can edu-
ies practitioners must take seriously our done a lot more if we had focused more ex- women's studies? How will women's stud- cate students in the skills and abilities that
working contexts--institutions of higher clusively on institutional demands, ratheries help me find meaningful employment? employers find lacking in so many col-
education. Her provocative argument that than try to maintain the dual identity of Even as I defend the value of a liberal arts lege graduates: communication skills, the
women's studies ought to become more like academic and activist. Maybe she's right. education, I no longer find it enough to say ability to deal with conflict and diversity,
other academic disciplines in structure, in Feminist movement ideology may have that they can do with women's studies what- initiative, persistence-in short, leader-
developing its professional organizations, put an unconscious brake on working to- ever they can do with other liberal arts ma- ship. Leadership institutes for women
and in creating national standards for schol- ward institutionalization. But the per- jors, or that the personal benefits of under-have begun springing up at small colleges
arship and curniculum, will, I hope, generateceived fragility of women's studies pro- standing how power relationships function and large universities; Rutgers University
helpful rather than acrimonious discussions. grams is not, in my view, the result of a in society and culture are immeasurable, and and Agnes Scott College in Georgia are
(conscious or unconscious) attempt to required in all settings. two examples. We can recommend these
A LLEN POSES THE QUESTION: What is maintain an "outsider within" stance, or toCan we transform and strengthen our to our majors, but for many the cost or
the particular "domain" of connect with the women's movement out-
undergraduate women's studies curricula time will be prohibitive. Instead, pro-
women's studies scholars' exper- side of academia. The diversity in size, so that they contain more explicit and co- grams could draw on the curricula of lead-
tise? More eloquent writers than I have configuration and authority is understand- herent elements of feminist pre- ership institutes to add an explicit leader-
been addressing this question for two dec-able given the great diversity of institu- professional and leadership training, ship development component to the
ades. I want to argue that regardless of tions in higher education in the United within the context of (mostly) liberal arts women's studies major. Couldn't this de-
how we conceptualize the relationship ofStates. My educated guess is that our field courses? In some minor ways our pro- velopment of leadership capabilities in
academic women's studies to the women's has grown haphazardly because faculty, gram and many others are already doing women be seen as one part of our domain
movement, one part of our domain of ex- staff and student founders took advantagethis. We require our majors to take a six- of expertise, as one way to materialize our
pertise has to be feminism, both the topic of structural and political opportunities as credit Internship Seminar in which they commitment to feminism, in teaching and
and the perspectives. If feminism is a cen- they presented themselves. Institutional learn to apply feminist analyses of, for ex- research, even as feminism changes over
tral topic, then women's studies practitio- factors-resource availability, or presi- ample, public policies, advocacy organi- time in ways we might not have antici-
ners who identify with feminism need to dential support, or simply numbers of zations, or the labor market to problems in pated?
maintain and renew connections with the feminist faculty-rather than the limita-their workplaces. This is not intended to be a prescription
women' s movement, to continue to view tions of feminist ideology, have shaped For example, Stephanie Riger's "Chal- for everyone teaching women's studies;
ourselves, in some sense, as the "intellec- program development. lenges of Success: Stages of Growth in instead, I see it as one element that can be
tual arm" of the women's movement. Feminist Organizations" (Feminist Studies
added to our discussions about where we
1 first argued this in a piece published S
inTUDENT SATISFACTION IS ALSO a meas- 20 [1994]) helped one student understand are going in the next 25 years. But the suc-
the WSQ in 1982 (and reprinted in the ure of the institutional strength of
the discontents at a local battered women' s cessful institutionalization of women' s
same anniversary edition as Allen's arti- our programs. Women's studies has shelter where she was an intern. Another studies ultimately rests as much on our
dle). One thing 1 had in mind then was been
that a leading force for effective, student-student, working at the Massachusetts ability to inspire students to develop their
our research agendas ought to be inspired centered teaching. At the same time, we,Commission Against Discrimination, used capabilities for achievement as it does on
in part by the needs of women's organiza- like other liberal arts fields, face questionsElizabeth Higginbotham's study, "Black professional recognition and authority in
tions and the status of women in society; from students about the relevance or sig-
Professional Women: Job Ceilings and the world of academe. .0
another objective 1 saw as important to the
nificance of a liberal arts education. In the
"'radical vision" of women's studies was
1980s, we assumed that our students
remaining activist on campus, in concert wanted to evaluate their own experi-
with groups and programs with common ences-in families, in educational sys-
experiences of dilscrimination and invisi-
tems, in the workplace-in terms of femi-
bility. nist conceptual frameworks provided by
Today "radicalism" seems like a vague the instructor, by the structure of the sylla-
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY
and outmoded 1960s and 1970s term, no bus and the selection of readings and as- New York University invites applications for Director of its new Center for the
longer very useful or appropriate for those signrnents. But is this what students today Study of gender & sexuality. Applicants should be distinguished scholars with
of us who have been working as profes- actively seek or appreciate when they en- proven leadership abilities in the fields of gender studies, gay and lesbian studies,
sionals w ith in institution s for s everal deter
c- the women's studies classroom?
or queer or feminist theory. We are interested in a full range of scholarship,
including work focused on race, class, and cross-cultural or international
ades. I still thinkc it is possible for women's
I recognize that it is a somewhat tenu-
perspectives; the successful applicant will be tenured in an appropriate academic
studies to have a radical vision of change, ous business to generalize about "expecta-
department. The Director's responsibilities will include founding the NYU Center
both inside and outside the university; tions." Yet we do it as we attempt to under- for the Study of gender & sexuality, overseeing existing academic programs, and
what I have acknowledged for some time
stand how the changing society affects our recruiting additional faculty to build a major institution for scholarship, teaching,
now, however, is that the work 1 havestudents.
done Many young women now in their and intellectual creativity. Send letter of application, c.v., and names and
in my program over the last two decades twenties do not identiify themselves to addresses of three referees to Gender and Sexuality Search, Dean's Office,
has been directed more toward strengthen- their peers as feminists, even if they do Faculty of Arts & Science, New York University, 5 Washington Square
ing its institutional basis than toward sympathize with many of the goals of or- North, New York, NY 10003. The selection process will begin February 15, 1998,
maintaining formal connections with the ganized feminism. National polls and but applications will be accepted until the position is filled.
organizations that make up our women' s countless magazine articles attest to this,
NYU encourages applications from women and members of minority groups.
movement. We wanted to sit at the univer- as do the inform al pol ls we instructors of-
sity's table and bargain from the strongest ten take in our introductory women's stud-

The Women's Review of Books / Vol. XV, No. 5 / February 1998 2

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