MODERN FEMINISM has become less of a representationof the scope of women’s beliefs and more of an opportunity for female liberals to decry the suburban woman’s plight from atop their comfortable, academic soapboxes. Sadly, the University’s women’s studies program follows this trend. After reviewing the course descriptions and syllabi of courses offered in the Studies in Women and Gender program as well as the politics course offered on feminism, it is clear that women’s studies programs at the University lack an essential element needed for serious academic pursuit: intellectual diversity.
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum, author of “Feminist Fantasies” and a woman who challenges many tenants of feminism, wrote in her March 2005 column that, “[feminists] seek to forbid any research that might produce facts they don’t want the public to know.” Schlafly, among others, adds diversity and challenges the monolithic agenda that has become modern feminism. She provides an alternative for women whose lives are simply not reflected in the agenda of main stream and radical feminism. That is, they do not find the breakdown of the traditional home as “progress” and, similarly, they do not hold abortion to be a constitutional right and subject to endless protection by the federal government. Yet, Schlafly is largely ignored, scoffed at or dismissed as a delusional woman espousing a justification for male patriarchy. She might be all these things, but in an academic pursuit in which she has had such an impact on politics, she can no longer be ignored.
Feminism, for those who have tried to figure it out, is a deeply confused ideology. In the SWAG course Feminist Theory and Methods, the course description posits that, “Feminist theory is a heterogeneous field with many theoretical frameworks and methodologies, emerging from various academic and political traditions.” Then again in the political theory course, Feminist Political Theory, the course description says, “Despite the frequency with which ‘feminism’ is invoked, reviled, or celebrated in public discourse, there is little agreement about what precisely it means.”
With these concessions in mind, the booklists became even more confusing. First, very few of these courses engaged texts with authors from less than 25 years ago. This is significant because it seems that modern feminism is attempting to moderate itself without truly questioning the fallout of radical authors like Shulamith Firestone and Andrea Dworkin. For example, Judith Lorber — an author studied in Gender and Sexuality in the Popular Media — has been characterized as a proponent of collapsing gender distinctions and making that the goal of feminism. Mary Shanley’s book, “Just Marriage,” which is used in Feminist Political Theory, examines the social context of marriage and attempts to explore a possible medium between traditional marriage and marriage based solely on contract. According to one reviewer, “â¦the more conservative views on marriage are not included in the commentaries.” Another author required in Feminist Political Theory, Gwendolyn Mink — a professor of women’s studies at Smith College — is an unabashed liberal feminist.In an interview with New Politics in the summer of 2001, Mink said, “Middle class white women’s revolt against compulsory reproduction, like their revolt against compulsory domesticity, is a crucial struggle along the way to gender equality.”The bias employed in women’s studies requires change.
It is interesting to note that one of the courses dedicated to feminist theory requires John Stuart Mill’s essay “On Liberty” while the other recommends it. This, at first, makessense. Though he is remembered largely for other contributions, Mill was an early and ardent advocate for women’s rights. At the same time it appears that feminists have forgotten that Mill was also an ardent advocate of intellectual diversity, consisting in a diversity of opinions and a celebration thereof. In “On Liberty” Mill states, “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”
An entire major dedicated to feminist theory and practice must at the very least defend itself from its critics. The program would, in fact, benefit greatly from introducing a class dedicated to feminist critique. Radical egalitarianism between the sexes is not a settled issue and to pretend that it is undermines the validity of feminist thought for the casual questioner and the thorough-going skeptic.
It is integrally important for the vitality of feminist thought at the University to remember that it does not currently represent the views of all women. Examining this, addressing the criticisms — especially from other women — and engaging in ideas that could potentially undermine its tenants would do the University’s women’s studies program a great deal of good. Women of the feminist movement, please open your minds.
Christa Bykeris a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.
Photo by Cavalier Daily Staff Photographer, Cavalier Daily Photo Staff