Whither or Wither Feminisms?

Abstract

516 Forum:WjG/S Studies Notes Bonnie Zimmerman, "Beyond Dualisms: Some Thoughts about the Future of Women's Studies," in Women's Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics, eds. Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Agatha Beins (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 31-39. The association did ultimately change its name and is now Women's and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes (WGSRF). See Layli [Phillips] Maparyan, "Feminism," in Rethinking Women's and Gender Studies, eds. Catherine M. Orr, Ann Braithwaite, and Diane Lichtenstein (New York: Routledge, 2012), 17-33; Janet Halley, Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); and Robyn Wiegman, "Dear Ian" [A Response to Janet Halley], Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy 11, no. 7 (Spring 2004), 93-120. Whitheror WitherFeminisms? Sharra L. Vostral As a feminist scholar of science and technology, I often interrogate gendered metaphors found in the description of scientific processes. Although "whither" refers to "what place," I also think of its homo phone "wither" to describe a plant, for instance, when it becomes dry and shriveled. It might seem unusual to use botanical metaphors in describing feminism in the institution of higher education, but it is a useful exercise. Fortunately, there have not been institutional pressures to disband gender and women's studies at my institution, and threats of administrative mergers have come and gone, but I am mindful of these developments that level stressors on departmental well-being. FeministStudies39, no. 2. © 2013 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Forum:W/G/SStudies 517 At the University of Illinois, feminism has not withered, but whether or not it remains pertinent to students is another question. Feminism has propagated throughout the university, but the tangled growth of gender and queer studies reveals some of its shortcomings. I currently hold a joint position as associate professor of gender and women's studies (GWS) and history, and I spent two and a half years serving as the chair of the GWS curriculum committee, charged with revising the undergraduate major, minor, the LGBT/Q (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/queer) minor, the graduate minor in GWS, as well as proposing the new queer studies graduate minor. This over haul has been no small feat and has revealed synergies, cleavages, and the changing face of feminisms on the University of Illinois campus. Courses on "women," it turns out, are prevalent. Across the humanities and social sciences, most departments have at least one or two (and sometimes more) courses with "women" in the title. I have sat on plenty of university-wide committees where the female chem ists are committed to a woman-focused version of feminism and hap pily support "women" as a category. I call this the feminist-stolon approach; like strawberry plants that shoot out runners to propagate, the idea that women should be represented in positions of power, in course offerings, and as campus leaders is obvious. The propagation of feminism in terms of equality has been successful and, for the GWS department, perhaps too much so. In the early days when the GWS program at Illinois was founded, the best way to ensure the availability of courses was to have them taught through long-standing, disciplinary-grounded departments. While this approach guaranteed course offerings and kept the pro gram viable, it held serious shortcomings for future departmental independence and growth, especially for new faculty jointly appointed to GWS. In essence, the program outsourced so many classes to other departments that managed their scheduling, staffing,and enrollments, that GWS could neither control some of the required course offerings nor claim women as a unique subject of inquiry and research. This is rather ironic considering the important institutional politics of sup porting such a program. The stolons dispersing course content about women stripped the department of gender and women's studies from an exclusive claim on the subject and other approaches, namely cri tiques of gender, took firm root. 5i8 Forum:WjGjS Studies This is not to say that courses on gender are exclusive to GWS, either. English, history, and — depending upon which professor is teaching the course—sociology, communication, and ethnic studies programs at the...