Is there an
adequate conception of the variety of feminisms or is there a
hegemonic party line?
What have we
learned through the "difficult dialogues" generated by feminists of
color and others committed to transforming women's studies?
What should
the relationship be between women's studies and the new initiatives
on campus sparked by multiculturalism and cultural diversity
imperatives?
What new
directions can be gleaned from disciplines resistant to women's
studies in its earlier phases?
Have the
needs of students changed in this so-called "post-feminist"
generation?
How do we
attract more students of color, including males, to women's
studies?
What have we
learned from our failures in this regard over the past two
decades?
What is the
impact of women's studies on graduate and professional training?
Should we be more concerned about the training of public school
teachers?
How can
foundations continue to be supportive of women's studies as it
enters its mature phase?
In order to
capture the richness and the impressive range and size of this
ever-expanding new interdisciplinary field, I have included
voluminous footnotes that are intended to be used as a resource for
further analysis. I want to acknowledge and record the
extraordinary work generated mostly by women scholars over a
relatively brief, 25-year period. My decision to include what is
essentially a supplementary narrative in this document is a way of
remembering those texts and events that ushered in a new field and
helped to produce a new generation of scholars. It is important to
remember that, although feminist scholarship has had a profound
impact on liberal arts education, women's studies scholars were not
welcomed in the early years. Many were denied tenure, and their
work was devalued and labeled polemical and faddist. The struggle
for recognition and legitimacy required courage, boldness,
risk-taking, and tenacity. I also wanted to underscore that many
voices, some of which have gone unacknowledged, are significant in
the narrative history of the development of women's studies and
that it was time to write a different text.
It is also
important that the reader know that this report is shaped as well
by my own personal history and social location. I am an
African-