Letters to the Editor
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"Postmodern/ Poststructuralist studies - which have proven themselves to be an academic dead end"
What? Are you kidding?
You can't be serious.
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I'm kind of curious...
We're often told what a sexist "old boy's club" academia has been (and still is?). But from the early 70's until the mid-80s, something like a couple HUNDRED Women's Studies departments opened-up all throughout the sexist "old boy's club" of academia which, supposedly, is ever so hostile to women and constantly finding ways to oppress them.
That "old boy's club" must've been taking a good, long nap while all of those new WS departments were opening-up shop so quickly, eh? You'd imagine that Teh Oppressive Patriarchy would've put-up stiffer resistance.
Oh, and when is the Teh Oppressive Patriarchy going to stick the Broadsheet contributors into a concentration camp? You'd imagine they would have done that by now...
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Let me put it this way...
Have you ever heard ANYONE talk about postmodernism or poststructuralism outside of the academy or media criticism? In the real world, nobody gives a shit. THAT is a dead end.
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@ Grumpy Baby
I would just like to preface by saying that I find your flip non-responses quite amusing, and I think they prove my point.
>Really? women's labor force participation in the US is 60%. What are the jobs those women are doing? Do you think they're not solving "real" problems and supporting their families? And how are the two incompatible (talking about oppression, and having a job that solves "real" problems and supports your family)?
Good for you - so what are you complaining about in the first place?
Um, you saying "What problems do Western Men have? Easy. We're busy working on the world's real problems AND supporting our families while all you angry, spoiled Western women whine about how "oppressed" you are."
Guess you're wrong on that one.
>And your basis for saying this is...? Meh, I know it's unlikely you will answer that.
My basis for saying this is simple: Women's studies was pioneered by Western women - and the overwhelming focus of their research and scholarship is on the problems of Western women for the simple reason that they have better proximity and more access to data in the developed world.
(1) Women's studies was pioneered by Western women because Western women, even now, have the most access to academia, in terms of studying and leadership.
(2) Your second contention, that the overhwleming focus of their research and scholarship is on the problems of western women is just plain wrong, and shows that you're talking out of your ass.
>Here are some other questions you didn't answer:
>Are westerm men less spoiled than western women?
No. But we don't go around whining about how oppressed we are while simultaneously enjoying and trading on that privelege.
Let me rephrase: are western men more spoiled than western women, considering they don't face sexism?
>How is African-American culture a "foreign culture"?
It isn't. That's why I put the word "foreign" in quotes in my original post. I would have used "the other" but that sounded too damn pretentious. Your point is moot.
And how is women's experience not "the other"?
>What place of entitlement does Women's Studies come from?
Same one that you already conceded "spoiled" Western Men come from - the White, Western Middle Class.
Where did I concede that? And what does the white, western middle class have to do with entitlement and women's studies? could you elaborate?
>Is cancer research an inferior cause because most people who die in the world die of other diseases?
No. But interesting example - find a cure for cancer yet? LOL
How is that a response?
>So, just out of curiosity, if you were in charge, would you abolish, or severely curtail enrollment in, the following academic departments: Philosophy? English literature? Any kind of literature? Any kind of language (esp non spoken languages)? Art History? Drawing? History?
No. I would, however, stress reading skills - please note that in my original post I stressed Postmodern/ Poststructuralist studies - which have proven themselves to be an academic dead end, Just like women's studies.
No? Why not?
PS: Durian Joe - Do you always base such sweeping generalizations about people's personalities on their message board posts? How sad.
Says the man who wrote "We [men] are busy working on the world's real problems AND supporting our families while all you angry, spoiled Western women whine about how "oppressed" you are."" LOL
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@ BabyGrumpus
Let me put it this way...
Have you ever heard ANYONE talk about postmodernism or poststructuralism outside of the academy or media criticism? In the real world, nobody gives a shit. THAT is a dead end.
So, only things that people talk about "in the real world" are not dead ends? You are a fool.
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WS merely existing is not the real issue
"How so, other than with its mere existence, which seems to bother so many people?"
Poison ivy, as an existential object, does not bother me. When it settles in my yard and begins clogging its roots in the soil, competing for sunlight and ground space to the exclusion of my raspberry bushes, it bothers me.
As a former academic (that's where my particular diatribe came from; I can't speak for anyone else here), I've seen at the graduate/faculty level the motivations and pet projects of those defining themselves as "womens' studies" scholars first, historians second, versus those who see the order reversed. Pretty much, the first label tended to identify the methodology you considered important in research; if you were a historian with an interest in WS, you focused on topics affecting women (sweatshop labor, "Boston marriages", Abolition, etc) using research to solve a question and make a subject better known.
If you saw yourself as a WS person first, your entire method would be skewed. Critical analysis went out the window in favor of supporting a WS ideology. Scholarly review was a joke and highly politicized, even more than in other liberal disciplines, because the whole basis for WS to exist as a discipline is founded on politics. That's the basis for a political movement, and from the developments of the '60s through '80s, a valid and beneficial one. But it does not make for an academic discipline at taxpayers/endowment expense.
As to the poison ivy analogy: again, the resources used to fund a WS department are better spent on something that will actually help women, not tell them how to think. The women going to colleges now think very differently than the women of 1958 or 1968--even 1988. Using my daughter and her friends as a representative subset, they don't feel oppression in their daily lives. You doubt this? Look at some profiles on Facebook to look into their souls. At some point the problem is effectively solved, and that time might be now. The problem is that the WS academics have too much invested to end their cushy careers.