Black Women's Studies

Two of the most significant reforms in U.S. higher education with respect to diversity over the past several decades have come as a result of the Black studies and women's studies movements. Advocates of both movements have argued that the typical college curriculum is based on a worldview that is largely Eurocentric and does not reflect the fact that people of color make up more than half the world's population and that about half the world's population is female. Less well known but also important has been the development of a relatively new field of study—Black women's studies—that emerged in the late 1970s in part because of the failure of both Black and women's studies to adequately address the unique experiences of Black women in ...