Feminist and Women’s Studies

In the 1960s and 1970s, feminist and women’s studies, like ethnic studies, emerged in institutions of higher education as a result of large-scale feminist and other social movements, the rise of women and people of color within colleges and universities, and organizing by student, staff, faculty, and community advocates who demanded new liberatory and decolonial learning, teaching, and research opportunities. Feminist scholars and instructors began to challenge male-dominant curriculum by offering women’s studies classes (e.g., women’s history, women’s literature) featuring women as the objects and subjects of study. Advocates understood that producing, centering, and teaching knowledge about and by women were urgent to prevent women’s experiences, labors, and knowledge from remaining invisible in academia. Intense organizing, pressure on higher education administrations, and voluntary service by ...