Tell Us What You Think!!

1/17/2012

Ok everyone, now's the time! For the next six weeks--until Friday, February 24--we're opening up this blog to comments about the following proposal... Should CWSA/ACEF contemplate changing the name of the association? If so, to what? And why? Please read the following (it's a copy of what we sent you all a short while ago/towards the end of last semester) and let us know your thoughts. Feel free to comment on a little, a lot, some sections, only one question... your call! On February 24th, we'll close the blog and start looking through all the responses. Our intent is to distill what we get here into some recommendations, and then bring those to a special session at the annual conference in late May (at Wilfrid Laurier University/University of Waterloo), before bringing a motion to the AGM at the conference. So join in this conversation! Post as often as you like... and let's get this conversation going!!

Here's the rationale to begin your thinking...

The Canadian Women’s Studies Association/l’association canadienne des études sur les femmes is beginning the process of re-examining the name of the association. At a time when many of our own programs and departments are also undertaking such discussions and/or changing their names, and when several members have approached the executive on this topic, we feel that it is time for the association to also engage in this conversation.

We know, as you all do too, that there are many reasons given for why Women’s Studies in so many locations has begun this process of re-naming itself. We all have institutionally specific pressures and agendas, in addition to our own senses of the intellectual scope of the field and its changes over the past 40 years, that inform our many and different discussions. In these discussions, we ask ourselves what we want to convey through the name of both our own programs and departments, and the field more generally, and what we think we will accomplish with and through those other names. Additionally, we often frame our discussions differently depending on who our audience for them is (ourselves, administrators, colleagues across campus, students, broader community members, etc.).

As the executive of the national professional association of practitioners of this field, we want to let all of these local discussions inform this broader one about the association’s name. Thus, we are proposing some questions for people to consider in their comments and suggestions (note that these are only suggestions, and you are of course free to make additional comments!).

What is the purpose of the name of the association? Should it simply reflect the name used in the majority of programs and departments in Canada, or should it attempt to frame the field’s scope, breadth, depth, focus, emphases, etc., in some way?
If the answer to the question above is the latter option, how would it do that? Should a name attempt to be descriptive of everything that goes on in the field in its many and various incarnations across Canada’s many and different educational institutions? What other considerations might be/should be part of the discussion around the association’s name in particular?
Finally, should the association stop after reaching some decision about a name change? Or is it time for the association to also take on more of a leadership role in engaging the “Women’s Studies” (by any other name) community in Canada on other intellectual issues central to this academic field—i.e., its breadth and scope, its language and terminology, its connection to other theoretical languages and approaches, etc.? And if so, do you have suggestions for how the association should go about this process?

We look forward to having this discussion with you all—and to our collective thinking about the future of this association! Post your responses, ideas, thoughts, rants.... in the comment below.

Ann Braithwaite

1/17/2012 07:54:15 am

I'm really looking forward to this conversation! It's one many of us have had or are having right now in our own institutional locations... It will be really interesting to see how we all think about this question about a somewhat different context than our own programs and departments... and come together to think about what we want to say about ourselves/how we want to represent ourselves as a national association!

Jen Marchbank

2/7/2012 05:20:46 am

Several years ago the UK and Ireland body (the Women's Studies Network) renamed itself as the Feminist and Women's Studies Association of UK & Ireland. Several factors were involed - including a squeeze on funds for faculty to attend conferences that heads of depts couldn't immediately see as related to their work. Many feminists working in sociology, history etc were having this issue. Secondly, the name change also reflected the demise of Women's Studies undergraduate programs in that gender and feminism were being integrated within disciplines.

Given what we teach and research as a group I am wondering if a broader name is required, one that reflects our foci on gender, sexuality, identity, masculinities, femininities etc. However, I would wish a name that recognises where we come from as well as where we are going. Women's Studies may sound very 1970/80s but without that history we wouldn't be where we are today and we should acknowledge that in any name change. Here at SFU the name we went with is Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies.

I'm not advocating any specific point here just putting some ideas out for debate

Amber Dean

2/20/2012 11:22:06 pm

I support and encourage a name change for many of the reasons outlined in Jen's comments above: women's studies on its own no longer accurately reflects what I actually do. At McMaster we named our new graduate program "Gender Studies and Feminist Research." I do like the idea of keeping "women" in the name somewhere, however, to reference the history of the field (as well as continue to reflect/represent those who still find "women's studies" a useful descriptor for their work). York is going with "Gender, Feminist and Women's Studies" for their grad program, which I quite like. I would prefer to see both "gender" and "feminist" in the new name, and I'd like to see more conversation on "sexuality" - while I can see the value of including that, too, I know there has been some conversation of late about reviving the old Gay and Lesbian Studies Association into something like the "Canadian Queer Studies Association," although most of an initial meeting to see about the feasibility of this was spent discussing the problems with devising a name (currently, LGBTQI2 Working Group is on the table). T.L Cowan (USask/New School) and Elise Chenier (SFU) organized this initial meeting, at the We Demand conference in Vancouver in Aug 2011. I mention all this because if CWSA was thinking of developing a new name that encompassed sexuality in some way, it might be a good idea to be in touch with this other group.

Lara Campbell

2/21/2012 03:42:47 am

As Jen mentioned above, at SFU we changed from Women's Studies to Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. Overall, I think the name change has gone well, and has been welcomed by students (as well as by associate faculty who may not do work on 'women' per se, but do in fact work on feminist issues, gender, masculinities, sexuality). A broader name does draw in many more people into the 'orbit' of the discipline, and helps reflect the board diversity of work being done in any number of fields. I would love for the CWSA to think about including sexuality in the title if at all possible.

Mary Bunch

2/21/2012 06:06:05 am

I would like to support to the inclusion of the terms 'sexuality,' 'gender' and 'feminist' in the new name. For me, retaining 'women's studies' is not of primary importance. I don't think we are likely to forget our roots - which can always recognize in our vision statements, history and goals. And it is a testament to the work done under the title of women's studies that it has succeeded to the extent that we are including critical studies of masculinity and femininity, and questioning the male/female binary as the framing structure of our social world and our scholarship. For me, 'woman' carries a certain amount of baggage that is tied to the sex binary and 'woman' as it is narrowly, biologically conceived. If it is really important to people, I am willing to march under this banner, but only if, (as Judith Butler said about 'lesbian') the meaning of 'woman' remains open to contestation and transformation. That said, I do believe it is important to recognize that the the 'work' of women's studies is far from over...women (both cisgender and trans) still experience a higher risk of violence and various inequities. But is this not covered by both 'gender' and 'feminist?'

Helen Hoy

2/21/2012 12:01:41 pm

I'd love to see us using the word "Feminist," something not all academic units can afford to do for fear of alienating/narrowing before the education begins. But at this level . . . why not?

Anne Forrest

2/21/2012 08:56:12 pm

I am drawn into this conversations about the name change for CWSA because I suspect that the program at Windsor will continue to be called Women's Studies for the foreseeable future. My preference, therefore, is for us to select a name that continues to reference women, notwithstanding its intellectual and practical limitations. It seems to me that every academic discipline has a name that is burdened in some respect, however, that has not led to its abandonment. Moreover, women as both identity and analytical category continues to be relevant, locally and globally.

I fully support the addition of feminism to the association's title. To me, this captures what we do and it helps put the word women into context. Adding feminist also draws attention to the wider group of scholars who work outside of women/ gender studies programs. My hope is that we can attract more of these academics to our conferences. Many will likely see CWSA (however renamed) as a secondary academic location because their careers are built in the academic disciplines to which they are appointed, yet, they may appreciate the intellectual and collegial value of a conference that embraces their feminist scholarship whole-heartedly.

My third comment is about the inclusion of the term sexuality in the new name. I have serious reservations about this extension, which would appear to give prominence to the study of sexuality over other aspects of what we do, most importantly race-ethnicity. I suspect the desire to include sexuality in the name is intended to signal our relevance to the many scholar who work in this field. However, we need to consider the unintended consequences of making this particular appeal. If the goal of the new name is to broaden our intellectual reach we need to be inclusive. For me, the naming sexuality in the absence of other dimensions of women and gender studies would be contrary to our efforts to embrace race-ethnicity as central to our vision.

Bettina Bradbury

2/22/2012 04:48:18 pm

People make many good points, and finding a name that is not a mouthful, that does not privilege one aspect )sexuality over class or race, for example is a huge challenge. At York we ended up opting for one name for the graduate program and a different one to replace that of the School of Women s Studies. We chose Gender, Sexuality and Wome n s Studies for the latter to signal that we are the home for the Sexuality Studies program, which is autonomous within the School.

Trish Salah

2/23/2012 01:29:02 am

Feminist Studies appeals to me because it avows political and methodological commitments. I do think that privileging either gender or sexuality does decenter race, clas, disability. I'm ambivalent about the loss of Women's Studies as a title, and Women's Studies undergraduate programs, because it does seem to reflect backlash as much as mainstreaming, and I do wonder if the integration of women's studies approaches within undergraduate curricula is as thorough as we would want. So, Feminist and Women's Studies?

Yukyung Kim-Cho

2/24/2012 01:38:15 pm

Hello, all. To some extent, I can relate to all those concerns discussed above. I do think that "women's studies" is not enough to address much shared concerns of feminist thinkers around gender relations, anti-oppression, equity and social justice. However, keeping "women" there has a political meaning. Here are a couple of ideas I have:
Feminist, Women and Gender Studies Association
Association for Feminist Scholarship

Margaret Toye

2/26/2012 12:57:40 am

The WLU Program engaged in years of reflection on this topic and a couple of years ago we changed our name from "women's studies" to "women and gender studies." As part of our process, we engaged in extensive research of names across North
America, the reasons provided for their changes (surprising how many don't provide reasons), and at the end found the process of listing possible names on an easel to help us finally decide. It is such a difficult decision. I had been involved in programs of various names at various institutions and always thought that while I personally would prefer to be in a program that had gender in the title, it seemed to me the name needed to reflect the particular politics at particular institutions and that upon my arrival at Laurier, I wasn't sure that they were ready for "gender studies" as the argument for women's studies seemed too pressing. I made a strong argument when we started to discuss our change of name for the importance of "women" remaining in the title. While "sexuality" is not in our title, it is a strongly named focus in our description of our program, as is race and transnationalism and in terms of courses we teach and are introducing, Some people really wanted the concept of "social justice" in the title but it was felt while it represented many approaches it wasn't reflective of all. The decision not to include "feminism" in the title was a difficult one--we had an interesting discussion at Queens one year at an Ontario Coordinator's conference where so many of us realized that "feminist" really was the best descriptor for what so many of us feel we do--(although not all--i remember clearly a number of participants did not feel comfortable with what they did being named feminist but identified with "women's studies..") I know it may sound trite, but whatever description is chosen, maybe how the anacronym sounds should be taken into account? I always think that the Canadian University Music Society/Société de musique des universités canadiennes were either incredibly naive or drunk when they chose theirs (CUMS /SMUC) I do like the arguments being made about the national association needing to be representative broadly of the number of programs/departments it represents and therefore would support a longish but not unwieldly title to attempt to do so.

Katherine McKenna

2/26/2012 10:58:32 am

I would like to add the observation that the term ‘Women’s Studies’ from its inception was never about identity politics, but rather about knowledge construction. I do not think that identity politics should enter into the choice of a name for an academic organization. ‘Women’ has always been a contested and complicated concept, but for many of us who do empirical research, especially in social science areas, it is a relevant and useful category of analysis.

I agree with those who have concerns about the privileging of sexuality over such concepts as race, ethnicity and class.

Speaking personally, I identify as a Women’s Studies professor, and if this organization no longer included the designation Women’s Studies, I am not sure that I would feel any compelling reason to remain a member.

At Western, for many years we were the only program in Canada to have “Feminist Research” in our name and it hasn’t held us back in any way. If the CWSA were to add a term that would be potentially more all-encompassing, that would be my choice.

Thanks to all for an interesting discussion.

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