Legacy and Respect: The Usefulness of Feminism Essay -- Gender Sexuali

Legacy and Respect The Usefulness of FeminismIn a letter to students who participate in Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges bi-college Feminist and Gender Studies department, power point of the Department Anne Dalke outlined an line of descent in favor of changing the programs name. She wrote, Our argument for re-naming the F&GS program Gender and Sexuality is based on 3 claims 1. that it will be enticing for prospective and current students and faculty, because it names their individualized and intellectual interests and investments (while avoiding the word feminism, which is off-putting to a large range of individuals)2. that it accurately represents the current state of scholarship in the field3. that it accurately names--and invites exploration of--where the interesting questions lie. At the date in which this statement was composed stick out April, I probably would have agreed with its relevancy and reasoning. I no longer accept this line of thinking, however, due to my educati on and involvement in Annes co-taught class I am taking this semester, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender. It is ironic that I began my study of gender four years ago as a freshman vehemently against feminism, and only now as a senior taking the only class required for every major or concentrator in that field have I come to care for the legacy and usefulness of feminism as a theory of approach pattern and of education. My original concepts of feminism were that it was a theory that denounced men and elevated women beyond a fair or equitable place in society. I recognize now the stereotyping that I inadvertently allowed myself to feel. Equating feminist make out with living in a counter-cultural, woman-centered world erected barriers that closed... ...of a more staring(a) understanding.Works CitedDalke, Anne. Re-Naming the Feminist & Gender Studies Concentration An Account of the Past work on of Deliberation--and a Sketch Towards the Future. CAP doc. April 14, 2004Fuss , Diana. Inside/Out. Critical Encounters Reference and indebtedness in Deconstructive Writing. New Brunswick Rutgers University Press, 1995. 233-240.hooks, bell. Feminism A Movement to End sexist Oppression. Feminist Theory Reader. Ed. Caroline McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim. New York Routledge. 2003, 50-57.Johnson, Allan G. The Gender Knot Unraveling our patriarchic Legacy. Philadelphia Temple University Press. 1997.Rubin, Gail. Thinking Sex Notes for a Radical Theory of the political sympathies of Sexuality. American Feminist Thought at Centurys End A Reader. Ed. Linda S. Kauffman Cambridge, Ma Blackwell, 1993. 3-64.