Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

UC Merced has made interdisciplinary scholarship a cornerstone of its identity.   In proposing an area of focus on Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, we are bringing together a group of faculty from a range of arts, humanities, and social science fields and reaching out to NS and ENG to share a common interest in the ways gender and sexuality shape various aspects of our world.  Over the past forty years, scholars across the academy – first under the rubric of women’s studies, then women’s and gender studies, and most recently through Women’s, Gender and Sexuality studies --  have been studying the social and cultural constructions and implications of gender and sexuality.  This work has always been fundamentally interdisciplinary, as scholars quickly discovered that the disciplinary frameworks of the academy, created to understand the world of late 19^th century Europe, often rendered the experience of women, and even the existence of gender, invisible; the disciplines assumed that gender was natural, the same across time and place.  Yet as scholars studied women’s lives, it became clear that ideas of gender – the nature and proper behavior of men and women – have varied enormously.   By the 1990s, it was clear that not only was gender a socially constructed set of relationships, but sexuality, rather than being fixed and natural, was equally socially constructed.  The interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality has flourished across the academy.   

The central questions of the field are deceptively simple: What has it/does it mean to be male or female in society?  How is that expressed in language, thought, culture, politics, and social organization?   How do ideas of gender act as either metaphors for or avenues for systems of power?   How is sexual identity and behavior defined and policed?  How has it been expressed?  These questions all provoke new ones; they shape how we read literature, look at art, understand dance, family, education, language, psychology, economics.  Studies of gender and sexuality are germane to each of the areas delineated in the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision.  Ideas of gender shape attitudes to nature, and thus contribute to environmental issues; the social organization of gender leads to an unequal distribution of resources, and thus also contributes to health disparities.  Ideas about gender shape the way we speak, and the way we are heard, thus creating a central question for cognitive sciences. Questions of gender and sexuality run through any consideration of “Culture, Community, and Identity”, and issues of gender are also central to understanding dynamics of social and economic progress. In current discussions in the field, one of the burning questions is related to what scholars call intersectionality – the ways in which gender and sexuality are inflected by other markers of identity, including race, class, ethnicity, and religion.  

The interdisciplinary focus of UC Merced makes a program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality a logical fit.  There is significant research related to gender in all of the areas outlined by the Strategic Academic vision. There is a growing group of faculty interested in issues of gender and sexuality.  We therefore propose that part of the 2020 plan should be to build on our existing strengths by developing a formal program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.   This program would begin with an undergraduate minor, and ultimately a major.  While we do not believe that we can build a Ph.D. program in Women’s Studies by 2020, we propose that we develop a graduate emphasis that both MA and Ph.D. students can complete in the course of their doctoral program.  This emphasis (the approach taken at Berkeley, Davis, and Irvine) would provide an introduction to the major theoretical approaches in women’s studies.  Such a certificate will help build both the intellectual skills and the employability of our graduates, while also stimulating faculty research.

Both the undergraduate program and the graduate emphasis will provide research opportunities that have significant intellectual and personal attractions.  A multifaceted area studies program in this vein offers diverse and important research opportunities for faculty and students; additionally, there are important reasons for students to take such courses, and faculty to teach them. A 2012 article by Hilary Watchler explains the benefits of a major such as this one, pointing out the direct relevance of the program to recent political issues (such as women's health and birth control), contemporary health and wage disparities, and ultimately, everything -- the issues discussed in a program such as the one we propose address questions of biology, culture, sociology, economics, politics and policies—all of which impact our lives every day.  Furthermore, a program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies provides an intellectual framework for GLBT students to understand their own experience.

Resources

Currently, faculty at UC Merced with interests in areas of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies teach in undergraduate programs in Anthropology, Cognitive Science, English, History, GASP, and Sociology.  As in many places, a program in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies would depend primarily on courses already taught in existing programs.  To build the faculty in the field, we propose a two pronged strategy.  First, we propose the addition of two or three faculty hired with a primary responsibility in women’s studies.  They could be housed in any one of the SSHA Acacemic Units, and would teach introductory courses in the field, as well as core graduate seminars and capstone courses for the major.  In addition, we propose the allocation of 3-5 lines in one year to make a cohort hire in existing programs whose teaching would also serve Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: there could be a competition, so the lines could both meet the needs of the contributing disciplines and the program.

Central to our vision of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies is that it does not become another silo, but instead is woven into the fabric of existing programs.  In this way, building a successful program in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies will simultaneously strengthen other areas of focus on campus.

In terms of space needs, the proposed program will require nothing more than faculty offices.  Minor additions to the library holdings and electronic offerings may be requested so that new faculty have access to the materials they need for their research and teaching.  Staff support can be provided through the means accorded to other SSHA programs; currently through staffing centralized in the Dean's Office, potentially with a dedicated staff member in the future.

Contribution to UC Merced’s Success in 2020

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies is taught at almost every college and university in the country.   Research in the field has reshaped all the disciplines of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences over the past forty years.  In one sense, the development of such a program is just one more step in our becoming a university with a full range of academic programs.  Even more, however, the development of the program, and the faculty network it will support, will encourage additional research, and stimulate new research through interdisciplinary dialogue.  

Burgeoning in the heady sixties and seventies, women’s studies began as part of political action.  The single subject focus shifted when third wave feminist study changed the complexion and approach of early models, adding sexuality studies, gender studies, and masculinity studies, creating a multi faceted, exciting, intellectually engaged approach to understanding identity formations within the context of political action. This emphasis on interaction with the world fits well with UCM’s focus on community service and the Blum Center, which is about equity oriented solutions.  Using the service learning model, WGSS plans to include undergraduate field experience that will ideally be applicable and appealing to students in most, if not all, UCM majors.It also fits well with the campus’s commitment to undergraduate research.   We also see it working in and with a range of other existing or proposed interdisciplinary programs on campus: Race & Ethnicity Studies, Working Class Studies, Public Health, and Environmental Studies.

Comparable Programs

Every other UC Campus offers study in areas related to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  

The certificate approach has been used at (for instance) University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, University of Wisconsin, and Duke University.

Significantly, most UC campuses encourage students to pair one of the above degrees with another, and many offer a program that combines more than one of the above. Thus, combining these three areas follows a “best practices” approach in this field by providing a diverse and highly interdisciplinary field that focuses on the complex interaction of gender with other identity markers such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, nation, and religion.  Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies will build on, strengthen, and enrich existing campus initiatives related to engaged scholarship and social justice, and in doing so will serve the intellectual breadth and diversity of the campus.  

The following faculty support this proposal.  Some teach current courses appropriate for an undergraduate minor and/or major, and some will, or hope to soon; some offer graduate level courses that would serve a graduate program in this area:

Susan Amussen, History

Ireenie Beattie, Sociology

Tanya Golash-Boza, Sociology

Gregg Camfield, English

Jan Goggans, English

Mariaelena Gonzalez, Psychology and Public Health

Rowena Gray, Economics

Laura Hamilton, Sociology

Nigel Hatton, English

Carolyn Jennings, Cognitive Science

David Kaminsky GASP

Valerie Leppert, ENG

Virginia Adan-Lifante, Spanish

Teenie Matlock, Cognitive Science

Sholeh Quinn, History

Linda Anne Rebhun, Anthropology

David Torres-Rouff

Anna Song, Psychology

Jessica Trounstine, Political Science

Nella Van Dyke, Sociology

Anne Zanzucchi, MWP