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What follows is a temporary subpage for a rewrite of the section Criticism of Women's studies from Women's studies
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Criticism of Women's studies
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[edit] Version 1.0
A number of independent authors from both within and without academia have criticized scholarship standards within most women's studies programs. These authors include feminists like Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff-Sommers and Phyllis Chesler; misandry researchers; journalists; and social commentators such as Karen Lerhman. Researchers Patai and Koertge note that the feminism espoused in the vast majority of women's studies departments "bids to be a totalizing scheme resting on a grand theory, one that is as all-inclusive as Marxism, as assured of its ability to unmask hidden meanings as Freudian psychology, and as fervent in its condemnation of apostates as evangelical fundamentalism." Lerhman asserts that feminist writers "by squelching all internal dissent" have "allowed hyperbolic rhetoric, false statistics, politicized scholarship, reverse sexism, and general silliness free reign". The major themes that Lerhman and other authors note about scholarship within most women's studies programs are listed below.
- Orthodoxy and ideological policing
- Ostracization and/or termination of female dissidents
- Exclusion of male authors from course syllabi and scholarly papers
- Politicized scholarship and "thinly disguised indoctrination
- Faculty appointments based on political rather than professional qualifications
- Questionable methodologies, statistics, and conclusions
- Advocacy disguised as research
- "Womb-like" classroom atmospheres where expressing unpopular opinions or asking unpopular questions is suppressed and where critical thinking is discouraged
- "Unremitting emphasis on women as oppressed victims
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[edit] Version 1.5
The ties between the women's studies discipline and the feminist political movement have inspired criticism, both of the perceived political nature of the discipline itself, and relatedly of the quality and nature of the scholarship and pedagogy within women's studies departments.[opinion needs balancing] See, e.g., Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff-Sommers, Phyllis Chesler, Karen Lerhman, Daphne Patai, and Koertge.[citation needed] Critics have also charged that the discipline has discouraged, rather than encouraged, internal criticism and critical thinking; been systematically biased in favor of female and against male scholarship; employed questionable methodologies and promoted scholarship based on politics rather than merit.[citation needed] Women's studies academicians respond, in part, that as in all academic fields, scholarly and pedagogical methods vary across individuals, institutions, and schools of thought.[citation needed] In response to the charge of anti-male discrimination, they point out that a significant amount of the valuable scholarship done on women's history, feminist philosophy, and the feminist movement, has been done by women, thus explaining any apparent discrimination.[citation needed]
Criticism has also arisen from within various schools of feminism itself, including allegations that academic women's studies has been too tied to a middle-class white American feminist movement; that is has become too theoretical and dissociated from the realities of women's lives; and that it favors a "victimization" reading of sexism over an "empowerment" model. Implicit criticisms of women's studies have sometimes been read from the development of queer studies, gender studies, and broader interdisciplinary forms of cultural studies that seek to integrate anti-racist, post-colonial studies, and other cultural studies that examine power relations.[citation needed] Women's studies academicians have responded in part by implicitly broadening their own curricular and research agendas, incorporating insights from "descendant" disciplines; and pointing out the tendencies and roots within women's studies that already incorporate these other analyses.[citation needed]
[edit] Version 2.0
[edit] Criticism
A number of independent authors from both within and without academia have criticized scholarship standards within most women's studies programs. These authors include feminists like Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff-Sommers and Phyllis Chesler; misandry researchers; journalists; and social commentators such as Karen Lerhman.[citation needed]
Researchers Patai and Koertge note that the type of feminism espoused in the vast majority of women's studies departments in the United States "bids to be a totalizing scheme resting on a grand theory, one that is as all-inclusive as Marxism, as assured of its ability to unmask hidden meanings as Freudian psychology, and as fervent in its condemnation of apostates as evangelical fundamentalism."[citation needed]
Lerhman asserts that feminist writers "by squelching all internal dissent" have "allowed hyperbolic rhetoric, false statistics, politicized scholarship, reverse sexism, and general silliness free reign".[citation needed]
Criticism has also arisen from within various schools of feminism itself, including allegations that academic women's studies has been too tied to a middle-class white American feminist movement; that is has become too theoretical and dissociated from the realities of women's lives; and that it favors a "victimization" reading of sexism over an "empowerment" model.[citation needed]
[edit] Response
Women's studies academics respond, that as in all academic fields, scholarly and pedagogical methods vary across individuals, institutions, and schools of thought.[citation needed] In response to the charge of anti-male discrimination, they point out that a significant amount of the valuable scholarship done on women's history, feminist philosophy, and the feminist movement, has been done by women, thus explaining any apparent discrimination.[citation needed]
