Ambivalent Optimism

Women's and Gender Studies in Australian Universities

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3947175
AutoresBarbara Baird (0000-0002-2444-682X, autor correspondente)
Ano2010
Volume95
Fascículo1
Páginas111-126
Data de publicação2010-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/fr.2009.58
OpenAlexW2064648445
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11
Referências citadas12

This article describes the place of Women's and Gender Studies programmes in Australian universities as a way of thinking about the place of feminism in the academy. It begins with a story of one such small programme at a time of stress and locates this story in an account of change in Australian universities over the last 20-plus years. The narrative traces a contradictory domain in which women, feminist scholarship and Women's and Gender Studies are enmeshed. The article draws on feminist literature about Australian universities to argue that while neo-liberal university environments are clearly places where masculinist values prevail, the flows of power around individual Women's and Gender Studies programmes cannot be simply predicted. Women's and Gender Studies programmes are thriving in some universities (on a small scale). As well as institutional imperatives Women's and Gender Studies programmes are engaged by specific intellectual challenges and some of these are sketched with reference to the Australian context. Asserting the need for dedicated research and teaching that focuses on gender, the article concludes that Women's and Gender Studies programmes in Australian universities are energetic places for this to occur. It proposes an ambivalent optimism to describe its assessment of these programmes and their viability as future places of work for feminist scholars

Ambivalence · Context (archaeology) · Feminism · Narrative · Optimism · Political science · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Thriving · Women's studies · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology