Encouraging Diverse Enrollment in Womens Studies Courses :: Essays Papers

Encouraging Diverse Enrollment in Women's Studies Courses What stands in the way of a more diversity in Women’s Studies classes such as Feminism 101? The posing of this question is in and of itself a step to increasing diversity, for in the answers we find, we may also expose solutions to these roadblocks. I will therefore, be discussing causes of the current white, female, young, middle-class, and non-disabled majority in Women’s Studies’ class rosters. Once I've established what is causing a majority to be present, I will then attempt to answer those problems with possible solutions, or at least steps in the right direction. Cross-racial hostility keeps minority races from interacting effectively with each other. Racism in general separates the white feminist community from everyone else. Internalized sexism tells us that we are just women, prone to bickering and infighting, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Heterosexism and lesbian bating (accusing a woman of being a lesbian if she is independent and freethinking) keep potential women’s studies students far away from our classrooms. Everyone is held back by the labels which separate us. Now I don't agree that these are the only oppressive forces dividing the feminist population and keeping new people from joining, but I would postulate that these conflicts function the same in Women's Studies as they do in the feminist movement in general. These are the central expressions of oppression that make cohesive, equal, cooperation seem beyond our grasp. bell hooks, a black feminist writer, wrote in her book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, "Women in lower-class and poor groups, particularly those who are non-white, would not have defined women’s liberation as women gaining social equality with men, since they are continually reminded in their everyday lives that all women do not share a common social status." (19). This passage contains they key that answers the question of why people of color are not represented equally in our women’s studies classes with white people. Because Women's Studies (and Feminism) had been cast as the arena of white women, who had the time and money to start the movement, women of color are less likely to think the classes are relevant to them. And they are overwhelmingly female. How then, armed with our understanding of this problem, can we get a more racially diverse student body interested in what Women's Studies has to offer?