{"id":9502,"date":"2021-08-24T17:28:32","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T17:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/08\/30\/womens-gender-and-sexuality-studies-major-offers-insight-into-a-gendered-world\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:42:39","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:42:39","slug":"womens-gender-and-sexuality-studies-major-offers-insight-into-a-gendered-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/womens-gender-and-sexuality-studies-major-offers-insight-into-a-gendered-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies major offers insight into \u2018a gendered world\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Aug. 26, 1971, Women\u2019s Equality Day<\/a> was celebrated for the first time to commemorate the anniversary of the adoption of the 19th<\/sup> Amendment and women\u2019s suffrage<\/a> in 1920. Fifty years later, Furman\u2019s Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies<\/a> program is entering its third fall as an official major and its 17th as a minor. In August 2021, the university awarded its first Bachelor of Arts degrees in WGSS, and will award three more in Spring 2022.<\/p>\n

\"Savita

Savita Nair, director of Furman\u2019s Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies program.<\/p><\/div>\n

But the history of women\u2019s studies at Furman goes back to its first course in the subject, sponsored in the mid-1970s by then-Professor Elaine Nocks of the psychology department. The course was requested by the students themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that it would have been student initiated doesn\u2019t surprise me at all, given the flexibility that faculty have in terms of getting a sense of student interest and then creating a course,\u201d says Savita Nair, professor of history and Asian studies and the director of the WGSS program.<\/p>\n

Momentum increased in Spring 1992, when Marian Strobel, the William Montgomery Burnett Professor of History, offered Furman\u2019s first regular catalogue course in women\u2019s studies, The History of Women in America, which is being taught this fall. In 2001, WGSS became available as an interdisciplinary concentration, and it became Furman\u2019s first official minor in 2005.<\/p>\n

Vision becoming reality<\/h3>\n

The drive to create a WGSS major was sparked in part by a conversation Lynne Shackelford, professor of English, had with Ken Peterson, who was then dean of faculty and is now vice president for academic affairs and provost.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him before I retired, I wanted Furman to meet my vision of having a WGSS major and having a faculty member and director who would have WGSS as the primary teaching and research focus, rather than the volunteer administrative work the faculty have done throughout the years,\u201d said Shackelford, who is retiring at the end of the 2021-2022 academic year. \u201cWell, my vision is slowly becoming a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once again, student enthusiasm helped spur growth in WGSS, as Nair found when she polled her Issues in Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies course in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Nair \u2013 and a lot of the other professors in the WGSS classes \u2013 took it upon themselves to ask our feedback,\u201d remembered Olivia Glad \u201921, the program\u2019s current postbaccalaureate fellow, who was a sophomore that year. \u201cThere was the offer of the minor, but up until that point, there was still conversation over whether or not they wanted to broaden that to include the major.\u201d<\/p>\n

Encouraged by student support, Nair, Shackelford and English Professor Gretchen Braun drafted a proposal for the major \u2013 \u201cwith a lot of help from others,\u201d says Nair \u2013 and sent it to every department chair who offered a class that counted toward WGSS. After the faculty approved it in Spring 2019, the WGSS major officially launched Sept. 26, 2019, at a reception, archival exhibit and panel discussion in Hartness Pavilion, with Shackelford and Braun as co-directors.<\/p>\n

Sometimes uncomfortable, always necessary<\/h3>\n

Over the years, courses on gender and sexuality began appearing in the curriculum; current offerings include Introduction to Queer Theory and Sexuality Studies, Women in Islam and Thinking Sex: What\u2019s Love Got to Do With It?<\/p>\n

Some of the subjects admittedly pushed a few students outside their comfort zones.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you grow up in a socially conservative environment where you understand the human population in those two categories of \u2018male\u2019 and \u2018female,\u2019 it can be disruptive, it can be uncomfortable,\u201d Nair said. \u201cBut I think college should be a place where you get a little uncomfortable, whatever the subject is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The subject matter of WGSS courses, including discussions about intersectionality, identity and LGBTQ+ issues to name a few, are heavily dependent on a fundamental understanding of the fluid categories of gender, sexuality and identities themselves, says Glad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe distinction between gender and sexuality is one of the most important things to learn about in women\u2019s and gender studies,\u201d she says. \u201cOften people have a perspective that if you look a certain way and you act in a certain manner, that subsumes exactly who you are and who you are attracted to. My biggest approach to WGSS is recognizing that I don\u2019t know everything and that things are far more complex than even I\u2019ll understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Understanding those concepts is necessary, stressed Nair \u2013 no matter what career a student ends up in. WGSS students have found meaningful employment in a diverse set of professions, including education, medicine, nonprofit management, law, human resources, social work, marketing and journalism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a gendered world,\u201d she said. \u201cI see this as far more than curricular, and it relates to every possible field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Future plans fueled by student enthusiasm<\/h3>\n

Furman\u2019s WGSS major is still growing. Among the more than 800 programs nationwide, Furman\u2019s is still relatively small, with six current majors and three seniors \u2013 Riley Hughes \u201922, Miriam Stevens \u201922 and Queen Trapp \u201922, who were also the first to declare the major in 2019 \u2013 set to graduate in the spring. (Maddy Lock \u201921 received Furman\u2019s first WGSS BA in August 2021.) At this year\u2019s Opening Convocation ceremony<\/a>, Trapp received the Rosa Marie Bodkin Meritorious Award for Diversity and Inclusion.<\/p>\n

Part of Nair\u2019s mission, with help from Glad, will be to nurture the program\u2019s growth. On their to-do list is increasing visibility on campus, connecting with student groups and other partners on campus, fundraising and leading a national search for a full-time director. She\u2019d also like to see the return of the MayX course Sex Goes to School: Sex Education in the United States and Sweden, a study away course canceled by the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Student interest \u2013 which helped sparked the beginning of the program in the mid-1970s \u2013 continues to fuel it today, said Glad, who has seen many of her classmates and newer students take on WGSS as a minor or major.<\/p>\n

And Nair is happy to see that interest stretching into the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m meeting my freshman advisees later today,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of them have WGSS as one of their possible majors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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