Minds of Our Own: Inventing Feminist Scholarship and Women's Studies in Canada and Quebec, 1966-76

by Robbins, Wendy; Luxton, Meg; Eichler, Margrit; Descarries, Francine

• ISBN13: 9781554580378
• ISBN10: 1554580374
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ Pr

Summary

This book of personal essays by over forty women and men who founded women's studies in Canada and Qu_bec explores feminist activism on campus in the pivotal decade of 1966-76. The essays document the emergence of women's studies as a new way of understanding women, men, and society, and they challenge some current preconceptions about "second wave" feminist academics.The contributors explain how the intellectual and political revolution begun by small groups of academics-often young, untenured women-at universities across Canada contributed to social progress and profoundly affected the way we think, speak, behave, understand equality, and conceptualize the academy and an academic career. A contextualizing essay documents the social, economic, political, and educational climate of the time, and a concluding chapter highlights the essays' recurring themes and assesses the intellectual and social transformation that their authors helped set in motion.The essays document the appalling sexism and racism some women encounter in seeking admission to doctoral studies, in hiring, in pay, and in establishing the legitimacy of feminist perspectives in the academy. They reveal sources of resistance, too, not only from colleagues and administrators but from family members and from within the self. In so doing they provide inspiring examples of sisterly support and lifelong friendship.

Table of Contents

Changing Times	p. 1
Women's Organizations (before 1960)	p. 2
Women's Changing Social Position	p. 3
The Women's Movement of the 1960s and 1970s	p. 12
Women in Post-Secondary Education	p. 24
Feminist Scholarship and Women's Studies	p. 27
Essays
Creating a Tradition of Canadian Women Writers and Feminist Literary Criticism	p. 43
Mother Was Not a Person, So I Became a Feminist	p. 51
Fanning Fires: Women's Studies in a School of Social Work	p. 54
Feminism: A Critical Theory of Knowledge	p. 61
Women's Studies: A Personal Story	p. 68
Contributing to the Establishment of Women's Studies and Gender Relations	p. 74
Feminism and a Scholarly Friendship	p. 78
Midwife to the Birth of Women's Studies at McGill	p. 89
How the Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Concordia University Grew from Unlikely Beginnings	p. 95
Moments in the Making of a Feminist Historian	p. 99
Doing Feminist Studies Without Knowing It	p. 106
A Matrix of Creativity	p. 114
Transforming the Academy and the World	p. 120
Reminiscences of a Male Supporter of the Movement Towards Women's Liberation and Social Equality	p. 126
You Just Had to Be There	p. 132
The Second Wave: A Personal Voyage	p. 142
A Lifetime of Struggles to Belong	p. 148
Once Upon a Time There Was the Feminist Movement ... and Then There Was Feminist Studies	p. 155
Women's Studies at the University of Alberta	p. 163
Women's Studies and the Trajectory of Women in Academe	p. 170
Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University, 1966-76: A Dialogue	p. 178
Nascent, Incipient, Embryonic, and Ceremonial Women's Studies	p. 188
To Challenge the World	p. 196
From Male and Female Roles to Sex and Gender Relations: A Scientific and Political Trajectory	p. 203
Second Wave Breaks on the Shore of U of T	p. 210
Surviving Political Science ... and Loving It	p. 217
Blood on the Chapel Floor: Adventures in Women's Studies	p. 226
Genesis of a Journal	p. 233
The Saga	p. 237
Coming of Age with Women's Studies	p. 243
Doing Women's Studies	p. 250
Pioneer in Feminist Political Economy: Overcoming the Disjuncture	p. 256
Women's Studies at Guelph	p. 261
Women's Studies: Oppression and Liberation in the University	p. 268
Reflections on Teaching and Writing Feminist Philosophy in the 1970s	p. 275
From Marginalized to "Establishment": Doing Feminist Sociology in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand	p. 282
"To Ring True and Stand for Something"	p. 289
Socialist Feminist and Activist Educator	p. 297
My Path to Feminist Philosophy, 1970-76	p. 304
Women's Sight: Looking Backwards into Women's Studies in Toronto	p. 311
Personal and Intellectual Revolutions: Some Reflections	p. 319
The Patriarchal Context	p. 320
Countervailing Social Movements	p. 326
Intersections of Gender, Racialization, Class, and Sexual Orientation	p. 327
Inventing a New Scholarship and New Structures	p. 330
Disciplinarity and/or Interdisciplinarity	p. 333
Student-Teacher Relations	p. 334
Personal Impacts	p. 335
Interesting Times	p. 335
Alphabetical List of Authors	p. 341
List of Authors by Discipline	p. 342
Notes on Contributors	p. 345
Cumulative Bibliography	p. 357
Index	p. 389
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