Encouraging Diverse Enrollment in Womens Studies Courses :: Essays Papers

Encouraging Diverse Enrollment in Womens Studies Courses What stands in the way of a more diversity in Womens 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 set off solutions to these roadblocks. I will therefore, be discussing causes of the current white, female, young, middle-class, and non-disabled majority in Womens Studies class rosters. Once Ive 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 libber community from everyone else. Internalized sexism tells us that we argon just women, prone to bickering and infighting, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Heterosexism and lesbian bating (accusing a woman of being a le sbian if she is separate and freethinking) keep potential womens studies students far away from our classrooms. Everyone is held back by the labels which separate us. Now I dont agree that these are the only autocratic forces dividing the feminist population and keeping new people from joining, but I would postulate that these conflicts function the same in Womens Studies as they do in the feminist movement in general. These are the central expressions of oppression that manufacture 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 deplorable groups, particularly those who are non-white, would not have defined womens firing off as women gaining accessible equality with men, since they are continually reminded in their unremarkable lives that all women do not share a common social status. (19).This passage contains they key that answers the question of why p eople of color in are not represented equally in our womens studies classes with white people. Because Womens Studies (and Feminism) had been paradiddle 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 Womens Studies has to shot?