In recent years, many students have taken advantage of the course offerings in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies, learning about everything from Feminist Theory (GSS 330) to Queer Studies (GSS 121) to Topics in Masculinity (GSS 232). Prior to its 2023 name change, the department was known as Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) — a subject that has roots in Second-Wave feminist thought and can be found in college curricula across the country. What many Kenyon students don’t know, however, is that when the department was first introduced in the late 1980s, a contentious debate over whether it should be implemented was waged in the pages of the Collegian. This March, as we celebrate Women’s History Month, a dip into the archives reveals the fight to get WGS approved.
The subject first appeared in the opinions section of the Dec. 11, 1986, issue of the Collegian, under the headline “Gender studies position necessary.” The article, which is unsigned, explains that “there is a proposal before the faculty to recommend to the administration the hiring of a visiting professor of gender studies.” From there, it highlights the fact that, at the time, 36 existing courses dealt with gender in some way despite the lack of a designated department or faculty member. “In order to formalize and organize the teaching of gender studies,” the opinion continues, “the faculty should recommend to the administration the creation of this position.”
The Feb. 5, 1987, issue of the Collegian noted that the proposal to bring a gender studies specialist to Kenyon had been passed shortly before winter break that year, with then-Associate Professor of Psychology Linda Smolak heading the search committee to bring in a new professor as early as the fall of 1988. Despite the seeming finality of this decision, the debate had not yet reached its height.
A few months later, a series of articles in the April 30, 1987, issue of the Collegian discussed the history of coeducation at the College, which at that point had been in place for 18 years. Tucked away on page four, a story headlined “Gender Studies: the new debate” by Suzanne Roe ’90 noted that the faculty had approved the installment of a gender studies professor “after controversial deliberation.” Smolak, a fierce proponent of the move, told the Collegian that the faculty strongly supported the proposed position, approving it by a margin of 2-1. Even so, the article clarified, opponents of the position voiced their opinions at faculty meetings. Smolak took care to share her opinion that “being opposed to gender studies does not necessarily mean one is opposed to feminism,” but Roe continued, “it is just this equating of gender studies and feminism … that forms the basis of some faculty members’ opposition to a gender studies position on the Kenyon faculty.” The primary arguments against the subject were that it was not a traditional liberal arts discipline, and, more prominently, that it represented a politicization of academics.
In November of the same year, an opinion by then-Professor of Philosophy Thomas Short appeared in the Collegian. Short opened his piece by stating that he had been asked to write “in opposition to gender studies” (with no hint as to who asked him to do so) but did not oppose the existence of the subject itself. Rather, he argued that the program would place strain on existing College resources and represent a feminist-oriented bias that was out of place in an academic context. He also pointed out that fairly few students appeared interested in the program: “Student enrollments in Introduction to Women’s Studies declined to something under 10 — I recall it being six, including the secretary of an administrator deeply involved in that course — in the last semester it was taught.”
Shortly thereafter, Collegian readers chimed in to defend gender studies against Short’s criticisms. In one letter to the editor published in the Dec. 3, 1987, issue, Dan Cohen of Boston took a particularly strong stance against Short’s previous op-ed, using the professor’s own words in the rebuke: “Professor Short is afraid that Women’s Studies will shrivel the rod of reason and lop off the twin globes of objectivity and logic, thereby depriving students of an education ‘that would enable them to penetrate that tissue of falsehood.’” In the same column, then-Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Integrated Program in Humane Studies and Religion Shelley Baranowski took issue with Short’s ill-advised comparison between arguments made by proponents of the gender studies program and arguments made by Nazis in their false-scientific efforts to differentiate ethnic groups: “This attempt at historical analogy misfires utterly. Opening the curriculum to the perspectives of gender and to the experience of minorities means the acceptance of and appreciation for human diversity.” The same issue saw an article headlined “Intellectual Traditions Undermine Attack on Gender Study,” similarly arguing against Short’s position.
Short responded in a Letter to the Editor published the following week, addressing each author of the previous opinion pieces individually. To Cohen’s letter, Short concluded his response with: “I’m afraid that Mr. Cohen’s letter exemplifies only too well the effect of politicized teaching.” Short did concede that Baranowski’s point was “the best of them,” but rejoined: “Treading once again into the land of forbidden thoughts, I repeat that the equation of one’s opinions with one’s race or gender is a false and a dangerous equation which the proponents of gender studies and minority studies share with the Nazis.”
As the conversation continued, other debates sprang up dealing with whether a male professor should be hired to teach gender studies, with the Collegian editorial board writing in favor and an anonymous op-ed the following week accusing the board of “obscur[ing] its own politics.” Despite the charged atmosphere surrounding it, however, gender studies was incorporated into the curriculum as an “Interdisciplinary Studies” course in April 1988. Later, Sarah Cunningham ’89 called for the creation of a gender studies major “in the likeness of the international studies major” and the inclusion of a graduation requirement surrounding gender studies curricula. In April of 1989, a public debate was presented surrounding the “role of Gender Studies in Liberal Arts.”
In spite of all the opposition and chatter, though, the department is still going strong today. Its early challenges illustrate the importance of advocating for what we believe in, something Kenyon students continue to hold dear in the present day.