Between Politics and Discipline: Gender Studies in an Institutional Setting

This article draws on the classroom experiences of the author to reflect on the pedagogic shifts in Gender Studies. Along with its recognition as being a ‘proper’ discipline and the need to have Gender Studies at all levels in a university, comes the question of legitimacy. It must now be defined by boundaries, protocols and methodologies. I look at the manner in which these conditions unfold in two settings—in the undergraduate and the research classrooms. In the first context, young, freshly-out-of-school students appear to view Gender Studies as a gender sensitisation programme while in the latter methodological/ empirical certainties often take precedence over the need for analytical probing. In both cases, the initial imagination of the subject as a ‘critical perspective’ across disciplines appears to yield to a more official, programmatic understanding. In my own context, I grapple with the simultaneous visibility and reduction of Women’s/Gender Studies.