Posted: Aug 30, 2010 4:11 pm
Beatsong
I forgot to mention an interesting fact, that in the 1980s, gender studies was very big business. There were gender studies departments in universities, hence professors of gender studies, bookshops had large sections on it, and there were ferocious debates on gender within feminism, but also in other disciplines. Do you remember Andrea Dworkin and co? Shudder. Intercourse, as practised by men, is intrinsically an act of rape, don't you know?
Anyway, I was involved in all that up to the early 90s, and I began to lose interest, but strangely enough, gender studies itself began to either collapse or become subsumed into other areas, such as anthropology. (Gilmore's 'Manhood in the Making' was considered a minor classic). You will now no longer find sections in bookshops devoted to it at all, and I think that in general, it has shrunk a lot.
I forgot to mention an interesting fact, that in the 1980s, gender studies was very big business. There were gender studies departments in universities, hence professors of gender studies, bookshops had large sections on it, and there were ferocious debates on gender within feminism, but also in other disciplines. Do you remember Andrea Dworkin and co? Shudder. Intercourse, as practised by men, is intrinsically an act of rape, don't you know?
Anyway, I was involved in all that up to the early 90s, and I began to lose interest, but strangely enough, gender studies itself began to either collapse or become subsumed into other areas, such as anthropology. (Gilmore's 'Manhood in the Making' was considered a minor classic). You will now no longer find sections in bookshops devoted to it at all, and I think that in general, it has shrunk a lot.