Epistolary Connections: Letters as Pedagogical
Tools in the Introductory Women's Studies Course
by Aaronette M. White, Narcia Wright-Soika, and Monica S. Russell
Dear Dad,
I know you've been wondering why I'm taking a women's studies course and
whether I'm wasting your hardearned money, but I can assure you that my
future as a medical doctor requires that I understand how gender issues
are related to health issues. Thanks to this course, I am learning about
the variety of disciplines represented under the umbrella "women's studies"
and medicine is one specialty that can be approached using a women's studies
perspective. Did you know that feminist economics professors study how
our economic systems affect women? Economics are related to who can afford
health care and as a future medical doctor, this course is helping me
to understand why certain women have a greater chance of getting their
health needs met in some nations and less of a chance in other nations.
The interdisciplinary approach of women's studies is helping me see health
issues in a broader way that is sensitizing me to the lives of the people
I hope to treat . . . Fourth-year pre-med major, Spring 2006
Women's studies introductory
courses are designed to introduce students to feminist inquiry, using gender
as the center of analysis while examining its relationships with race, ethnicity,
class, physical ability, religion, sexuality, and other social phenomena
(Blake; Deay and Stitzel; Naples; Winkler and DiPalmer). The introductory
course is no longer an elective chosen solely by student activists highly
motivated to learn about feminist theory and scholarship; instead, it has
become one of many courses students choose to fulfill a general education
requirement in cultural diversity, international studies, the humanities,
and the social sciences (Deay and Stitzel). Many such students resist rather
than embrace feminist scholarship, in the context of a general swing toward
conservatism in U.S. politics and the accompanying anti-feminist backlash
(Blake; Deay and Stitzel; Wiegman). Therefore the course must help students
understand the place of women's studies in the academy (Winkler and DiPalma).
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