Western Feminism: Origin, Connotation, and Development

Author: Liu Ni / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-01-01
Features:
(1) The development of women's studies as an academic field in the Netherlands
Women's studies is a rapidly growing academic field in the Netherlands. In 1976, Groningen University established a formal professorship for women's studies, marking its recognition in academia. In the early 1980s, national women's studies conferences attracted nearly 4,000 participants, and by 1993, about 300 women scholars and several male scholars were involved in teaching or researching women's studies. By 1995, universities across the Netherlands had provided 13 professorships for women's studies, and some professors in other disciplines also incorporated women's studies components into their research and teaching. In terms of curriculum, by the 1990s, 250+ undergraduate and graduate courses in 14 universities in the Netherlands included women's studies content. Several universities offered systematic master's programs in women's studies, while inter-university networks provided courses for doctoral students. Additionally, a national graduate school for women's studies, after years of planning, had begun operations. Beyond universities, vocational schools offered women's studies courses, and government-funded women's health centers and employment assistance organizations conducted related education and research. Overall, compared to other European countries, women's studies in the Netherlands had achieved significant depth and institutionalization.
Women's studies in Dutch universities were closely linked to the women's movement. Contemporary Dutch women's studies originated from the peak of the second wave of the women's movement in the late 1960s, which aimed to change the rigid gender relations prevalent in Dutch society at the time. The "Men, Women, and Social Action Group," founded in 1968, was a key women's organization in this movement. A common belief in Dutch society was that the goals of women's liberation and gender equality, proposed by the first women's rights movement that began in the early 20th century, had already been achieved. As a result, new women's organizations had to prove that this liberation process was not complete and that the equality gained from the second wave had not translated into equal opportunities for women. The primary mission of the "Men, Women, and Social Action Group" was to fight for equal opportunities, equal rights to development, and autonomy for women, while challenging traditional gender roles and creating a social order where women had equal rights and obligations. In response to these women's movements, and to provide a theoretical foundation for the perspectives and demands arising from them, a group of socialist women's studies groups was established in 1974. This marked the beginning of women scholars entering the field of women's studies, which gradually spread to universities and academic disciplines across the Netherlands.
The development of women's studies in the Netherlands can be divided into four stages:
First stage (1974–1977): During this period, various women's groups were established within academic institutions, and students in history and social sciences first introduced the issues raised by the women's movement into academia. These issues included: How much do we really know about women's lives? What social structures and historical processes have contributed to women's subordinate status? What are the origins of gender-based inequalities in rights? The main tasks of this stage were twofold: first, to critique the inherent gender bias in prevailing theories, and second, to explore the roots of women's oppression.
Second stage (1977–1981): During this period, the critique of gender discrimination in traditional disciplines was no longer the primary focus. Women's studies scholars began to shift their attention to research methodologies and the boundaries of women's studies as an academic field. While women's studies had contributed to the women's liberation movement, it was unclear what the movement expected from women's studies. Should political struggles or academic research take precedence? Should women transform the world to understand it, or should they first understand it before transforming it? These questions became central debates among women scholars, who sought to analyze the connection between understanding and transformation as the framework for their intellectual systems.
Third stage (1981–1985): During this period, the content and themes of women's studies shifted significantly. A major focus was to clarify and refine the concept of women's oppression. The holistic nature of oppression theory made it difficult to analyze complex and diverse everyday life and served as a poor foundation for explaining various forms of gender relationships, hindering in-depth scientific inquiry. Meanwhile, women's studies began to move toward institutionalization and specialization.
Fourth stage (1986 onwards): During this stage, women's studies began to consolidate its field. Women scholars sought to leave their mark on academic achievements and establish themselves as a formal academic discipline in institutional and organizational terms. Women's studies no longer primarily depended on external judgment from outside academia but recognized its innovative role within existing disciplines—or, in other words, women's studies had become disciplinary.
Biographical work had always been an important aspect of the women's movement, as it brought women from the shadows into the spotlight and revised historical records. The concept of sisterhood had always called upon women's studies scholars to connect with past generations of women, and when scholars turned to women for help, the women were also helped in return. By positioning themselves in history, women scholars gave voice to the silenced and stood up for the unheard. Moreover, women's oral history had brought unexpected rewards, generating new materials about women's lives, describing their experiences, fostering vertical and horizontal connections among women, and enriching the content of biographical work in women's studies.
Alongside the completion of oral history projects in women's studies, numerous products emerged. Pure oral histories could be published as primary or analyzed documents, oral history anthologies could serve future research on related themes, and the lives of specific women's groups could be traced through oral history. Oral history projects in women's studies could also incorporate crafts and photographs, and could be presented through audio and video recordings, creating a panoramic display of women's lives.
Oral history in women's studies primarily falls into three types: thematic, biographical, and autobiographical. Oral history is closely linked to interviews, autobiographies, and biographies, sharing some characteristics while also having its own unique features. For example, interviews and oral history are very similar, but interviews often focus on specific experiences or phenomena, while oral history deals with a person's broader life experiences, encompassing more themes, even covering their life from birth to the present. Oral history differs from biographies in its method of transmission, as some past events must be conveyed orally, especially for those who lacked literacy. Oral testimony is highly valuable to some historians, as the materials they seek may not exist in written records. European historians' use of oral history to study World War II is well-founded for this reason. Generally, records of men's lives are more likely to form written documents, making men the natural subjects of historical analysis using archival materials. In contrast to written history, oral history is particularly important for understanding the lives of people without written records, especially women.
Generally, marginalized groups in society are the best candidates for oral history research. Historians, journalists, anthropologists, sociologists, and women's studies scholars alike are using oral history methods. The author has deep personal experience in this regard. During a study visit to the Netherlands in 1994, several dozen working doctoral students at the Amsterdam University Women's Studies Center primarily used oral history methods for their research. Beyond oral histories of individual women, they also collected oral histories from women of different generations within specific ethnic groups or families to compare and analyze changes in their lives, identities, and role conceptions.
Additionally, in the American South, oral history emerged as a critical method, providing insights into all aspects of women's lives and challenging the prevailing stereotypes about Southern women. In this sense, women's studies helped revitalize this method. The interest of women scholars in this method may reflect their intention to work outside the mainstream. Like other methods, women scholars use oral history to develop or validate feminist theories, express solidarity and admiration for other women through oral history reports, promote understanding between social classes, and advocate for fair treatment of women. At the same time, given its potential to bring women into history, oral history has made women's experiences part of written history, questioned traditional historical heroes, and revised established historical narratives, which explains why traditional social sciences are reluctant to accept it.
However, regardless of these challenges, the success of women's studies' oral history methods in drawing attention to women's lives and revising historical records has contributed to enriching historical methodologies.
In recent years, heated discussions have centered on the relationship between postmodernism, feminism, and women's studies, as well as their respective influences. This is not merely a passing trend but involves issues that women's studies must take seriously. Postmodernism, in its fundamental sense, can be seen as a challenge to Enlightenment thought directly related to modern ideas. It questions the claim that rationality and science can provide objective, reliable, and universally valid beliefs, and it challenges the extraordinary universality of the belief in reason itself. Postmodern thinkers disdain dominant theories, believing that they can always be challenged by alternative theories with different interpretations of reality. They advocate abandoning the pursuit of universality in favor of more practical, specific, context-bound, and locally oriented explorations.
Feminist scholars have responded to postmodernism in various ways. For example, liberal feminists, who are dedicated to formulating policies to improve women's status in Western humanities and social structures, have largely dismissed postmodernism. Marxist feminists have shown clear opposition to postmodern thought, arguing that postmodernism in social theory leads to the fragmentation of concepts such as gender, ethnicity, and class, and denies the relevance of patriarchy, racism, and capitalist theory. Some feminist scholars, however, believe that postmodern thought offers valuable insights for feminism and women's studies, and that their concerns often align in important ways. Both feminism and postmodernism critique grand theories and meta-narratives in modern thought. Feminism does so because these theorists overlook gender, while postmodernism opposes their rationalism and essentialism. Both place great emphasis on the issue of cultural construction, though from different starting points. They similarly focus on issues of difference and diversity, leading them to critique fixed concepts such as the self, truth, sexuality, science, and oppression. Both explore the relationship between theory and the analysis of serious social, cultural, and political issues, asking whether theory and practice can be linked, whether the possibility of social change can be imagined, and whether political action can be taken to bring about such change. However, feminist academia and postmodernism do not address these issues in the same way or draw similar conclusions, though both consider them important components of their agendas.
Equally important is the fact that despite these similarities, postmodern thought raises issues for feminism and women's studies that must be taken seriously, primarily at the level of knowledge and in the political sphere.
First, at the level of knowledge, although feminist scholars have long critiqued the grand theories of male scholars, women scholars have also sometimes felt guilty about the meta-narratives they have created, which are based on the idea of a homogenous "woman." This can be seen in feminist efforts to theorize patriarchy as a monolithic system or to discuss gendered division of labor without giving sufficient attention to its historical and social characteristics. Postmodern arguments, therefore, reinforce and further support the claim that, from a historical perspective, feminist and women's studies projects are outdated, as they are based on a singular subject—women—who no longer exists. More thought-provoking is postmodernism's challenge to the fundamental premises of women's studies, which views gender as a significant phenomenon in most social and cultural experiences and practices, and gender relations as the source of inequality and exploitation. Postmodern thought, however, doubts the existence of a real foundation for gender in social and individual existence, emphasizing the fragmentation of the self, the multiplicity of identities, and how these identities manifest through the multiplicity of discourse. This makes feminist structures and one-dimensional claims difficult to sustain, denying the idea of gender as a meaningful and shared social and political category, thereby questioning the justification and legitimacy of feminism and women's studies.