from NWSA Journal Volume 16, Number 2

Excerpt from

Women's Studies and Activism: An Interview with Ellen Messer-Davidow

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In Disciplining Feminism (2002), Ellen Messer-Davidow argues that because women's studies has become too removed from activism, a reorientation is needed to achieve feminist goals. To explore this issue, the Women's Studies program at Iowa State University invited Messer-Davidow to speak on April 10, 2003. The following day, five members of the ISU feminist community interviewed Messer-Davidow (EM-D): Jill Bystydzienski (JB), Director of Women's Studies; Leslie Bloom (LB), Associate Director of Women's Studies and activist; Penny Rice (PR), Director of the Women's Center; and Adela Licona (AL), graduate student and Editorial/Research Assistant for the NWSA Journal . Brenda Daly (BD), Editor of the NWSA Journal, acted as facilitator.

JB: Your view of activism is that it is a change-oriented activity outside of academia. However, academic feminists have struggled to bring about change in academia since the 1960s and are continuing to do so. Aren't efforts by feminists on college and university campuses also an important component of social change? Robyn Wiegman, for instance, argues that one example of social change is the institutionalization of feminist studies in academia. Another example: on the ISU campus, feminists have been rather successful in getting a family leave policy. Shouldn't such efforts be considered as part of feminist activism?

EM-D: The short answer is "yes." That's what we all did in the early days. Starting around 1969, and all through the 1970s, women at various academic sites worked on two projects: improving women's status and producing feminist knowledge, which is now institutionalized as the field of feminist studies with its research and teaching. Those were the two paths, and they crisscrossed. For example, feminist research in fields like sociology looked at status of women; that is, we had hundreds of status studies focused on women in disciplines such as literary studies, sociology, and physics, as well as some in nonacademic professions. Certainly that activism transformed disciplines and changed universities. What concerns me, however, is the impact of feminist activism not just on the academy, but on society within the larger field of forces that are impacting the entire higher education system--forces that may be disenabling it and therefore us. That's what I don't see much, if any, attention given to.

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