Men in women’s studies: A case study

This chapter foregrounds the muted history of men’s positive engagement with the institutionalization of women’s studies in India. It uses a women’s studies centre in eastern India as a case study to narrate men’s (academics, policymakers, administrative staff, and students) roles in the establishment and growth of feminist pedagogy in masculinist institutions of higher education. This project is pursued by conducting in-depth interviews with those associated with the instating and everyday operations of the centre. In locating women’s studies departments as a locus of feminist theory and practice, and then telescoping in on the supportive roles of men in them, the larger questions which this chapter probes are: What are the modalities for men contributing to feminist pedagogy and the production of feminist knowledge? What are the stakes of men's involvement in women's studies departments? Further, what implication does this involvement have for the autonomy of feminist practice from masculinist appropriation?

• View at Worldcat