Are you going to teach crochet?<\/p>\n
That was the question that a Senate member at Concordia University (then Sir George Williams) asked Greta Hofmann Nemiroff when Women\u2019s Studies was being presented. \u201cI replied to him: \u2018no, but if I did crochet, I would be happy to teach you,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This year marks the 50th<\/sup> anniversary of the first Women\u2019s Studies course at a university in Canada. Concordia and a handful of other Canadian universities offered the first classes in the wake of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1968*.<\/p>\n Women\u2019s Studies at Dawson<\/strong><\/p>\n Greta was a founder of Women\u2019s Studies at Concordia and of the Women\u2019s Studies thematic program at Dawson College in 1982.<\/p>\n Greta taught English and Humanities at Dawson from 1973 until 2015, and especially enjoyed teaching at Dawson\u2019s New School, which she has called the \u201clove of her life.\u201d<\/p>\n Greta recalled the early years of Women\u2019s Studies when she was back at Dawson College March 6 to participate in a panel discussion moderated by Pat Romano with fellow Women\u2019s Studies academics Shree Mulay (Memorial University) and Alanna Thain (McGill University) about the past, present and future of Women\u2019s and Gender Studies at the College and beyond.<\/p>\n Speaking to Dawson Communications after the panel, Greta recounted a brief history of Women\u2019s Studies at Dawson:<\/p>\n \u201cI think that during the first year of Dawson, 1969-70, there was a Women’s Studies course offered in the winter semester. There were Women’s Studies courses\u00a0taught at the various Dawson campuses, but I really think the courses were brought together at Dawson after 1988\u00a0when\u00a0we all gathered at the Atwater Campus. Before then, Women’s Studies were taught mainly under the aegis of English and Humanities.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019re a woman <\/strong><\/p>\n During the panel, Greta shared an incident that happened to her as a graduate student. When Greta was pursuing her master\u2019s degree at Boston University in 1959, she applied for and did not receive a graduate assistantship despite being in the 95th<\/sup> percentile in the graduate record examinations (GRE\u2019s). \u201cMy classmate, a farm boy from Minnesota who was in the 30th<\/sup> percentile, received an assistantship. When I spoke to the department chair about this inequity, he said: \u2018of course you didn\u2019t get it, you\u2019re a woman. We don\u2019t want people to think that English literature is effeminate.\u2019 This had such an impact on me. It woke me up to the sexism in academia, even though I did not have a word for it at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Shree shared that her grandmother was widowed at a young age with three children. \u201cMy mother also lost her husband at a young age,\u201d she said. \u201cHer advantage was that she had an education. Women are strong and resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n Ripping off Polytechnique ribbon <\/strong><\/p>\n The Polytechnique massacre happened during Alanna\u2019s last year of high school and was devastating for her. She recalled a male teacher pulling off her Polytechnique remembrance ribbon, \u201cas an intense act of symbolic violence.\u201d<\/p>\n The field of Cinema emerged at the same time as Women\u2019s Studies, Alanna observed. \u201cIt has been feminist from the beginning. The most read article is by a woman, Laura Mulvey. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema<\/em> was written when she was young.\u201d<\/p>\n Academic discussion while caring for babies <\/strong><\/p>\n Greta recalled a conversation with Christine Allen, who was the co-founder of Women\u2019s Studies at Concordia. They had both recently had babies and were trying to have an academic conversation while constantly being interrupted. \u201cI thought it was amazing that we were trying to have this conversation. I said to her: \u2018we should have a course about ourselves!\u2019 In 1968, we made the proposal for the first university Women\u2019s Studies course in Canada, which was offered in the fall of1970 at Sir George Williams.\u201d<\/p>\n Women\u2019s issues were in the air at the time. The Royal Commission on the Status of Women was the first Royal Commission that was televised. The commissioners travelled across the country to meet women and the concerns of women were a popular topic of conversation. Greta read all the documents in the National Archives in Ottawa. \u201cAt that time, there were no words to describe sexual harassment,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you can\u2019t name something, it is not actionable.\u201d<\/p>\n Shree spoke of the great changes in the world and in the field in just 50 years. \u201cWomen\u2019s Studies is not completely focused on women now. There is a broader discussion and an emphasis on sexuality. There have been gains and losses.\u201d<\/p>\n Shifting to greater inclusion <\/strong><\/p>\n Alanna spoke to this shift and said that the wider field is more inclusive and includes gender, sexuality, diversity. \u201cOppressions are interlocked,\u201d she said, adding later that social justice is the direction of the field.<\/p>\n The topics of discussion during the panel at Dawson included Women\u2019s Studies in institutions, women\u2019s groups, academics and activism, the influence of students, and unpaid work by women.<\/p>\n Greta cautioned that \u201cwe cannot let go of women who see themselves as ordinary women. They are violated in many ways, murdered, excluded. A big insight of feminism is that there is no ordinary woman, although huge numbers of women perceive themselves as ordinary women. Misogyny has an impact on everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Why pursue Women\u2019s Studies?<\/strong><\/p>\n A student at the panel discussion mentioned that her parents wondered why she wants to pursue Women\u2019s Studies. The answers came from the panel: \u201cit is interdisciplinary, offers so many perspectives, and the knowledge one gains is rich and varied. You will learn to stand your ground and really understand the way the world works.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Greta, the biggest challenge for feminism today is that the patriarchy is still alive and well. \u201cWe need to have patience and strategy,\u201d Greta insisted. \u201cFeminism is not an event; it is a process. There is much work to be done and an enormous amount of organization to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n