Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 1980
Abstract
The underlying premise on which we in women's studies have campaigned, and campaigned successfully, for the augmentation of academic curricula by a new and multifaceted field of studies during a period of relative austerity and even retrenchment in the academic world is the recognition of the serious effects of long-term neglect of such studies by the established disciplines. History, we say, and have demonstrated, has not been the history of women. Literature studies have not heard the voices of women, and studies of art have not seen through the eyes of women. The prevailing models of human evolution have been models of the evolution of males, and many of the dominant psychologies and sociologies that take the place of mythology in our day have been founded on antifeminist presumptions and preoccupations. Our task in women's studies intellectually and morally has been a far larger and more complex one than the mere demand for equal rights or fair treatment. As researchers and as teachers we have begun and still have before us the immense work of creating and diffusing the scholarship, insight, and understanding which will bridge over a chasm carved out by centuries of intellectual apathy and neglect.