SDSU Women’s Studies Dept. celebrates 50 years of fight
When San Diego State University launched what would become the nation’s first women’s studies program, it was less a grand gesture than a guerilla mission.
When the first batch of classes was offered in January of 1970, the Ad-Hoc Committee for Women’s Studies did not yet have the administration’s blessing to move forward with its pioneering project. The committee forged ahead anyway. Female faculty members were recruited from other departments to teach woman-focused classes as unpaid volunteers. Instead of listing the courses in the official class schedule, the five offerings were advertised in a brochure and in the Daily Aztec student newspaper.
The under-the-radar classes were such a success that by the end of that semester, the committee’s proposal was approved. On May 22, 1970, San Diego State College became the first higher-education institution in the nation with a women’s studies program.
Fifty years later, the program is a whole department offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees and classes in everything from “Sex, Power and Politics” to “Gender, Science and Technology.” The Department of Women’s Studies is not the academic outlier it used to be. But the rabble-rousing spirit of that stealth semester is still alive and still kicking the status quo.
“It is what I always thought of as, ‘The Women’s Studies Way.’ Our motto is, ‘Seek forgiveness rather than permission,’ and you can see that from the very start,” said Doreen Mattingly, who has chaired the department since 2017. “The great women who came before me had to figure out where were the openings in the institution where changes could be made. How do you change an institution from within, and how do you have some fun while you’re at it?
“It was like, ‘OK, we’re just going to do it. You all can catch up with us later.’”
Today, the SDSU Department of Women’s Studies will mark its 50th anniversary with a virtual celebration of its groundbreaking past and trailblazing future. The event runs from 1 to 3 p.m. on Zoom and features live panel sessions with faculty members from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, including former department chair Marilyn Boxer. The virtual program, which is being produced by Moxie Theatre, will also include videos, a dance program and samples of student artwork created for women’s studies classes.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a much smaller affair than the inperson confab that was supposed to happen in the spring. But there will be no shortage of history.
Like any revolution, the push to create a women’s studies department was part of a larger movement. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, faculty members and students in campuses across the country wanted alternatives to an academic world where everything was viewed through the works, ideas and opinions of White men. On the SDSU campus, the Department of Chicano Studies (now the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies) was formed in
1969. The Department of Afro-American Studies (now the Department of Africana Studies) started three years later.
The original proposal for creating the Center for Women’s Studies and Services was based on the proposal for the Chicano Cultural Center. The ambitious plan was designed to address students’ lives in and out of the classroom, with a call for an academic program; centers for research, publications and tutoring; and cultural, community and child-care centers. It wasn’t just about school. It was about life.
“There was a lot of overlap with the Chicano movement and African American
studies. We were all an answer to the unrest in society,” said Carol Perkins, who taught in the women’s studies department from 1975 to 1989 and will be participating in one of today’s panels.
“The students we had were absolutely engaged. People were just hungry for this type of information. No one had been talking about the fact that there was Western male bias in every single discipline we were involved in. We had some very outspoken, scholarly people writing this sort of thing for the first time. There was a lot of energy and a lot of campus activity. It was so exciting.”
For an idea of just how eventful the department’s first 50 years have been, check out the timeline link on its website. By the fall of 1972, 534 students had
enrolled in women’s studies classes, up from 360 the year before. In 1973, the faculty, staff and the board resigned after the College of Arts & Letters expanded the Faculty Advisory Committee’s authority over the department. Gloria Steinem came to campus in 1984. Shirley Chisolm came two years later. Astronaut Sally Ride spoke in 2001.
The list of landmark events ends in 2020, but the Department of Women’s Studies’ timeline stretches into 2030 and beyond, leaving plenty of room for the revolutions — and revolutionaries — to come.
“Looking at the timeline, it makes me think about the leaders who are coming to speak to us now and how they will be looked back on in the future,” said Jenna Wilson, a first-year master’s
student and a member of the 50th anniversary planning committee. “Some of these
people are just at the start of their careers, and to think of the impact they will have
over the years is really cool.”