Gender in Global Context: A Programmatic Model
By Amy Jamison, assistant director; Lisa Fine, codirector; and Anne Ferguson, codirector, all of the Center for Gender in Global Context at Michigan State University

A few years ago, a feminist scholar at our university hosted a delegation of West African women who were visiting the United States as part of an exchange program to learn about democratic organizing. She took the delegates to visit several gender-focused organizations across the state to learn about different approaches to political activism. At one organization, a second-wave women’s rights activist spoke about the history of the feminist movement in the United States. She strongly implied that if African women just followed the path already forged by Americans, they too could be liberated. Her presentation revealed her belief that women’s progress in the United States set the standard for the rest of the world to follow. The West African women reacted with disbelief. In one short speech, the American activist had erased their contributions as activists in their own right, delegitimizing their work, their experiences in their local context, and their ability to forge their own paths.  

Karen Torjesen

The Long Trajectory toward Global Women’s Studies
By Karen Torjesen, Margo L. Goldsmith Professor of Women’s Studies in Religion, Claremont Graduate University

For many years now I have engaged in a process, sometimes personal, sometimes professional, of grappling with the question, “What would it mean to ‘globalize’ women’s studies at my institution?” Along the way, I have built many transformative relationships and engaged in several forms of cultural consciousness raising. As I reflect on my personal and professional trajectory toward globalizing women’s studies, I am impressed by the proximity of the “globalized world,” its presence in each of our neighborhoods and the ease with which we can connect to it by reaching beyond our immediate academic communities. I am equally impressed with how feminist activism can challenge and complicate feminist theorizing. We have long known that “the personal is the political,” but personal friendships can indeed be transformative when they take us across cultural and religious divides.

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