ABSTRACT
At Bates, “Introduction to Women’s Studies” typically explores the subjective and collective meanings of womanhood as constituted by nationality, race, religion, class, sexuality, ethnicity, language, and physical ability. Ideas about “women” may be divided and marked by the effects of history and culture, they insist, but not underlying bodies. As Lynda Birke and Marsha Henry noted, aside from some material on health and reproduction, women’s studies classes rarely incorporate the numerous insights of feminist science and technology studies. The modules seek to integrate issues of regional location, race, economics, and ideology, while remaining firmly attentive to the shape, substance, and mortality of fleshy bodies—to the questions of materiality that inevitably arise in women’s studies courses. Feminist teachers, then, must be careful not to simply suggest the abolition of scientific definitions of woman or women. Such a task would be as unwise as it would be impossible.
