ABSTRACT
The nature of women's studies is unresolved, although some fifteen years have passed since the first college course about women was offered. Debate even continues over the name for the field. Women's studies is distinguished by its focus on women, women's experiences, and the nature of relationships between the sexes. By placing women at the center of intellectual inquiry, women's studies offers a new perspective on the world. Women's studies draws upon the accumulated wisdom of many different disciplines, while offering a radical critique of the knowledge and methods of those disciplines. Much of the vast and flourishing literature by and about women does not fit the traditional notion of "scholarly" writing. Valuable information and pathbreaking elaborations of theory are often published in activist periodicals, newsletters, and pamphlets, or in paperbacks issued by small feminist presses. Researchers must also recognize the diversity of female experience.
