ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a number of questions. In a context of advanced performativisation of academic work, had Women’s, Gender, Feminist Studies (WGFS) become more or less established? Is there more space for WGFS work? Is it still mocked in corridor talk? Is it more widely and easily recognised as capable of producing 'proper' knowledge? Have the potential openings for WGFS which the author had initially identified actually come to fruition? WGFS is, in fact, more than just the sum of the actions, outputs and achievements of each individual scholar. The chapter suggests that recognising the performative university's paradoxical openings and 'perverse pleasures' is both epistemically and politically imperative. The performative university does produce openings for individuals and teams, but at what cost, not just to the health, intellectual, emotional and political vitality, and the personal life of each individual scholar, but also to the invisible but inestimable work of making the field.
