In being about women in this experiential fashion, women's studies is also both for and by women. Students need not be mere passive receptacles of new knowledge, but can instead share in its creation. To be in women's studies as a student, a teacher, or a researcher, is to be in an area where those classic distinctions are open to change; to be part of a genuine and non-authoritarian community of scholars, in which we teach and learn from each other, and in which we can identify and act upon our common interests and concerns.

All that I have said so far implies that feminism is necessary to and inherent in women's studies: feminism is the political and ethical theory which must inform the study of women. While it is worthwhile to retain the term "women's studies" as the name of the unique field devoted to studies by, about, and for women, it is essential to remember that women's studies are also, in terms of their orientation, feminist studies. This is in part because women's studies take as their material women's experience of ourselves and of our world, just as feminism is founded upon the profound consciousness of women's experience. But feminism has two other characteristics crucial to women's studies. First, a feminist perspective makes us aware of the oppression of women, of the ways in which women have been systematically excluded from male culture and institutions, and of the violence exerted to keep us in our place. Second, a feminist perspective entails a commitment to avoid perpetuating that oppression and to work to- wards its elimination. As we become more aware of the variety of experiences of women, we come to a better understanding of the nature and uses of power, of the methods by which women have been oppressed, and of the ways in which women have responded to and resisted that oppression. We also become aware of other forms of oppression: racism, classism, ageism, and heterosexism. And that understanding can produce the determination to challenge the systems that perpetuate oppression. Engaging in women's studies is, then, a potentially subversive activity; it is both an expression of political choice and a mode of self-determination. In becoming a student or a teacher or a researcher in women's studies, one is both taking power over one's own life and laying the foundation for change for and with other women. In no other area of academic study is the claim "knowledge is power" more obviously true. Women's studies permit us to recognize, to name, to understand, and ultimately to transform the conditions of our lives.

It is evident from what I have said that I think the primary goal of women's studies should be to enlighten and advance women. Nevertheless, this does not mean that there is nothing for men in women's studies. To men who are tired of studying other men, women's studies offer the chance to come to some understanding of the women who are their mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, lovers, colleagues, partners, and associates. It also requires them to reexamine their own understanding of themselves and their roles, and thus to run the risk of having to give up old shibboleths. More generally, women's studies afford men the opportunity to share in a collective enterprise which can revolutionize their understanding of human society. And as women, we may be able to learn from the men who join us in women's studies. We may come to see that both women's experience and men's experiences can be valuable. Then, once the transformation made possible by women's studies is well under way, perhaps we can look to the day when we will be able to undertake genuinely human studies.

Reprinted from WEdf, Winter 1986, Volume 5, Number 2.

Christine Overall is a Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, at Queen's University in Kingston. Her research is in the area of applied ethics and feminist theory, and her most recent book is A Feminist I: Reflection from Academia (Broadview Press, 1998).