WHEN WOMEN ASK THE QUESTIONS: CREATING WOMEN'S STUDIES IN AMERICA.(Review)

WHEN WOMEN ASK THE QUESTIONS: CREATING WOMEN'S STUDIES IN AMERICA By Marilyn J. Boxer Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998 Baltimore, Maryland 392 Pages Hardcover: $29.95

When Women Ask the Questions is a provocative, yet deeply flawed publication that purports to annotate the creation of women's studies programs within the American academy. Noted as "the first comprehensive account of women's studies," Marilyn Jacoby Boxer presents an incomplete history of the discipline in its maneuverings through the patriarchal elitism of institutionalized discourse.

While it may stand as a healthy exposition of a movement whose confrontations and challenges of societal gender norms, attitudes, and practices changed global consciousness for ever, sadly -- although pertinent insights do abound -- …