Gender & Womens Studies?

Question

Why is it called Gender & Womens Studies? Doesnt Men and Womens Studies seem like a better name. I mean Gender Studies basically says it all.

Not some critically important question just curious if anyone knows why its called that.

Answer 1

I have actually never heard of the exact term "gender and womens studies" before until yahoo answers. I first heard of "womens studies," and then some called this gender studies because of the growing incorporation of "mens studies" into womens studies. I think today that we should just call it "gender studies" because you can's study one gender without studying how it interacts with the other.

Answer 2

For a long time it was called Women's Studies. This is the Social Science section, and that's one field in social science. It came into being because the vast majority of work in other fields concerned men primarily.

Many have wondered and complained about their not being a Men's Studies category. The answer from staff that I've seen was that the kinds of questions people would put there more properly belong in various other categories.

At some point, their compromise was to change the name to add "Gender &" to the category.

Yes, it's asymmetric.

But then, so is society....

Answer 3

It is hard to know what exactly you are talking about, is it a college course or what....

If so, maybe because most of this course or program is related to women and not to men, so they want to emphasize that in the name.