The Development of Women’s Studies Programs in View of the Gender Paradigm Shifts: A Process Tracing in the United States

The Women’s Studies departments have been established since 1970 in the United States. The number of the departments, the subjects and the material they cover has increasingly grown and from its very characteristics is a significant co-relation with the reality of change in women’s status. Women’s Studies was established as the academic wing of the women’s civil movements and it can be understood in terms of changing meanings of the women’s rights and empowerment. Despite its internal discursive dynamism, Women’s Studies is facing a sort of challenge caused by the paradigmatic shift of gender and makes it sound insufficient in the content and even in its name. The present study, then, exploits the process tracing method with focus on the American Studies historians’ records to indicate the reflection of women and gender paradigm shifts and their subsequent effects in Women’s Studies departments, their opportunities and challenges. The process tracing is conducted three historical phases including binary sex paradigm: women against men (1970-early 1980s), paradigm change from woman to women- women to gender (1980s- Mid 1990s), and paradigm of the sexual orientation and gender identity dominance (Mid 1990s- Present). To trace this process within the United States is expected to reveal the gender discourse globally.