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Women’s Committee
Report of the Women’s Committee
The Committee reported on its activities for the annual convention and in regards to cooperative ventures with the Minority Scholars Committee and the International Women’s Task Force.
The Women’s Committee met in 1997-98 at the Washington D.C. Convention, once separately as a committee and then jointly with the Minority Scholar’s Committee. The Chair also met with the Task Force for International Women. The 1997 Women’s Breakfast, co-hosted by the Women’s Committee and Minority Scholar’s Committee, and chaired by Shirley Lim, featured Nell Irvin Painter. It was well attended, and brought a number of international women scholars to meet the members of the Women’s Committee on common ground. A number of conference activities were also jointly hosted with the Minority Scholars Committee, including “Disability and the Cultures of Women” and “Vital Signs: Crisp Culture Talks Back: Film and Discussion,“ and the collaboration continues for the 1998 Convention.
Members of the committee also attended the breakfast meeting of the Task Force for International Women, and were able to brainstorm on further cooperative ventures with international women scholars in American Studies. The Chair of the Women’s Committee was one of the panelists for the very useful panel on “‘American Feminisms’/Transnational Constructions: A Conversation Organized by the International Women’s Task Force.“ The Women’s Committee wishes to participate in the discussions that are occurring with the International Women’s Task Force, although the shape of this participation is still not clear. It could take the form of liaison members who are members of both committees, or of jointly co-sponsored activities as with the Minority Scholars Committee. The present composition of the Women’s Committee lends itself to such multiple collaborations, as the members work in a range of international and minority interests; and many U.S. members of the International Women’s Task Force had earlier served on the Women’s Committee.
Although “Crossroads” as a concept and tool is of tremendous value to scholars, especially those with less access to traditional library and research resources, such as women and international scholars, still it has probably not received sufficient attention from the Women’s Committee. Even as they applaud its promise and its value, members of the Women’s Committee are overwhelmed by the many responsibilities they face in their institutions (including the pressures of competitive scholarship, teaching duties and counseling duties as role models to women and minority students). Thus, they have not been able as a collective to do much to advance the agenda of Crossroads. Even if as individuals they may have found Crossroads valuable and have referred their students and colleagues to it, they have not addressed it collectively as an ongoing project that needs our input and support.
The Women’s Committee, however, remains true to its fundamental mission to bring to the fore the kinds of cultural and scholarly work that advance women’s social causes. Thus, the invitation to have Angela Davis speak as the Women’s Breakfast speaker for the 1998 Convention. Also, the kinds of topics the Committee hammered out for the 1998 Convention, for example, the focus on women’s bodies/labor in the global circuit of late capitalism, reflect this on-going commitment to those research issues that take into account the intersections of women, class, nation, and ethnicity that pose the challenges facing American civilization.
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