Women’s Week has come round again, as it does every year. I’ve been asked to give you my impressions of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going with regard to diversity?a story that reads like the proverbial “one step forward, two steps back.” So here goes the unapologetic, straightforward standpoint of a Chicana, Latina, Mexican American woman?all terms I answer to?from New Mexico and living in Salt Lake City, Utah.
It should strike us as ironic that women have a week? I’m being facetious, but then again, perhaps there’s more to it than that. The irony of Women’s Week is akin to that afforded by such events as Black History Month, and the diet of Chicana/o, Asian American and American Indian Awareness Weeks. I understand Polynesian Americans only had an Awareness Week-End for a period of time which gives us a glimpse of the “man behind the curtain” as it were?the mundane machinations by which people of color attempt to have a voice in the world of the academy.
Don’t get me wrong. I fully appreciate the fact that in the past?where we’ve been?such events never took place on university campuses. Where we’ve been was seriously wanting in all facets of understanding the nuances of race, class, and gender. In point of fact, prior to the 1960s, no variation in race, class, and gender “existed” because the world was constructed to look something like “Leave it to Beaver” or “Ben Casey” and could be heard in the music of Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, and Doris Day?all focused on the middle to upper class white male or white male’s family, complete with doting and servile wife and mother. This was also reflected on university campuses in fraternities, sororities, clubs, and most tellingly, in university curriculum.
The 1960s brought new meaning to the words “campus demonstration.” Blacks, women, Chicanos and American Indian activists staged sit-ins, teach-ins and other protest activities, mainly wanting to change the power structures and strictures everywhere apparent and also motivated partly by the desire to revise the university curriculum and community on a more inclusive model.
This meant the inception of ethnic studies and women’s studies programs all across the nation. The university bowed to cultural and structural changes in the new student body and courses began to reflect the diversity of the university community. Hence, the 1960s and early 1970s world saw “All in the Family,” the early versions of “The Jeffersons,” and “Maude,” poke fun at white male middle to upper class constructions of the social domain and the academy.
By the mid-to-late 1970s, however, this new urgency and the strident calls for action of the 1960s and early 1970s were tempered and often flattened by the deaths of Malcolm X, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy, and also by Watergate. “All in the Family” became more and more centered on Archie Bunker’s family issues, while “The Jeffersons” became centered on the foibles of George Jefferson, not the white establishment it sought to earlier critique.
Moreover, the programs that had broadened the actual life conditions of people of color in the 1960s and early 1970s were being rolled back especially by the 1980s. In fact, it was claimed by former President Reagan, despite severe discrimination in housing, employment and education across the country experienced by people of color as well as roll-backs in civil rights, that racial/ethnic groups were simply “whining.”
All this is interesting in light of the fact that all measures of progress pointed to a decline in the life chances of people of color by the mid 1970s. Actually, white women?also recipients of Affirmative Action?emerged from that era with the strongest showing of socio economic growth. Good for them. After centuries of discrimination it was about time. And it is more fascinating still when you think that some of my own white female students virulently protest Affirmative Action whenever it is raised as a substantive issue.
Moreover, the television stayed in tune with this era’s dominant themes, heralding uncritical sitcoms, variety shows, and drama series such as “Dallas”?big money American-style. Moreover, whatever we may think of her transmogrifications since, the “material girl” herself (along with countless and unmemorable white long-haired glamour boy bands) emerged in the Reagan era. African American feminist scholar Bell Hooks describes Madonna as a manipulative white Aryan image juxtaposed to people of color in her videos who, Hooks suggests, she treats patronizingly.
The 1980s, the 1990s and the early years of the present century encompass a period the political scientists Rogers Smith and Philip Klinkner term one of “benign neglect” of racial/ethnic issues.
Hence, we have the era of sit-coms “Seinfeld” and “Friends,” which for all their ability to raise a giggle, speak volumes about how inclusive New York and the rest of us have become. And we have a fascinating music transmigration from bubble gum to punk to grunge to rap to industrial to co-opted rap to bubble gum all over again with the Debbie Gibson, the Clash, Nirvana, Public Enemy, Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Britney Spears (once again surrounded by an era of white glamour boy bands, this time with short hair and trying to sound like black men). The general rule for this period has not been to question authority but to make money off of it. Few and far between are the likes of Chuck D and Public Enemy.
And the academy, the university, where we lay claim to enlightenment and excellence? There has been a certain malaise and stagnation at times. At some universities, the ethnic studies programs are busy in-fighting. For example, the African American and Latina/o groups are measuring territory and fighting over crumbs from central administrations. Some universities have dissolved or attempted to dissolve their ethnic studies programs outright. Almost everywhere ethnic studies and women’s studies or gender studies programs are not full-fledge departments. Moreover, the level of commitment to such programs often waxes and wanes depending on central administrations that have a high rate of turnover.
And the University of Utah? We have made some significant strides. In fact, I believe the commitment from central administration exists at our university to recruit and retain students, faculty, and staff who are women and people of color. But this commitment must last into the next administration and the next after that. I am happy to say that there are many more women faculty who have been hired at this university in the nearly 12 years since I came; but I am saddened that there are still only a handful of people of color who have come. It’s sad, I think, when I can name them all. Now, to be fair, this isn’t the sole responsibility of the university. This depends on complex relationships within departments, salary issues nationwide, the opinions of and job market prospects for significant others, and the demographics of Utah. Many people of color simply don’t want to move to a state which is 89 percent white.
Which brings me back to my earlier admonition? It should strike us as ironic that women have a week, African Americans have a month, and Chicanas/os, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Polynesian Americans have a week of awareness. We must get past this paradigm of essentialized “weeks” for women and people of color lest we teach our students and our community that by default the rest of the year is not about them.
Theresa Martinez is an associate professor of sociology at the U. She has won several teaching awards including the Distinguished University Teaching Award, the College Superior Teaching Award, the Presidential Teaching Scholar Award.