Women's Studies Travel Courses: Faculty Statements
Global Women course, with trip to Scandinavia: Dr. Shanon O’Neill, Director of the Sr. Thea Bowman Center for Women, professor
In the Global Women course that I taught in the spring of 2010, students travelled to Iceland, Norway, and Sweden to study gender equality in the Nordic countries. These countries are consistently ranked in the top 10 in various measures of gender equality, such as political representation and family leave policies. The students were most struck by the parental leave policies, specifically the paternal leave policies, as means of achieving gender equality—we saw fathers out with children in every city. Students were most impressed that these governments valued gender equality and were implementing policies to create gender justice. One student on the trip commented: “I learned that the struggle for gender equality is a battle that every generation must participate in. Each of us is responsible to evaluate, support and promote equal, just and peaceful gender relations.”
British Romantic Women Writers course with trip to England: Dr. Lisa Nevarez, English and Director of Multicultural Studies, professor
I very much enjoyed teaching British Romantic Women Writers, which included a trip to England in Spring of 2003. The class read literature by women authors of the early 19th century, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters. We paid close attention to how gender affected their roles as authors and the challenges they faced in their lives. The trip was wonderful, as we saw the conditions in which these women wrote, and gained a greater appreciation of what it must have been like to be a woman author in this era. For instance, we saw Jane Austen’s writing desk in her home in Chawton, as well as the door she insisted on keeping “squeaky” so she could hear if some entered the room….so she could HIDE her work!