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Home » Blogs » Hornito's blog » Julie White will star as a feminist teacher in HBO's "Women's Studies"

Julie White will star as a feminist teacher in HBO's "Women's Studies"

by
Hornito

Raise your hand if you took a women’s studies class in college (or for the young’uns out there, if you plan on taking a class in the future).

Yeah, that’s what I thought. Personally, women’s studies was my underage gay bar. It was a place to scope out the other queer girls, their straight allies (my unrequited love) and the girls who needed a little help figuring out they were gay and latched on to the closest short lesbian (me) they could get their hands on. Grades didn’t matter so much as your use of the term “patriarchal society” and willingness to attend the Vagina Monologues. Those days are sorely missed but, thanks to HBO, we may get a chance to go back to class.

The cable network is developing Women’s Studies, a show which will center around "a onetime famous author who, after a tumultuous period as a feminist ‘It Girl’, is now a professor at a small liberal arts college in the Northeast." Acting veteran and Tony-Award winner Julie White has been cast to star as the show’s lead.

Normally I’d be a bit skeptical about a show with a premise like this one. Sure, it’s bound to have plenty of LGBT references and characters, but will it all be handled correctly or will it only perpetuate bad stereotypes? But, the people behind the camera give me great hope. Master executive producer and writer Ben Karlin (The Daily Show, The Colbert Report) has taken the lead in developing the project. Celebrated playwright and author Theresa Rebeck (NYPD Blue) is set to script the show.

Theresa Rebeck with fellow playwright Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros

With resumes like those, it’s hard not to get excited. That being said, I’ll slow my roll until the show comes out (or at least once the previews make their way out). What do you think — will you be setting your DVRs to see what happens or do you want to keep your women’s studies experience in the past?

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    • Submitted by
    Hornito
    on April 20, 2009 - 2:00pm.
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    siren11's picture

    I have a degree in women's

    Submitted by
    siren11 (1 post)
    on April 20, 2009 - 2:08pm.
    I have a degree in women's studies and i'm currently getting a Masters in Women and Gender studies. Personally, I don't see anything TV-worthy in the goings-on of my program, but HBO generally has a good track record of good shows. I'll probably give this a shot when it starts.
    ella's picture

    All my friends I met through WS

    Submitted by
    ella (15 posts)
    on April 20, 2009 - 3:23pm.

    I have an undergrad degree in Women's Studies from a conservative southern state uni (alabama) and all the fun I had in college I can attribute (directly or indirectly) to the program. I met all of my friends at my first NOW meeting, we used to spend weekends volunteering as abortion clinic escorts until Eric Robert Rudolph blew up the other clinic around the corner from us. And we had great protests, veggie potlucks, and equinox parties. I think the pressure of being the only freaky, hippy, queer art chicks on an Alabama campus with shaved heads and unshaven legs brought us all together. Not to mention how the state legislature was constantly threatening to pull the plug on the WS department at Alabama because we supposedly taught all the freshmen girls how to be lesbians. 

    I have such nostalgia for women's studies (which is trully the mother of all anti-oppressive theoretical work out there) that I decided to take a class again when getting my master's degree. And I am not disappointed. Its just as fun, rewarding, and challenging as I remember my undergrad years - not to mention a hell of alot more educational than so many other courses I've taken at the Master's level. 

    I just think most Women's studies profs are passionate about what they do (not all, but most) and this is what we need in our Unis - especially the more corporate state run ones. And young women NEED coursework on women's studies to salvage their self-esteem, introduce them to other strong women, and deprogram them from the heterosexist, gendered world of their adolescence. 

    OK. sigh. I'm off to work on a queer theory paper. 

    ella

     

    Bett Norris's picture

    Hey Ella

    Submitted by
    Bett Norris (69 posts)
    on April 21, 2009 - 4:17am.

    I graduated from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Tutwiler dorm. Those were the days.

    If you can't find humor in the women's studies program, then where?

     

    www.bettnorris.com

    www.bywaterbooks.com

    Acidian's picture

    No women's studies

    Submitted by
    Acidian (91 posts)
    on April 20, 2009 - 4:37pm.

    No women studies offered at the university I attend (from what I am aware).

    Doing medicine degree at the moment so even though it was available I could not take it (we don't get majors and minors, just one fixed medicine course).

    Interested in giving the show a chance (and if it is not "must see every week" worthy, will record and then catch up in summer ). Sounds interesting if it is written well.

    shoveya's picture

    Same here, no women's

    Submitted by
    shoveya (132 posts)
    on April 21, 2009 - 9:26am.

    Same here, no women's studies offered in my university. Though some form of it does occasionally show up in a module from the History/ Literature department, its not the same. I have a feeling my uni days would have been so much different if I had been a major... 

    Picture of 'light is like water' author

    Lowell's picture

    i think women's studies

    Submitted by
    Lowell (213 posts)
    on April 20, 2009 - 9:44pm.

    should be at least offered, if not mandatory, in high school. you know, maybe as an alternative to home economics (do they still have that?).

    it will OPEN THEIR EYES.

    Jes's picture

    anything but dull

    Submitted by
    Jes (31 posts)
    on April 21, 2009 - 12:03pm.
    I will watch the series because I already feel like a fan.  Years ago I taught Women’s Studies and also included women’s issues in my literature and composition classes.  The University essentially fired me when I wished to begin my real-life test as a pre-operative male-to-female transsexual, even though I was a tenured associate professor (long story).  I had the sex change in 1997 and began teaching part-time at a nearby community college.  I used the same feminist/women’s studies notes and discussions as I had at my prior University; however, I was now perceived as a female teacher instead of a male teacher.  When I was perceived as a male teacher, my students’ evaluations were excellent; however, when I was perceived as female teacher, my students’ evaluations criticized me as a “bitch” and “femi-Nazi,” among other terms, and I was not rehired.  (I do realize the variable here of university students versus community college students, but I don’t believe this made a huge difference in student criticisms.  Faculty and staff also treated me differently, but that’s another proverbial can of worms)  For those who may worry that a TV show about a Women’s Studies department will be boring, let me say that I believe it will be riveting.
    girlscantell's picture

    she went to my high school!

    Submitted by
    girlscantell (1 post)
    on April 23, 2009 - 11:41pm.
    of course it was a few years before me. i hope the show does well. she was so funny on "grace under fire"
    Kat's picture

    Women's studies minor

    Submitted by
    Kat (68 posts)
    on April 26, 2009 - 4:54am.
    If I can find some way to watch it (I've never had HBO), I probably will. That is one of the few things I love about my university (Chico State). It has a great women's studies program, which I'm minoring in. I think it would be fascinating to see it as the focus in a slightly mainstream TV show.

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