Gender studies: A global perspective of their evolution contribution, and challenges to comparative higher education

The incorporation of new fields of study in the university tendsto be a contested process. This has been the case for women'sstudies despite its many conceptual, theoretical, and methodologicalcontributions. Moreover, these programs have constantly sufferedfinancial vulnerability and struggled for academic recognitionand autonomy. Comparative data about women's studies programs existbut could be enhanced by explicit cross-national studies. At thecrossroads today, women's studies can chose to adopt more feministpolitical concerns and engage in socially transformative researchprojects or succumb to forces of globalization that, in making theuniversity increasingly entrepreneurial, preempt concerns forequity and social justice.