As Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute celebrates its 30th anniversary and the centenary of its namesake’s birthday, it remains a vital centre of women’s studies and community activism.
When a group of feminist scholars from Concordia University approached the French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) some 30 years ago to name their nascent women’s studies institute after her, “I’m not sure she had a clue what we were up to,” recalls Maïr Verthuy, the Simone de Beauvoir Institute’s first principal. “But she agreed. After all, nothing had ever been named after her to that point. The French were not hot on Simone de Beauvoir back then. Now, at least she has a bridge [in Paris] named after her.”
Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary, as well as the 100th anniversary of its namesake’s birth, is a college of many firsts. It was the home of Canada’s first university women’s studies program, offered some of the first courses in lesbian studies and the first course on the history of black women 25 years ago.
In January, France’s Nouvel Observateur magazine touted the Simone of Beauvoir Institute as North America’s most “universally renowned” gender studies program.
While the Institute was founded in 1978, women’s studies at Concordia actually dates back to 1970 at Sir George Williams University. Greta Hofmann Nemiroff and Christine Allen (who later became Sister Prudence Allen) were the catalysts for the first course in the discipline, the Nature of Woman, offered through the Department of Philosophy. “The course that they put together was the real breakthrough,” Verthuy, a retired Concordia French Studies professor, explains. “They were made fun of; they were praised. But it was then that people started building courses in women’s studies.”
The impetus behind the creation of an actual institute came after the merger of Sir George Williams and Loyola College to form Concordia University in 1974. At the time, Concordia was toying with the idea of adding colleges. “Ian Campbell, who was dean of Arts at Sir George Williams, wanted to humanize what was going to be a large institution by having colleges,” Verthuy says. “Sheila McDonough from Religion, who was involved in women’s studies as our Islamist, suggested a women’s studies college. She said we should go for it.”
Over the next several months, that’s exactly what they did. The professors involved in women’s studies met with students, staff, secretaries and anyone else who wanted to attend meetings about setting up the college. And there was no lack of inspiration for the college’s name. “I thought that it was time we recognized a Canadian,” Verthuy says. “And I would have been very happy with Thérèse Casgrain [the celebrated leader of the Quebec women’s suffrage movement]. The others argued, and in the end they were right. Naming it after Simone de Beauvoir would give it more international recognition.”
When the then-rector, John O’Brien, wrote to de Beauvoir to ask for her consent, her reply fell somewhat short of the protocol and legal niceties the University sought. “This torn piece of paper came back, no date, virtually illegible, with basically just the words ‘J’accepte. Simone de Beauvoir,’ “ Verthuy recalls. “What was she accepting? When was she accepting? You couldn’t tell. So I wrote a second letter explaining the administrative necessities, and she sent back another torn piece of paper but this time, with a date saying that she accepted that the Institute bear her name. And that’s in the University archives.”
In early 1978, the Concordia Board of Governors approved in principle the establishment of the Liberal Arts College, Lonergan University College and the Institute for Women’s Studies, which was renamed the Simone de Beauvoir Institute two months later and opened its doors that fall. Thérèse Casgrain was named honorary principal in 1981.
Inquiry and action
Fast forward to the present, and the Institute has lived up to the de Beauvoir name. It boasts about 160 program students pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with a major, minor, certificate or specialization in women’s studies.
It also has about 700 more students enrolled in courses. It’s clearly flourishing. Courses cover a diverse list of topics, such as pop culture, black women’s culture, lesbian issues, globalization, body modification, Ireland, First Nations, peace and urban issues—all combining the traditions of inquiry and action for which women’s studies, feminism and de Beauvoir herself are known.
Of course, some of the issues have evolved since the Institute’s opening. Gada Mahrouse, BA (Eng. lit.) 91, an assistant professor who joined the Institute in January as a specialist on race, racism and anti-colonialism, considers the pressing issues in women’s studies today to be “war, occupation, imperialism and other forms of state violence.
Gone are the days when students could only be concerned with issues in our own backyard. We are now so inundated with information on global suffering—and we are so inextricably linked to that suffering—that the most pressing issues are about how our lives impact the lives of others around the world,” Mahrouse points out. The Institute also tackles issues that are closer to home, such as reasonable accommodation for ethnic minorities. In November 2007, it published “Reasonable Accommodation: A Feminist Response,” a rejoinder to the Bouchard-Taylor Commission’s public consultations on the state of accommodation in Quebec.
Explains Mahrouse: “Since September, the students, my colleagues and I have been preoccupied with the issue. For many of us, this commission has been very disconcerting. We were quite distressed by the ways some of the ideas within the debate, and the responses they have provoked, were going unchallenged, for example, the proposal by the Conseil du statut de la femme du Québec for laws that would ban the wearing of ‘ostentatious’ religious symbols in public institutions by public employees. Basically, what this means is that women who wear a hijab will be excluded from certain jobs.”
The two-page document, which can be found at artsandscience1.concordia.ca/wsdb, was penned by students and faculty.
The succinct response calls into question the Commission’s legitimacy and impact and raises some forgotten issues. The document states, for example, that “listening to people ‘air out’ their racism is not conducive to promoting critical reflection and dialogue, but instead creates a climate of fear-mongering and moral panic. . . . The CSF would better serve the interests of women in Quebec by focusing on the conditions of poverty, violence, criminalization and racism that many of us face, and not on what women wear.”
It doesn’t pull many punches. But then again, feminism, the Institute and Simone de Beauvoir have never been recognized for their subtlety of language. Instead, their history is steeped in action and activism, a large part of the Institute’s essence. “Women’s studies is interesting as a discipline because as a field of inquiry it emerged, in part, through the women’s movement and the labour of concrete organizing,” explains Viviane Namaste, the Institute’s interim principal. “That’s a trajectory not shared by all academics.”
Lillian Robinson, the much-loved principal of the Institute from 2000 until her death in 2006, was one of the leading feminist theorists of the 20th century and an ardent activist. Her legacy lives on. “There’s a great deal of interest in understanding women’s organizing and mobilizing among our students,” Namaste says. “And a number of courses we’ve offered in recent years reflect that.”
Battle rages
It is precisely this dialogue between theory and practice that keeps the Institute, and women’s studies in general, relevant at a time when some think that the battle for women’s equality has been won. “You know, we don’t just have access to abortion in Canada because we have access to abortion,” Namaste says. “We have it because women and men descended into the streets and demanded it, and because they made the compelling argument that if you don’t provide safe access to abortion, women are going to have illegal abortions, and they’re going to die. As they did. Feminism marks and honours that struggle and that labour.”
Aside from the concerns typically attributed to the feminist movement, such as reproductive rights, pay equity and equal political representation, the discipline extends to countless other directions. The April 28-29 interdisciplinary conference “Feminist Research at Concordia” will exemplify that by covering themes that include feminism and food, women in business and feminist perspectives in science. While the Institute commemorates the struggles of earlier generations of feminists, it is not mired in the past. “The Institute is a great, dynamic place,” Namaste says. “It’s exciting to be part of the college system with one of the mandates being to reach out to the community. It speaks really highly of Concordia, and researchers, teachers and students come here because of that.”
As Simone de Beauvoir herself once said: “When I was tormented by what was happening in the world, it was the world I wanted to change, not my place in it.” .
Julie Gedeon, BA 89, BA 01, is a Montreal freelance journalist.
If you have any comments about this article, contact Howard Bokser, (514) 848-2424 ext. 3826, Howard.Bokser@concordia.ca
