briefing papers for policy makers

Adaptability and Entrepreneurship
6. Although Women’s Studies is often held in low esteem in academe, and employers are sometimes hostile to
students taking the subject, it is resulting in producing individuals who are independent-minded and relatively
high-risk takers - both desirable qualities in an uncertain job market.
7. Women’s Studies training provide women with key knowledge and skills for the labour market. These include:
• Gender awareness
• Knowledge of equal opportunities
• Self-confidence
• Critical thinking ability
• The ability to establish and sustain complex arguments
• Abilities to work in a communicative, open style
• Competence in dealing with diversity.
8. Women’s Studies students are more willing to go into less established, innovatory work environments where
work cultures are less entrenched.
9. Women’s Studies training impacts most significantly on how women carry out their work, making them
potential change agents in the workplace.
10. Women’s Studies students reported a willingness to ‘invent’ their own jobs that is to think creatively about
making employment for themselves.
Equal Opportunities
11. Equal opportunities legislation in most European countries is not well understood, nor widely known by many
people including those who have an awareness of gender issues.
12. Women’s Studies training equips women to address the following issues at work:
• Refusal to put up with sexist behaviour at work
• Introduction of gender issues into the workplace
• Working in a non-sexist manner
• Fighting discrimination at work
• Feeling more confident in making applications for promotion
• Being more sensitive to issues of diversity
• Being more supportive of female colleagues
13. Women’s Studies training facilitate students’ understanding of the gendered power asymmetries they routinely
encounter in their working lives, enabling them to make sense of those experiences.
14. At school level students have limited exposure to gender issues as they are rarely included in the school
curriculum.
15. In European countries where careers guidance is available, it reproduces traditional gender paradigms in the
careers advice given to girls. Careers advisors lack knowledge of how Women’s Studies can be utilized in the
job market.
16. In some countries such as France, equal opportunities posts do not require any gender awareness training.
17. Women attending Women’s Studies courses express a high degree of satisfaction, as they are able to better
understand gender inequalities like unequal access to the labour market.
18. Women’s Studies training has been institutionalised to the greatest extent in countries with a history of state
feminism, modular higher education systems, and where universities are relatively autonomous. Nowhere in
Europe has Women’s Studies achieved full disciplinary status.
19. Some European countries have research centres in Women’s Studies offering MAs/PhDs. However, most
European countries still teach Women’s Studies only at undergraduate level as modules within other traditional
disciplines. Students are therefore likely to come across the subject by chance while already at university. This
reduces impact and visibility of Women’s Studies as a discipline.
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