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 tends to be a contested process. This has been the case for women's studies despite its many conceptual, theoretical, and methodological contributions. Moreover, these programs have constantly suffered financial vulnerability and struggled for academic recognition and autonomy. Comparative data about women's studies programs exist but could be enhanced by explicit cross-national studies. At the crossroads today, women's studies can chose to adopt more feminist political concerns and engage in socially transformative research projects or succumb to forces of globalization that, in making the university increasingly entrepreneurial, preempt concerns for equity and social justice.