{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01935483870967742, 'fraction_numerical': 0.002867383512544803, 'mean_word_length': 5.149779735682819, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Introduction to the Special Issue - Masculinities in Women’s Studies: Locations and Dislocations

This special issue stems from a serendipitous encounter between the two coeditors as members of an electronic mailing list devoted to pedagogy in academic Women’s Studies. A perennial topic on this list is the question of whether changing departmental names from Women’s Studies, or Women’s and Gender Studies, to variations such as Gender Studies or Gender and Sexuality Studies constitutes a betrayal of a foundational political commitment to women’s liberation, or whether it extends and enhances that commitment by encouraging a broader scope of course offerings and inviting a wider range of students into Women’s Studies courses. Both of us teach Women’s Studies, and our support for name change during a particularly heated version of this debate in 2008 produced a sharp, critical response from a number of list members. As a happy consequence, we began an e-mail exchange in an effort to think more closely about the complex issues that arise when queer and male bodies find themselves in Women’s Studies, and when Women’s Studies’ activist commitment to women as such butts up against its theoretical investment in gender as a socially constructed, relational category. It is clear that the inclusion of male-bodied students and teachers, as well as the curricular inclusion of the topic