About men's role in women's studies: A profound ambivalence

This paper examines the attitudes of female women's studies professors towa rds male women's studies professors, and compares them with the attitudes o f the men themselves. The overriding stance is a profound ambivalence. On t he one hand, men are seen as sometimes necessary and sometimes in principle desirable colleagues in women's studies, on the other hand, they are seen as being in a paradoxical situation, in which their very presence in an aut hority position contradicts the message and intent of the course. The argum ent is presented that ambivalence is preferable to either unproblematic acc eptance or complete rejection of men as instructors in women's studies cour ses.