Will gender studies in Florida survive the United States' turn to the right?

Will gender studies in Florida survive the United States' turn to the right? Diane Price Herndl (bio) Editors of Pandemonium spoke with Diane Price Herndl on June 20, 2023. That's a big question, but my gut says yes. We will survive this. We just celebrated our fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the women's studies program, so it's not like women's and gender studies is a new thing for Florida. We're not, you know, one of those programs that just got off the ground and now we're suddenly recruiting and "grooming" and doing all the things that they seem to think we're doing. But, in fact, we are more than surviving; I'd say we're growing. Even this year, even though we are in the eye of the storm, and through all that Governor DeSantis has put us through this year, the fact is the number of students taking our classes is through the roof. Through. The. Roof! And it isn't just student interest; we are growing in other important ways too. We just added "sexuality" to our name; we did that this year, this year when you would think we might be trying to hide. But we're not. We're not hiding. End Page 93 And we added "sexuality" to "women's and gender" studies, mostly with the support of the administration and the rest of the faculty. I mean, sure, there were a couple of people who said, "Are you sure you think this is a good time to be doing a thing like that?" But we were sure, yes, we were absolutely sure it's a good time to be doing this, adding sexuality to "women's" and "gender," partly because, you know, "sexuality" studies isn't actually under attack here in Florida. Their weakness is their ignorance. It's not like they've been taking our classes! So, you know, they really don't know what they're talking about, or what we're doing. I also think I have a perspective on this because of my age and how long I've been in this field, and how long I've been chair. I mean, I've been around for a really long time, so this is not my first rodeo. In fact, I was in graduate school during the very worst of the last time we were under this kind of focused, concerted political attack. That was the Reagan administration, in the 1980s. Forty years ago, they may actually have had some grounds to be anxious, because women's and gender studies was really new; it was about ten years old, as just a discipline even. There were a whole lot of programs being founded in the eighties, maybe the majority were founded in that decade, even in the decade when the rise of the conservative Reagan revolution was raining down on us. So this feels really familiar in some ways. In other ways, it feels really new. And part of what's new is how this relates to the pandemic, because I think it does. Your idea of starting with the pandemic and thinking about its relationship to the current political situation is right on the money. I actually think the pandemic has a lot to do with where we are right now. I see a lot of connection between the pandemic and this assault on gender studies. Although it's kind of sideways. I think the way this relates to what happened during the pandemic is that there was a lot of mobilization against the power of the state. Lots of people who never imagined themselves as oppressed by the government—except maybe by having to pay taxes—suddenly were thinking their government was taking away their freedoms, telling them what to do: you know, wear a mask and stay indoors and don't go to that wedding or that family holiday, and then take vaccinations. The right wing immediately realized that they could mobilize the kind of anger people felt at having to restrict their movements. And there was this divide, class divide, between people who could do their work remotely...