Ashley: Taking the women's and gender studies Disability, Power, and Privilege class was a moment for me when women's and gender studies came off the pedestal. That was a time period where I was like, "All right, there are problems here." In classes I started realizing I was looking at feminists who are using this ableist language in their scholarship and not including people with disabilities in this conversation, and other people as well. That was the time period I was kind of disenchanted a little bit. It really made my understanding of feminism and women's and gender studies more complex and empowering, I think, after that. But that was difficult.

Alison: It is the moment where you start seeing, like, "Oh, right, this is a field that's in motion." Or then you have the moments, too, of recognizing, "These scholars whose work I've admired so much aren't actually asking questions that I think are important."

Ashley: Yeah.

Alison: I'm having that right now thinking about prenatal testing. When feminist scholars are talking about reproduction and reproductive justice, why aren't they talking about prenatal testing?

Ashley: I read feminist works and I'm in feminist classes, and now I'm thinking, how can you not include this?

Alison: Women's and gender studies is a field that hasn't fully answered all the questions, and it's often in a mode of self-critique and potential for change. This makes me think about making disability studies part of the academy. In the call for papers for this collection, the editors quote Sharon Snyder and David Mitchell who argue that institutionalizing disability studies is challenging because "the field situates itself as a force of destabilization" (192). This is true of women's and gender studies, too. The sort of origin story for the field is that it emerged from feminist activism. And because of this, a lot of women's and gender studies practitioners have been reluctant to see women's and gender studies as a discipline, as a legitimate institutional player in the academic scene. I think that's troubling.

Do we want to talk for a few minutes about academic institutionalization? What has women's and gender studies gained in becoming comfortably housed in universities nationwide? It's provided me the space to do research and teaching which are very closely linked for me, that I'm able to have conversations about nuanced, complicated issues that matter to me, and those conversations in and out of the classroom are able to help me create a fuller understanding of the issues, whatever they may be. And that's part of what institutionalization has made possible for me: I have the space and the support to do really complicated thinking, which helps me to challenge stereotypes, which helps me to challenge easy reductive approaches to various ideas.

Amber: As a student, I have sort of a similar perspective. It's really important for me to be in a college atmosphere where I feel like I belong and where I feel like I have the validation and encouragement and resources to pursue work that has been really interesting to me. And often to be part of a student voice or student body calling for improvements or envisioning a way in which women's and gender studies can be grown, can be better. Having this role to play not only has cemented my feeling of belonging but makes me feel more able to have a space that responds to other students' needs of belonging that are different than mine. This is another reason that I felt like disability was so obvious—that of course students with disabilities on this campus need a space to belong, and if they're interested in women's and gender studies, then the women's and gender studies program is really happy to be one of the spaces in which they feel welcome and appreciated and, you know, made comfortable if they have physical disabilities or safe if they have intellectual disabilities.

Alison: Where they're recognized as full human beings.

Amber: Yeah, as really valid students whose work is appreciated and important. But even more than that, women's and gender studies is helping to change the campus climate and what this institution is—how it operates—to be more fully inclusive.

Ashley: Something that has been really important to me about being involved with women's and gender studies is that I feel like students' voices matter, and I feel like we students are a part of constructing women's and gender studies at the school. I feel like women's and gender studies is something that is well established institutionally, but at the same time, I feel like it still acknowledges that it will change and it's always changing, and, at least in my experience, that students are part of that change.

Alison: What I hear you two saying—you're voicing counter-arguments to what I think might be some people's resistance to becoming part of the institution. There were arguments made against women's and gender studies becoming institutionalized because becoming part of an institution means that you're less radical. It means that you're no longer fighting the system if you're part of the system. You know, in women's and gender studies classes we talked about the campus as a plantation, and it is a plantation, and here we are, playing a role in the plantation, so are we really trying to undermine the system? 8 Audre Lorde says, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." 9 So here we are, as professors and students, in the master's house with the master's tools, and yet what you both are articulating is that that's too simplistic an argument to make. Here we are, fully institutionalized, right? My paycheck comes from the academy. But you're voicing that women's and gender studies, and disability studies, can part of the system and yet still have room for a lot of voices to take part, still have space that is validating of people's identities. That's very hopeful.

Ashley: It's not perfect. I think it's really valid to have those arguments against institutionalization, but at the same time, I think it's necessary to look for the sites of resistance. Looking for the possibilities and hope in those.

Amber: I think that women's and gender studies programs in the institution are spaces where we're ready to acknowledge that we might be wrong—we ran this program or we brought this speaker or we have this class, we have this professor, we might have said something wrong, we might have said something offensive. You know, some event happened and it shouldn't have happened that way and acknowledging the way in which you could have invalidated someone's identity or made a space particularly harmful or unsafe is really important, and I think that is what women's and gender studies brings to the academy.

Alison: We can be institutionalized, recognize ourselves and be recognized as a discipline, and still be agents of social change. And part of what we're calling for is multiple levels of institutionalization—not just in the disciplines, which is crucial, but also inclusion like with the REACH Program.

Amber: Right, so this points to the ways that social change remains part of our institutionalization. I think that after learning about disability studies, women's and gender studies students and faculty now assess the campus differently. We see classrooms differently: "Whose body can be here?" Like, students from our Disability, Power, and Privilege class who directed The Vagina Monologues started including American Sign Language interpreters (who are fantastic). We think about accommodation and inclusion, and we examine what changes we can make with the power we have as students.

Alison: How does that relate to women's and gender studies?

Amber: Because that's what women's and gender studies scholars and students do. We're really focused on making social change happen.

Ashley: Women's and gender studies often allows us to think more broadly about what work we're supposed to do. Our final projects are often allowed to be activist projects, or efforts at social change. Even if students do really unsuccessful bake sales to donate to local charities or service organizations, they have to actively do something as part of their class grade.

Amber: Community change is what we do, and that's not necessarily a component of other academic programs. Women's and gender studies is at least willing to give lip service to social change, and this lip service is useful. I think that we as a discipline are slightly more willing to do actual change because we are so dedicated to the ideas of social change and justice. Having disability studies be a regular part of women's and gender studies intro courses and classes, particularly in combination with the REACH program could lead to better classrooms. Classrooms that teach differently, and also classrooms that make possible a welcoming space for all bodies. Fat people, and people who would rather stand up to learn than sit down for 50 minutes, and people who need technology to communicate with the class. All the people!

Ashley: Well, yeah, and then all the people go out into the world recognizing ways to make better spaces in offices and waiting rooms and on public transportation. All of us can then go out and look for ways to make our spaces not suck.

Alison: There's an implicit question that we're skirting around here, and it's whether disability studies should be part of women's and gender studies or should be its own entity that works in collaboration with women's and gender studies—crosslisted courses, cosponsored events, things like that. We all seem to be in agreement that being an official part of the academy has enough benefits—and leaves enough space for resistance—that disability studies should be here. But should it be here as part of women's and gender studies or as its own department or program?

Amber: I don't know. That's a question I don't think we can answer. The answer won't be the same on every campus, so maybe it has to be an individualized question for different institutions.

Alison: Talking about this is making me inclined to say yes, it should be its own field. Women's and gender studies has more status and power, and more opportunities to be a recognized part of academic conversations, because we're a stand-alone entity. So I think disability studies should be, too.