Department of Women and Gender Studies, established in 1987 in University of Pune, is one of the foremost centres in the discipline of Women’s Studies in the country. The very name of the centre invokes the ideals set out by Savitribai Phule, the first woman teacher of modern India and guides it to deal consciously with interlocking issues of gender, caste, class, region in all its activities. The Women’s Studies Centre at the University of Pune is involved in
teaching, research, seminars and workshops, documentation and publication, extension and networking. It has been successfully running postgraduate masters, credit, diploma and certificate courses in Women’s Studies as well as an undergraduate certificate course in Women and Development. It is one of the few centres in India to have successfully integrated teaching, research, dissemination of information and extension programme in Women’s Studies at both
the post-graduate and undergraduate level. It is accredited as one of the Phase-III Advanced Women’s Studies Centre in the country – only three centres are recognised as such out of the over 130 Women’s Studies Centres all over India.

The Discipline of Women’s and Gender Studies

Women’s and Gender Studies is a relatively new and unique academic discipline. Scholars in women’s studies pose a philosophical challenge to all intellectual disciplines. They question the existing discipline-wise concepts, tools and techniques that justify the denial of equity for women and make them marginal and invisible. Their aim in formulating new definitions and methods is to assimilate gender consciousness into all knowledge systems. In the process, they expand the frontiers of knowledge about the multiple facets of societies and economies and give it the necessary critical edge.

Women's and Gender Studies has thus emerged as a discipline with a core area of theory, within an interdisciplinary framework that draws on theories from other disciplines, that is, knowledge from various social sciences, humanities and sciences. As a new area of knowledge, it draws from its own studies and field action, while also utilising such knowledge useful to it from the other disciplines, thus being interdisciplinary in focus. Further, it has accepted the implicit social responsibility to transform/influence other disciplines to include the feminist perspective, develop and empower women generally and more specifically increase their visibility in teaching, research and management in the universities and colleges by enhancing their academic strength and competence.