Young Australian Women's Studies By Kate Hughes

In the research article “Gender I’ve been pondering whether you can be a part-feminist’: Young Australian Women’s Studies students discuss gender,” Kate Hughes, discusses how the women’s studies change the perceptions of the participants during the course about the gender in society, freedom, equality and feminism. She interviewed 20 female students from different social backgrounds including Anglo-Australian, Turkish, Italian and Vietnamese and were aged between 17-20 years. All the participants were taking undergraduate women’s studies in university of Australia. “The programme can be situated within ‘new wave’ women’s studies, de Groot’s characterises” (38). The researcher uses the post-structuralist theory as a starting point in interviews. The author conducted two interviews, one in the

Their perceptions were totally changed over the course. In the first interview, they believed that men are more dominant than women and Australian women have more freedom than those in the other cultures such as Islamic and Turkish culture in which women have more traditional responsibilities, whereas in Australia women are free and equal to men and they can make their own choice. The second interview indicated that the perceptions of the participants change due to the course and the influence of the Western culture. The participants believe that, they will change their next generation's impression of gender equality through their education. However, it is an individual change, one individual cannot change a whole culture. They cannot change the entire world because there are certain customs and traditions in different cultures that need to be followed. Thus, they just fit into the Western culture, while they would not change their own culture and the pattern of the