Instructor

Jill Sherrill Smith
E-mail:  js26@queensu.ca

Message from the Instructor

Welcome to Gender Studies!  This course is transformational; you will not be bored.
As a young woman growing up in Montreal in the 1960s, I was active in the Canadian women’s movement. Women’s issues were central to my life and, because of this long-standing commitment, I started teaching Women’s Studies at Queen’s in the late 1990s. 
Back the sixties, I did not know I was becoming a “feminist.” In fact, I didn’t know what a “feminist” was.  I suppose, if I really tried to visualize the word “feminist” then, I thought of angry women who didn’t like men.  It was not an appealing vision and it was inaccurate.  Still, because I saw injustice everywhere and especially directed toward women, I continued my journey in the women’s movement despite my doubts.  I have never looked back. My life, and the lives of many men and women, has been positively transformed because of encounters with feminist thought, the women’s movement and women’s studies. I feel certain you stand a good chance of changing your thinking, and possibly your life, as a result of your study of gender issues.  I know many students’ lives have been transformed because of their connection with the emancipatory study of gender and the interplay of gendered power relations. 
Today, I live in a remote area of Nova Scotia close to the Atlantic Ocean. I teach much less than I did in the past and I am a writer. Currently, I am working on a novel about coastal life with the working title Storm Stayed.
Warm wishes for a brilliant learning journey.

Jill Sherrill Smith