The February Sisters

On the evening of Friday, February 4th, thirty women from faculty and staff calling themselves the February Sisters occupied the East Asian Languages Building at 1332 Louisiana St. and issued demands for changes in KU policies affecting the lives of women and minorities at KU. The women stayed in the building for 13 hours, leaving only after the KU administration agreed to give them an audience and when they felt they had made their point publicly.Their original list of six demands included:

• an Affrimative Action negotiating team to facilitate the creation of an Affirmative Action office at KU
• a free daycare center paid for by KU
• selection of a woman to fill the vacant Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs position
• an end to unfair gender-based wage disparities at KU
• establishment of a women's health program to include a resident gynecologist, free exams and free access to birth control
• the creation of an autonomous Women's Studies Department

Many of the services and resources offered today at KU, such as Watkins Health Center, Hilltop Daycare, and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department, began with the activism and determination of the February Sisters.

For a detailed account of that February night, and the years of work that followed, check out Sister Act on the KU History website.

Following the February Sisters action, the administration appointed Janet Sharistanian, an assistant professor of English, to coordinate the emerging courses on women “for the sake of cross listing said courses in the Timetable” which Janet then finessed into a nascent Women’s Studies program. In 1974, Women’s Studies began granting bachelor’s degrees under the College of Liberal Arts’ “special majors” option and in 1977 the Board of Regents approved a formal major.

1979 brought national recognition to the program as KU hosted 1200 scholars and students for the national convention of the Intercollegiate Association for Women’s Studies and first National Women’s Studies Association. In that same year, the Ford Foundation awarded the WS program a $100,000 grant for the Research Institute on Women’s Public Lives. The Institute brought eight scholars in residence to KU during the summer of 1979 and resulted in a two-volume collection of essays.

A committed Advisory Board of feminist faculty members, librarians, and staff assured the survival of the fledgling program during its first years by offering Women’s Studies courses and directing the curriculum, demonstrating academic legitimacy of the emerging field, and indicating university wide interest. The continued investment of the Advisory Board in the program is evidenced by the fact that, with the exception of Ann Schofield and Lisa Bitel, all directors have come from the ranks of the Advisory Board. In 1990, the Advisory Board relinquished its supervision of curriculum and personnel matters to the Women's Studies core faculty and became a strictly advisory body.

Every year in February the WGSS Department remembers and celebrates the trailblazing efforts of the February Sisters with forums, public lectures, concerts and films. In 2022 we sponsored a month of public forums to celebrate 50 years of the February Sisters. A winter blast in February forced us to reschedule in April, but the campus and Lawrence communities came out in force to remember and celebrate!