From Feminized to Feminist: Using Social Justice Solutions to Promote Librarianship

Abstract

Librarianship has existed in America throughout most of its history. Near the end of the nineteenth century, women began to enter the field and quickly shifted the profession to be female-dominated. Due to the prevalent sexism of America during this time, the profession was undervalued and classified as feminized. Many attempts have been made to earn librarianship the respect it deserves, but none have addressed the underlying issues of sexism. For librarianship to become recognized as a true profession, librarians must work to raise awareness about these issues and use their work within libraries to combat them. By doing so, the profession would become a feminist one. As a feminist profession librarianship would work to change the society it exists in from the inside. To become a feminist profession would not require librarians to change the work they are already doing or to take on new tasks, they simply need to be more vocal about the social justice aspects of their daily work. This paper will explore the history of librarianship, how it became feminized, and explore various social justice solutions that librarians can use.