Dokumen - Pub Feminist Pedagogy Looking Back To Move Forward A Feminist Formations Reader 1nbsped 0801892767 9780801892769
Dokumen - Pub Feminist Pedagogy Looking Back To Move Forward A Feminist Formations Reader 1nbsped 0801892767 9780801892769
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FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
A National Women's Studies Association fournal Reader
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Contents
ro. The Shift from Identity Politics to the Politics of Identit y: Lesbian
Panels in the Women's Studies Classroom 159
MARY MARGARET FONOW AND DEB I A N MARTY
Although the terms feminist and pedagogy are both contested in the
academic literature, consensus has emerged over the past few decades
that, as feminists, we must critically engage in dialogue and reflection
not only about what we teach but also about how we teach. Feminist
pedagogy is a set of assumptions about knowledge and knowing, approaches
to content across the disciplines, teaching objectives and strategies, class-
room practices, and instructional relationships that are grounded in crit-
ical pedagogical and feminist theory. It is an ideology of teaching as
much as it is a framework for developing particular strategies and meth-
ods in the service of particular objectives for learning outcomes and so-
cial change.
The actual practices of feminist scholars and women's studies teach-
ers in relation to these definitions of feminist pedagogy are in need of
continued study. In 1992, for example, Julie Brown published a report for
which she surveyed two hundred teachers affiliated with women's stud-
ies programs. The results indicated that at least half of the respondents
usually lecture in class, with only an eighth of them using student-
facilitated group discussion and other participatory pedagogical strate-
gies in their teaching repertoires. Her analysis also indicated that most
of the teaching practices related to disciplinary norms, rather than hav-
ing any clear connection to the teacher's feminist principles. One re-
spondent actually questioned the relevance of the survey, inti1nating
that since she wasn't teaching a women's studies course that semester,
there would be no way for her to practice feminist pedagogy. Other re-
sponses were even more troubling, with an eighth of respondents indi-
cating that there is "no such thing" as feminist pedagogical theory, and
others questioning the legitimacy of studying pedagogy at all, in one
case claiming that "people study pedagogy because they can't handle
real theory" Ip. 59).
Though published in the early 1990s, this survey points to a general
lack of understanding of feminist pedagogy and the presence of attitudes
and classroo1n practices that are not consistent with feminist principles.
It is particularly noteworthy that these misunderstandings were preva-
lent among self-proclaimed feminists and women's studies teachers.
Given Brown's findings, it should not be surprising that a cursory pe-
rusal of rnore contemporary articles and book chapters that use the co-
terms feminist pedagogy reveals discussion that variously focuses on
curriculum reform, analysis of girls' and women's experiences in educa-
tional environments, teaching about women, teaching feminist ideas,
and teaching done by self-identified feminists, as well as feminist con-
cerns with the processes of teaching and learning. We would argue that
merely teaching a women's studies or women-focused course or identify-
ing personally as a feminist is not an indicator of feminist pedagogy.
Thus, it is necessary to explicate the characteristics of fe1ninist peda-
INTRODUCTION 3
cere concern for their students as people and as learners and communi-
cate this care through treating students as individuals, helping students
make connections between their studies and their personal lives, and
guiding students through the process of personal growth that accompa-
nies their intellectual development. This process includes a special care
for female students, inside and outside of the classroom, and a commit-
1nent to advancing and improving the educational experiences, profes-
sional opportunities, and daily lives of women.
Feminist pedagogy is marked by the development of nonhierarchical
relationships among teachers and students and reflexivity about power
relations, not only in society but also in the classroom. The vision of
egalitarian and empowering communities of learners who share a sense
of mutual and social responsibility manifests itself in participatory class-
room structures and dynamics, collaborative evaluation, and respect for
individuals and differences (Shrewsbury [1987b] takes up these issues as
her primary focus; see also Crabtree and Sapp 2003).
Critical analysis of the educational environments within which teach-
ing takes place is likewise important, including recognizing the ways
schools and classrooms have been hostile environments for girls and
women and monitoring the evolving status of female students at all lev-
els of education (e.g., Munson Deats and Tallent Lender 1994). Feminist
teachers also engage actively in the exploration of how who we are within
these environments necessarily impacts what and how we teach. This
approach includes an explicit commitment to address the intersections
of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality not only in the content of
the discipline but also in the dynamics of the classroom (see Macdonald
and Sanchez-Casal 2002). Teachers who subscribe to a feminist pedagogi-
cal approach develop teaching strategies that resist reinscribing domi-
nant cultural notions about gender, race, sexuality, and class and deliber-
ately problematize essentialist terms and constructs that have historically
marginalized individuals and groups that have functioned to oppress a
full range of human experience.
There is an explicit attempt to name and reflexively shift the dynam-
ics of power and powerlessness in the classroom and in the complex re-
lationships among students (and groups of students), between students
and teachers, and as part of this process, to understand the experiences
of and constraints on differently situated teachers in the complex web
of institutional power structures (also see Maher and Thompson Tet-
reault [2001] for an analysis of gender and race privilege in the classroom
context).
Fe1ninist pedagogy links classroom-based teaching with opportunities
for application in communities through social action using strategies such
as service-learning, feminist-action research, and other methods of en-
gaged and community-based learning. This tenet is about recognizing the
6 FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
as well as assumptions about who can and should teach what. There is
plenty in this article to evoke debate among readers, and it is interesting
to view it in the context of the chapter that occurs previously to it in this
volume, as the authors attempt to neither claim nor forfeit authority
based solely on their individual identities or experiences.
A chapter originally published in 1995 by sal johnston takes up simi-
lar problems in the context of teaching a course on sexuality in a reli-
giously conservative environment. In "Not for Queers Only," johnston
develops a postmodern feminist pedagogy, where it is essentialist no-
tions about sexuality, rather than about gender, that are deconstructed
and reminds us that teaching is activism, disrupting yet another unpro-
ductive distinction in/between our professional and personal lives, espe-
cially when we are teaching in reactionary contexts. Another argument
johnston makes and demonstrates persuasively is that theory must affect
our pedagogy. As some of the previous authors have, johnston effectively
questions the feminist epistemic privilege granted to experience and in-
stead argues for a politics of affinity and action. Thus, according to john-
ston, all students are invited to claim/ learn (or minimally understand)
antioppression stances even for groups and issues that are not "theirs."
The chapter contains many concrete examples of how postmodern
and feminist theories inform choices about and approaches to course
content, as well as the teacher's own behavior in the classroom and the
kinds of assignments the teacher assigns and grading the teacher does.
We are reminded that ''if we want our pedagogical practices to resist het-
erosexism [or fill in any other oppressive system!, then we must avoid
rearticulating the logic that underlies it" (p. 91 ). This chapter goes a long
way in addressing critics of postmodernism for its apparent apolitical
stance, and johnston concludes that the exigency of questioning and ana-
lyzing essentialist constructions of sexuality, gender, and race is directly
related to the fact that the social and political agenda of the Right is de-
pendent on them.
The final chapter in this section, by Maralee Mayberry and Margaret
Rees (1997), demonstrates the integration of most of the issues raised so
far: the ways feminist principles challenge traditional episte1nology, the
goals of women's studies programs and in particular their interdisciplin-
arity, the theory and practice of feminist pedagogy, and the role of teacher
praxis, all in the context of a feminist critique of science and science ed-
ucation. The title of the article is exactly what the article is and does:
"Feminist Pedagogy, Interdisciplinary Praxis, and Science Education."
There is plenty of pragmatic advice in this essay for readers interested in
reimagining science instruction from a feminist perspective, and it is
explicit in its emphasis and very well grounded in feminist pedagogical
theory and principles. Mayberry and Rees clearly illustrate a feminist ap-
proach to science education as they help us both to deconstruct and to
INTRODUCTION II
and poststructural feminism can guide our inquiry and our teaching.
Previous chapters also explored how identity politics functioned in spe-
cific classroom contexts and the ways these politics influenced course
content and process. The authors in this section foreground the role of
critical race theory, including how it has broadened, deepened, and sharp-
ened fe1ninist thought in recent years. It is a logical step, then, to con-
sider how critical race consciousness has and can become integral to
theorizing and practicing feminist teaching (see, e.g., LatCrit theory).
Lili Kim (2001) begins her chapter with a review of the major tenets of
feminist pedagogy, including a conscious engagement of its critics. In do-
ing so, she uses her course, "Women of Color and the A1nerican Experi-
ence," to illustrate the ilnportance of focusing on racism, classis1n, ho-
mophobia, and other vectors of women's oppression in women's studies
classes. She shares an overview of her course, an argu1nent for why
classes that focus on the experiences of women of color remain neces-
sary in women's studies curricula, some of the specific assignments she
has tried, and a critical analysis of student responses and classroom in-
teractions. Particularly because of the dynamics created by the demo-
graphics of her students (largely African A1nerican women, working
mothers, and first-generation students), and the reflexive engagement
with her own identity as a novice Asian American professor, Kim's dis-
cussion of what happens in her class is captivating and revealing. She
explores several challenges she has faced, such as resistance from self-
proclaimed feminists who objected to discussing ho1nophobia, surprise
a1nong African American women to learn that a course on race would be
taught by an Asian A1nerican and include the experiences of Native
American and Latina women, and the distinctive work of keeping white
women fro1n becoming alienated as discussion inevitably turned to race
privilege.
The story of her chapter title and how she later incorporated it into an
assignment in future classes is co1npelling and provides a wonderful ex-
ample of how student voices inform our teaching, just as they inform
Kim's theorizing about feminist pedagogy. Kim's chapter is well-grounded
in "classical" feminist theory; she also incorporates important works by
wo1nen of color feminists (most notably Margaret Anderson and Patricia
Hill Collins' 1998 volume, as well as works by bell hooks, Audre ·Lorde,
Chandra Mohanty, and Cherrie Moraga), which have continued to have
an i1npact on feminist inquiry and teaching in profound ways.
In the sa1ne way that Kim's chapter reveals the powerful and transfor-
mative potential of feminist pedagogy for first-generation undergraduate
students, Anne Donadey (2002) brings similar issues to the graduate
feminist criticism course and invites us to consider how teaching about
race issues is encountered in the formation of future feminist scholars
INTRODUCTION 15
alone its precursors. We hope that these two bibliographies, along with
the references provided by each author in the volume, will facilitate the
ease with which readers can access additional resources. After all, read-
ing our foremothers is critical to developing and reflecting upon our own
pedagogy.
The first bibliography, by Lori Goetsch, was published in 1991 and in-
cludes work published between 1986 (the end date of Carolyn Shrews-
bury's bibliography published in Women 's Studies Quarterly, 1987a) and
1990. Goetsch provides a context for her selections, as well as short but
useful annotations for each of the fifty-one citations.
With very little overlap, the second bibliography, compiled by Stepha-
nie Riger, Carrie Brecke, and Eve Wiederhold (1995), is more comprehen-
sive in terms of time and range of content. It includes citations from the
early 1980s through 1995. This bibliography is organized helpfully, espe-
cially in assisting readers without training in exploring multiracial fem-
inisms and critical race theory and in preparing for the kinds of experi-
ences explored by many of the authors in this volume.
We hope that future bibliographies of feminist pedagogy published in
The NWSA fournal will also include writings from transnational and
postcolonial feminists. There are also works such as Jyl Lynn Felman's
arresting Never a Dull Moment (2001). Such works may be easy to miss
in literature reviews because they seem to be about performance rather
than pedagogy. While 1nany of our graduate training experiences did not
include exploration of such wide-ranging theoretical streams, let alone
consideration of the ways they might impact our thinking about femi-
nism or teaching, we are all responsible for reading, listening, learning
about, and practicing an increasingly inclusive, antioppressive, and trans-
formative pedagogy.
In Closing
This retrospective illustrates the ways that the NWSA fournal has al-
ways been a place where feminist teachers and scholars look t6 publish
scholarship on teaching and learning. It should not be surprising, then,
that the journal is a place where NWSA members and other readers go to
read about, reflect upon, and gather ideas for their own teaching. The ar-
ticles on pedagogy published in NWSAT represent the various streams of
writing about feminist classrooms and teaching, and reveal much about
how feminist pedagogy has evolved in the past twenty years. Earlier ar-
ticles, not surprisingly, focus mainly on gender as an organizing principle
and central concern for course content and for understanding teacher
and student interaction. Later articles bring complex intersectional anal-
INTRODUCTION 17
ysis of race, class, sexuality, and gender more into the center of theoriz-
ing and practicing feminist pedagogy.
Although the essays collectively explore the philosophical and theo-
retical dimensions of feminist pedagogy, they also illustrate how it is
practiced. Specific teaching methods, thick description of particular
teaching contexts and moments, and an attention to trial and error char-
acterize the feminist teaching explored in these chapters. Tried-and-true
teaching methods are problematized, as new approaches are attempted,
sometimes successfully and often in unexpected ways. More empirical
research on what feminis.t teachers actually do in their classrooms, as well
as about the theories and assumptions that underlie practice, is needed. It
would certainly be useful, for example, to update what we learned from
Julia Brown's 1992 survey.
Tellingly, many of the essays are highly reflexive, which demonstrates
teaching praxis while also being generative of theory. These essays nar-
rate a feminist pedagogy in action, as expected and unexpected conse-
quences emerge in relation to the variables presented by the students, the
contexts where we teach, the climate of the larger society, and teachers'
identities and gifts. These essays also reveal areas for future theorizing,
empirical study, and reflexive practice.
Based on our informal tallies, about half of the authors who are pub-
lishing on the topic of feminist pedagogy (in NWSAJ and elsewhere)
seem to be English professors with prilnary training and/or research in-
terests in literary criticism. In addition, with the exception of a few
women of color and white men, and even in the cases of writing about
antiracist feminist pedagogies, most of the authors seem to be white
women. These trends 1nake us wonder: What are the stories of feminist
pedagogy that are not collected in volu1nes about feminist pedagogy? A
meta-analysis of all volumes on pedagogy should pay particular atten-
tion to these issues as well as who is being cited, and which discussions
are taken up by which authors, in order to understand the changing de-
mographics, theories, and practices of feminist pedagogy. It does seem
that the more recent volumes on feminist pedagogy, like the more recent
articles in this collection, are more likely to focus on intersectional
analysis and praxis, and are more likely to be written or co-authored by
self-identified lesbian or openly queer authors and ethnically/racially di-
verse authors.
In all, we hope this NWSA Journal retrospective continues the project
of theorizing feminist pedagogy as multiple voices and perspectives are
brought into the conversation. We also hope it will assist readers in their
own attempts to develop theoretically grounded classroom practices in-
formed by the advice and experience of others, and to reflect creatively
on their own teaching.
18 FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
Works Cited
Anderson, M. L., and Hill Collins, P., eds. (1998). Race, Class, and Gender: An
Anthology. New York: Wadsworth.
Bauer, D. M. (1990). Authority. NWSA fournal 3, no. 1: 95-97.
Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., and Tarule, J.M. (1986). Women's
Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York:
Basic.
Brown, J. (1992). Theory or Practice: What Exactly is Feminist Pedagogy? fournal
of General Education 41: 51-63.
Caughie, P. L., and Pearce, R. (1992). Resisting "the Dominance of the Profes-
sor": Gendered Teaching, Gendered Subjects. NWSA Journal 4, no. 2:
187-99.
Cohee, G. E., Daumer, E., Kemp, T. D., Krebs, P. M., Lafky, S., Runzo, S., eds.
(1998). The Feminist Teacher Anthology: Pedagogies and Classroom Strate-
gies. New York: Teachers College Press.
Crabtree, R., and Sapp, D. (2003). Theoretical, Political, and Pedagogical Chal-
lenges in the Feminist Classroom: Our Struggles to Walk the Wa lk. College
Teaching 51, no. 4: 131-40.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan.
Donadey, A. (2002). Negotiating Tensions: Teaching about Race Issues in Gradu-
ate Fe1ninist Classrooms. NWSA fournal 14, no. 1: 82- 103.
Felman, J. L. (2001). Never a Dull Moment: Teaching and the Art of Perfor-
mance. New York: Routledge.
Fonow, M. M., and Marty, D. (1991). The Shift from Identity Politics to the Poli-
tics of Identity: Lesbian Panels in the Women's Studies Classroom. NWSA
fournal 3, no. 3: 402-13.
Freedman, E. B. 11990). Small Group Pedagogy: Consciousness Raising in Con-
servative Times. NWSA fournal 2, no. 4: 603-24.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. M. B. Ra1nos. New York:
Continuum. (Originally published in English in 1970)
Gardner, S. 11993). Teaching about Domestic Violence: Strategies for Empower-
ment. NWSA Journal 5, no. 1: 94-102.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women 's De-
velopment. Ca1nbridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
Giroux, H. A. (1997). Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture, and
Schooling. Boulder: Westview Press.
Goetsch, L. A. 11991). Feminist Pedagogy: A Selective Annotated Bibliography.
NWSA fournal 3, no. 3: 422-29.
Holland, J., and Blair, M., eds. (1995). Debates and Issues in Feminis t Research
and Pedagogy. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education and the Practice of Freedom.
New York: Routledge.
hooks, b. (1995). Killing Rage: Ending Racism. New York: An Owl Book.
hooks, b. (1996). Feminist Theory: A Radical Agenda. In Multicultural Experi-
ences, Multicultural Theories, ed. M. F. Rogers, 56-61. New York: McGraw-
Hill.
INTRODUCTION 19
Authority
DALE M . BAUER
the feminist content of the course-or was it the feminist pedagogy that
created dissonance in the class? And how much of what might be termed
feminist pedagogy in this course was really feminist pedagogy and how
much was just my female insecurity about my authority in the
classroom?" 10
How does who we are, as gendered bodies and as professors positioned
in the academy, affect our relation to authority? Feminist rhetoric mat-
ters all the more in its deployment and in its political ends. In the strug-
gle for authority, we cannot let our points of agree1nent be lost in the
points of disagreement.
Why not think of claiming authority as an emancipatory strategy: au-
thority, in this sense, involves what is called in critical pedagogy becom-
ing a transformative intellectual. To think of claiming authority in such
a way means being aware of the authority we assume in fighting forms of
oppression and, most of all, enlisting colleagues and "treating students
as if they ought to be concerned about the issues of social justice and po-
litical action." 11 To assume any less is to relinquish the only sort of au-
thority that matters.
Notes
This essay is a slightly revised version of a presentation delivered at the Modern
Language Association annual meeting on 28 December 1989 in Washington,
D.C.
2. Kathleen Jones, "On Authority: Or, Why Women Are Not Entitled to Speak,"
in Feminism and Foucault, ed. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby (Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 1988), 120-21.
4. bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thin king Black (Boston: South
End Press, 1989), 45.
5. Catherine Clement and Helene Cixous, The Newly Born Woman, trans.
Betsy Wing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 137.
6. Marc Levine shot twenty-seven people, killing fourteen, shouting: " You're
all a bunch of feminists and I hate feminists."
8. See Margo Culley, "Anger and Authority in the Introductory Women's Stud-
ies Classroo1n," in Gendered Subjects, ed. Margo Culley and Catherine
Portuges !Boston: Routledge, 1985), 211.
10. Ann Ardis, " Feminist Pedagogy Seminar," Miami University of Ohio, Fall
1988.
11. Henry Giroux, Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 139.
CHA PTER TWO
Pamela: Our title, '1 Resisting 'the Dominance of the Professor,' 11 comes
from Virginia Woolf's celebrated essay, A Room of One's Own, which is
Dick: I'd been teaching at a woman's college for twenty-four years and-
though angry when the college became coed-I was looking forward to
teaching young men what I had learned about gender. I had an ideal op-
portunity when we came to A Room of One's Own. But it turned out to
be complicated-when one of the few male students said, "I like Virginia
Woolf: she had a lot of balls." For suddenly I had to focus not only on the
problem of discourse, but on a male student testing his power. And our
contest could easily displace the woman he admired with such manly
grace- and turn the women in the class from participants to spectators.
Pamela: Such power is, of course, precisely what's at issue in Woolf's es-
say as well as in the pedagogical practice it enacts. A Room of One's
Own provides a model for approaching any issue as difficult and divisive
as the relation between gender and writing or gender and teaching, and
one that may prove useful when responding to strong male students; for
its flexible method of investigation changes with the problems she takes
up, the contexts she enters into, and the audience she addresses. Despite
the avowed topic of her essay, the relation between women and fiction,
Woolf never does tell us the "true nature of woman" or the "true nature
of fiction" (Room, 4) because she investigates ever-shifting relations and
because she foregrounds her own methods of investigation. In each chap-
ter, she draws stark contrasts between women and men, emphasizing the
difference in their prosperity, their values, their sentences; then in the
last chapter she decides that the first sentence of her lecture on "Women
and Fiction" would be. "It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their
sex" (Room, 108). And yet it seems Woolf has thought of little else.
If we take this sentence at face value, we may conclude that for Woolf,
awareness of gender differences has nothing to do with writing, or with
teaching. But the method of her essay shows that gender differences cer-
RESISTING "THE DOMINANCE OF THE PROFESSOR" 29
Dick: I agree that Woolf wanted to find a way out of the opposition be-
tween genders, and, as you argue so well, that she does. She also replaced
duality with multiplicity, and traditional goal-oriented and hierarchical
story lines with fields of changing relationships. And she rejected the
male sentence, disrupted and decentered the totalizing story line, devel-
oped a new authorial voice, and valorized a variety of women and wom-
en's experiences. But her discourse, her way out, exists within a larger
field that is dominated by male authority.
For in her major novels the men have at least virtually the last-
unifying-word. Peter Walsh has the climactic vision of Mrs . Dalloway.
Lily Briscoe must complete the story of the father and son landing at the
lighthouse before she can complete her own painting. And Bernard tells
the story of the lady writing, "sums up" a fragmentary and heteroge-
neous novel, and ends by riding against death "with my spear couched
and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's when he gal-
loped in India" (The Waves, 297).
Take The Waves, Woolf's most successful achievement of multiplicity
and shifting interrelationships. Notice how the male characters have the
narrative power. For example, everyone as far as I know accepts Louis's
story about his devastating encounter with Jinny. Feeling alienated by
his nationality and class, he stands alone by the wall, watching "Ber-
nard, Neville, Jinny and Susan (but not Rhoda) skim the flower-beds with
their nets." He wants to be unseen and stands "rooted to the middle of
the earth," peering through an eyehole in the hedge. But now Jinny's eye-
beam slides through the chink. "She has found me. I am struck on the
nape of the neck. She has kissed me. All is shattered" (12-13).
But Jinny tells a different story, which no one seems to have noticed.
She sees the leaves moving in the hedge and thinks it is a bird in its nest.
But there is no bird in the nest, and the leaves go on moving, and she is
frightened. "I ran past Susan, past Rhoda, and Neville and Bernard in the
tool-house talking" (13). Note that in her story Rhoda is with the children,
who are not skimming the flower beds with their nets, as Louis reported,
but in and around the toolhouse. Once we recognize that Louis and Jinny
are telling different stories, we can begin to understand the struggle for
narrative control, and we may see Jinny's reaction in a different light. "I
30 f£MINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
cried as I ran, faster and faster. What moved the leaves? What moves my
heart, my legs? And I dashed in here, seeing you green as a bush, like a
branch, very still, Louis, with your eyes fixed. 'Is he dead?' I thought, and
kissed you, with 1ny heart jumping under my pink frock like the leaves"
(13). Jinny's "speech" is in the second person; she is speaking directly to
Louis. And why does she kiss him? Because of her sensuality, which, es-
pecially considering her later thoughts and actions, has been labeled as
aggressive and narcissistic. But perhaps we have not been alert to the
story she is trying to tell. And recent changes in psychological theory,
lead us to understand how we have been caught up in the male paradigm,
and what Jinny's story might entail.
Irene Stiver (director of psychology at McClean Hospital in Massachu-
setts) tells of a young woman who developed a psychotic condition after
her stepfather had a stroke. She talked of wanting to sleep with him. Not
content to draw a Freudian conclusion, Stiver questioned her more
closely. She found out that the stepfather had been a powerful business-
man, contemptuous of weak people like her mother, but very kind to her
as a child. After his stroke, he became terrified: he was afraid to close
his eyes for fear he would die. The young woman was not motivated by
incestuous desire, as male-stream psychology would have it. She sim-
ply could not bear to see this powerful man become so vulnerable. "I
thought . .. if I slept with him, if I put my arms around him, comforted
hiin, he would be less afraid, that he would sleep, and he would stay
alive" (Stiver 1986, 26).
Stiver provides another frame of reference in which to see Jinny. She is
a physical person and will develop into a woman who "can imagine
nothing beyond the circle cast by my body" (128-29). But her instinct
toward Louis is neither sexual nor aggressive. It is simply caring. She is
sensitive to Louis's devastating feeling of isolation and inadequacy, which
is like death. And her instinct is to nurture him, to make him feel warm
and wanted, to physically revive hi1n. Moreover, her later refusal to be
"attached to one person only ... to be fixed, to be pinioned" (55), may
now be seen, not as narcissistic but as a need to connect with everyone.
This need, as Jean Baker Miller and Carol Gilligan point out, is devalued
in a culture dominated by male values of independence-and is continu-
ally misinterpreted and therefore frustrated by the men Jinny meets.
Jinny's kiss initiates both Louis and Jinny into the threatening world
of sexuality-or gender and power. Jinny intrudes into Louis's haven
when, due to his colonized status and class, he is feeling powerless. But,
his gender gives hi1n power and privileges his story over hers. Susan and
Bernard reinforce Louis's reaction to Jinny and, therefore, his version of
the story; indeed, they form the social mirror through which Jinny be-
gins to define herself. But, more important, they also form a narrative
RESISTING "THE DOMINANCE OF THE PROFESSOR" 31
power structure that suppresses Jinny's story and begins to shape our
view of her. 1
Dick: So what are the consequences for teaching Woolf? Not simply to
tell Jinny's story or describe the structure of Between the Acts but to
expose the contending narrative forces. Nor can we simply tell this to our
students, that is, lecture to them from our traditional positions of au-
thority. We 1nust change the structure of the classroom to insure the
multiplicity of voices, or to prevent male hegemony like that in The
34 fEMINJST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
Waves. Indeed, what's been becoming more and more clear in our dia-
logue is the relationship between narrative authority and authority in
the classroom. And perhaps we need to make this relationship more ex-
plicit, especially as we teach novels that are attempting to resist tradi-
tional authority.
Faculty of ten don't recognize the ways that 1nen attract attention and
tend to dominate discussion until they see videos of their classes. Ac-
cording to Catherine Krupnick, who has watched thousands of hours of
videoed classes, men speak proportionately more than women, much
longer, and are far more likely to set the agenda. We 1nust also change the
relation of faculty to students, or the learning transaction-which Walter
Ong terms "agonistic," deriving from the tradition where boys were
taken away from their families to a school where they were taught forms
of ceremonial combat in the classrooms as well as the playing fields. I
think all this is what Woolf was getting at in Three Guineas.
Feminist pedagogy and collaborative learning offer good alternative
models. But they are hard to develop because of the conservative peda-
gogical bias of most faculty, because they don't lead to prestigious publi-
cation, but most of all because they exist within a field where the domi-
nant model is dualistic, individualistic, and competitive. And when you
put a cooperative model together with a competitive model-or Jinny's
story next to Louis's- guess who wins? The politics of the classroo1n,
like the politics of narration, lead from heterogeneity to polarization,
from multiplicity to dualism, from the carnival to the agon.
Pamela: Yes, I agree that we must change our classroom structures "to
insure the multiplicity of voices." Yet this need for a collaborative peda-
gogy cannot be effected by changes in our classroom practices alone. A
change in our pedagogy will require, as you point out, a change in the
larger institutional "field" defined by male authority. I also agree that the
politics of the classroom can lead to polarization; for however much I
want to resist the female versus male arguments when it comes to dis-
cussing narrative 1nethods, I have tended to fall back into such opposi-
tions in our discussion of teaching methods. Diana Fuss warns that in a
feminist classroom (or a Woolf seminar, I might add) gender is likely to
be privileged over other kinds of differences, reducing women and men
to their femaleness and maleness respectively and leading us to predict
certain kinds of responses from students or professors based on their gen-
der alone (Fuss 1989, 116).
In acknowledging this tendency, and in emphasizing the importance
of the classroom context, I want to suggest that a feminist pedagogy
based on gynocentric models, such as those provided by Elaine Showalter
and Carol Gilligan, might work better for men than for women, espe-
cially in a coed classroom. You can offer a reading that promotes female
RESISTING "THE DOMINANCE OF THE PROFESSOR" 35
escape from the authority of a male constructed body.) For, while you may
lack authority as a female, you are an authority as a teacher. Moreover,
no matter how you see yourself or what you do with your material or
your students, you cannot abdicate this authority-any more than I can.
And this complicates the problem of a male feminist who hates author-
ity trying to expose sexism and institutionalized forms of power and
open students' 1ninds to multiple alternatives. We are many selves and
speak with many voices, but the authorial voices (of the teacher as well
as the narrator) has a dominating resonance. This resonance, or power,
derives from the pedagogical tradition-the ways of teaching, learning,
reading, and writing established by the class whose authority the autho-
rial voice reflects and perpetuates. It reduces the multiplicity of voices,
or positions, to two: those that enhance its power, either deliberately or
by co-optation, and those that oppose it. And it does so not only because
that's the nature of hegemonic relations, but because aggression, compe-
tition, and dualism are so ingrained, or, as Walter Ong points out, the
tradition is agonistic.
As you say, you can't resist "falling back into the kind of men versus
women [you] want to resist," and you are caught in a dualistic paradox
when you think about giving up authority that as a woman you've never
had. The male paradox is just the reverse. For, while a man may say to
himself, "I'm giving up my authoritative stance," he can't do it. I know
I'm treading dangerous ground by focusing on the proble1ns of men in
power, even when they consider themselves to be feminists and hate au-
thority, but it's a topic that has come up very often in my twenty-four
years of teaching at a women's college and in being the father of two
daughters. For authority is inscribed in roles as teachers and as fathers.
I've never outgrown my adolescent urge to resist authority and never felt
adult enough to see myself as a father figure. But my eyes were opened
two years ago when my daughters gave me a book called Fathers. As a
variety of women authors reflected on their fathers, I began to see how
my daughters had to see me, no matter how I saw myself. And I began to
realize how authority was inscribed not only in my role but in 1ny physi-
ogno1ny and voice, in the way I stood and talked, in the noise I made
when I walked, in the sound and rhythm of my speech. My anger had a
different impact than my wife's. My expectations had more urgency.
Moreover, expectations of my wife and daughters, despite their fe.minist
consciousness, often forced me into male postures. So if women accept
fe1ninist ideas more from male than female teachers-and this hasn't
been my experience at Wheaton-they may be accepting them for the
wrong reasons.
Pamela: (At this stage of our exchange, I was suddenly struck by the
numerous personal examples Dick used in his inquiry into gender and
RESISTING "THE DOMINANCE OF THE PROFES SOR" 37
Dick: Our dialogue has helped me clarify a point I hadn't fully under-
stood while writing The Politics of Narration (from which my reading of
Jinny comes) and I'm glad I have time to revise my conclusion. The poli-
tics of narration and the politics of teaching are polarizing. And, in our
desire for openness and multiplicity, we can't ignore the power of the
authorial voice- without it taking over.
Pamela: Yes, you seem to be raising "the feminist question par excel-
lence" as Barbara Johnson puts it in her essay, "Teaching Ignorance": "to
what structure of authority does the critique of authority belong?" (79).
But I sense a note of despair in your voice, as if you regretted the agonis-
tic, as if multiplicity were the more highly valued alternative to competi-
tion, if only we could get everyone to see that. But getting everyone to
see that or to accept any one value system is to risk hegemonic authority.
The problem with posing an alternative pedagogy is that it could consoli-
date into a new norm. What we need is a pedagogy that enables us to
displace the authority of any one model, including its own, as I believe
our dialogue has enabled us to do.
What, then, if we begin not by defining the traits of a feminist class-
room (multiplicity, collaboration, irresolution) beforehand, but with as-
sessing the implications for feminism of a certain pedagogical practice
in the very process of enacting it? For our dialogue has made clear to
me that any pedagogy, like any narrative, must take into account the
38 FEMINIST PEDAGOGIC AL THEORY AND PRAXIS
Dick: Yes, but reme1nber that the student is male, and that one of his
goals is to contest my authority. So when I contend with him, I become
complicit in shifting the class's attention from a powerful woman writer
to a male power struggle.
Pamela : Perhaps one way to resist the dominance of the professor and to
subvert gender polarities would be to make our authority in the class-
room self-reflexive by making our pedagogy a part of the class, a subject
of investigation and critique along with the subject matter of the course,
as Woolf does in A Room of One's Own. Once again, I return to that text
as a model for a feminist pedagogy. All that we normally downplay when
we present our conclusions to our students-our methods and our moti-
vations, our doubts and our disappointments-is laid bare in Woolf's es-
say. By laying bare our pedagogy, we may help the students to see the
ways in which they play the power game through their own desire for
recognition and approbation by receiving, as Woolf says, "from the hands
of the Headmaster a highly ornamental pot" !Room, 110). So when I con-
sider how a feminist professor in a still largely male-identified institu-
tion can resist the dominance of the professor, I think of Woolf's essay,
how she implicates the "other," the reader or student, in her inquiry, and
how her resistance to authority takes many forms, never finally settling
into one method. For such resistance must be enacted over and over
again, just as such dialogues as ours must never conclude.
Notes
2. These readings of To the Lighthouse and Bet ween the A cts are developed
further in Caughie's Virginia Woolf and Postm odernism .
Works Cited
REBECCA ROPERS-HUILMAN
I do not try to get my power as a teacher "out of the way" so that I can
care for the students with whom I work . Simultaneously, I do not try to
care about students by ensuring either that they have power over others
or that we exist in a powerless classroom. Contrary to common under-
standings, I propose to examine power and caring not as dichotomous
terms, but rather as terms whose enactment lends strength each to the
other. Further, I hope to explore how power and caring intersect and, of-
ten, have unintended effects.
Philosophical Framework
The use of poststructural theories and approaches in feminist work has
been oft considered in recent years. For various reasons, many feminist
thinkers have claimed that poststructuralism could be useful for femi-
nist purposes at this particular time in history (Gore 1991; Lather 1991;
Sawicki 1991; Scott 1990). Others, though, have pointed out the potential
dangers of a wholesale adoption of poststructuralism and have suggested
that feminists should consider what it could offer cautiously, if at all (Al-
co££ 1988; Nicholson 1995). As so1neone who is quite optimistic about
what a feminist poststructuralism might offer intellectually, politically,
and strategically to my life's work in and outside of academic settings, I
have followed these discussions with great interest.
Feminist poststructuralism, as a theory that recognizes fluctuating
power relations and situational meanings, yet acknowledges our own place
as gendered actors in those relations, can be useful in understanding class-
room and educational interactions. Still, one of the primary criticisms of
poststructuralism has been its lack of applicability to "real world" set-
tings (Alcoff 1988; Lather 1991). Within higher education, one scholar has
suggested that the ra1nifications of poststructural theorizing have been
decidedly absent from our professional conversations (Bloland 1995). While
several pieces of feminist poststructural work deftly examined poststruc-
tural tenets in varied higher education settings (Ellsworth 1989; Gore
1993; Luke 1996; Orner 1992), those of us who are atte1npting to embrace
and problematize poststructural and fen1inist offerings in our higher edu-
cation settings continue to encounter much ambiguity.
One of the greatest uncertainties at this point is the use of power and
caring in teaching and learning settings. If power is fluid and shifting
(Foucault 1978), how can teachers and students enact it? Where can edu-
cational participants carve out places for action for themselves and oth-
ers? How can teachers and students use or direct power in caring ways?
Carmen Luke (1996) has pointed out the absence in the literature of dis-
cussions of those "decidedly visceral moments" when women teachers
begin to feel their power and authority in educational settings (286). My
SCHOLARSHIP ON THE OTHER SIDE 43
sider the factors that shape my responses to these concerns and my sub-
sequent practices. Through three teaching and learning "scenes," I ex-
amine the contradictions I encountered in attempting to enact power
and caring on both sides of the student-teacher dichotomy.
bring people to a point where they care to listen." It see1ned there was
only a finite amount of power available-represented, in part, in speak-
ing pro1ninence-and faculty members and a very few students held the
pot in which it was kept tightly against their bodies. Students and teach-
ers cared to listen differently to different participants.
Caring was an elusive concept for 1ne when I was a student. I was so-
cialized to think I was caring about someone when I allowed them to
speak over me, when their problems and concerns received prominence,
and when I succumbed to their wishes without burdening them with
mine. In classrooms, then, caring was a bit problematic. How was I to
learn to be a critical thinker if my thoughts were subsumed by others?
How was I to be a participant in active learning-a hallmark, in my
1nind1 of feminist education? I felt rude and uncaring if I interrupted oth-
ers, even if it was the only way to make my voice heard. I did not expect
the teachers who led my classes to "care" about 1ne. I believed that they
had better things to do and many students with much grander a1nbitions
with whom they could work. Of course, caring is no more simple a con-
cept than power. How could faculty members have demonstrated their
care for me in a way that I would have noticed or accepted it? Nel Nod-
dings (1992) asserts that caring is only realized when both the "carer" and
"cared-for" are willing and able to enter into such a relationship. If stu-
dents are resistant to such interactions with faculty members, or, in other
words, are not trained or willing to see their teachers in caring roles, is
there anything a teacher can do to break down students' preconceptions?
How can teachers and students broaden educational discourses to re-
conceptualize the intersections of power and caring in their relation-
ships? Here ,ve circle back to the difficulty of the relationships between
care and power. Who can interrupt hierarchical and distant teacher-
student interactions? In what discourses is this possible? What are the
strategies through which power and caring can be disrupted and reshaped
in learning and teaching relationships? More important, what are the as-
sumptions underlying a desire for certain shaping? And whose desires
ultimately get played out in which classrooms?
Potential responses to these questions are constantly spinning as we
draw lines in the sand between and a1nong teachers and students. Below,
I describe an experience at the end of my graduate years that stands out
prominently as shifting the sands of power and caring that demarcated
those lines within a classroom. Through this example, I hope to show
how the middle position- somewhere between student and teacher-
taught 1ne about my desires to engage in both powerful and careful edu-
cational practices.
During my last semester at the University of Wisconsin, I audited a
seminar course in 1ny major area. From the beginning, there was some-
SCHOLARSHIP ON THE OTHER SIDE 47
thing different about this course for me. While I am still uncertain about
the complex changes that occurred within that context, so1ne relevant
variables come to mind. First, I had worked for almost four years estab-
lishing a relationship with the teacher that existed both within and out-
side of the classroom. We had been in several classes together, and I felt
that I knew his style fairly well. Because of the associated power linked
to that knowledge, I felt comfortable attempting to care about and attend
to class dynamics when I felt that the current line of conversation was
not working for me or for other students in the class. Second, the profes-
sor and I had taken the time to talk about student-teacher relationships
both in general and as they applied specifically to our interactions. We
had learned a bit about each other's fallibility and knew that beyond be-
ing teacher and student, we were also people with strengths, weaknesses,
aspirations, and disappointments. In various ways, I had the sense that
I was both cared for, and worthy of expressing care, in this relationship.
Third, the class was small, met in a comfortable place off-campus, and
regularly encompassed a meal or snack together. In this way, ,-ve cared for
our physical needs for co1nfort and interaction, while in some ways
crossing the boundaries that are typically enforced by the traditional
positioning of students sitting in rows facing a teacher behind a podium
or desk. Fourth, I felt confident about my own work in a role outside that
of a student. I successfully completed my dissertation during that semes-
ter and had received positive feedback from a variety of sources, both
within and outside academe. I had learned a lot on my own volition and
felt very "in charge" of my own learning experiences. Fifth, I was not be-
ing graded-or degraded, as Page Smith (1990) suggests.
While I completed the majority of the assigned work for the class (and
additional work that I thought would add to class discussion), I regarded
the teacher's feedback on my participation as one perspective, rather
than the perspective. My valuing of people in this class was based on
much more than student or teacher status. In my mind, I was able to
more clearly see how each member of our discussion group could both
contribute to and learn from our interactions. We were all powerful and,
therefore, had the responsibility to care for each other.
Although undoubtedly other factors played a part in making this ex-
perience different from previous ones, I believe that those listed here
serve a useful purpose in exploring my transforming definitions of power
and caring as I moved from student to teacher. I learned that I enjoyed
power, to some extent. As a teacher/student, I experienced a power that
gave me the opportunity to care for myself and others. I read additional
material and developed unassigned summaries and critiques of texts. I
brought copies of additional readings that I thought would further the
class members' learning about a given issue. I liked being in control of
48 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
caring interactions of all involved. That change of focus, though, does not
lead to clear and distinct ways of behaving in relation to power and car-
ing. In an effort to care, can and should we enact power over others? When
and how? To what degree is it our choice to do that? I was beginning to
learn that power was a fluid and reciprocal relationship in educational
interactions. In other words, the power to care about students was only
possible when students enacted power to care about what I could offer
the1n.
In the final exa1nple I present here, I struggled with opening class dis-
cussion so much that I minimized what I could contribute to the inter-
change. After the third meeting of this class, I wrote:
instead of one. We then moved to our readings for the day, one of which
(ironically) was Elizabeth Ellsworth's (1989) piece entitled, "Why doesn't
this feel empowering?: Working through the repressive myths of libera-
tory pedagogy."
Given these events and the complexity of the issues that Ellsworth
proposes in her work, I might have anticipated that we had not yet fin -
ished the discussion about the changed syllabus. By the end of the class,
stu dents had told me in many ways that my actions in proposing this
change were both useful and problematic. They often invoked themes
found in Ellsworth's work to support their concern. While some students
thought it would be helpful to have time to reflect without having the
responsibility of additional readings, others. reminded me that they had
not expressed the need to reflect. I was the one who had made that deter-
mination. I was presuming to know what was best. And as Jennifer Gore
(1990, 63) suggested:
In attempts to empower others we need to acknowledge that our agency has
limits, that we might "get it wrong" in assuming we know what would be
empowering for others, and that no matter what our aims or how we go about
"empowering," our efforts will be partial and inconsistent.
S01ne students believed that it 1night be helpful for the1n to have my
feedback on their work as a way to improve their writing skills, espe-
cially before the final paper was to be handed in and graded. Others indi-
cated that they felt an incredible pressure to "produce" "good" writing if
I was to read it and that it was this pressure that they were resisting. Fi-
nally, as I was trying to reassure them that this exercise was not about
me grading them but was instead about their learning and reflection, one
student told me, "We don't trust you that much." My i1nmediate re-
sponse was, "You shouldn't." With Ellsworth's caution that we can never
be divested of the complexities of our identities in teaching and learning
settings, I recognized the instability of my guarantees, the flexibility of
1ny assurances, and the sound "rationale" that students were using when
they distrusted my attempts to enact power and care.
While this statement will probably be eternally problematic in my
mind, my initial reaction was one mired in compassion, intellectual
stimulation, and respect for the classroom discourse that we had created,
because it had evoked such a "risky" statement. I felt trusted because
this student had the courage to tell me that his trust for me only went so
far. I was reminded of Patricia Hill Collins' (1991) insistence on the im-
portance of the discussions we have about the relationship between trust
and truth: "Epistemological choices about who to trust, what to believe,
and why so1nething is true are not benign academic issues. Instead, these
concerns tap the fundamental question of which versions of truth will
SCHOLARSHIP ON THE OTHER SIDE 53
prevail and shape thought and action" (202-3). The relationship between
trust and classroom interaction was emphasized as others began to voice
their agreement with the student who expressed some initial hesitancy
in embracing my proposed changes. They said that they had been feeling
similarly but did not feel comfortable to speak their thoughts because
they did not know me well enough. The limits of our relationships were
educating all of us about the complexities of feminist teaching and
learning.
Throughout this discussion, I felt honored by students' forthrightness
with me about their perceptions of the classroom discourses that we
were struggling within. Yet, I also felt trapped by the constraints of
pedagogy that attempts to enact power in efforts to empower and care in
efforts to ensure comfort, ease, and positive outcomes in learning. I at-
tempted to "care" about others through my "flexibility" in the use of
my teacher-power. But I realized that my caring had different effects for
individual students and was not desired or requested by all students. As
I tried to change the relationships I had with students by providing "bet-
ter learning opportunities" for them, I came to see that with various
power sources that I claim, I do not know the effects that my caring
will have. Further, if I proclaim to enact care in classrooms, while si-
multaneously trying to reposition teacher-student dichotomies through
the lenses of liberatory ideals, my caring becomes suspect. If I can never
omit power from our classrooms, then my assertions that any part of
our relationship can be free from that dynamic co1ne dangerously close
to lying.
Final Thoughts
What then are we dealing with when researchers and teachers are made to
rehearse the method for so long that they forget the purpose of the rehearsal
and they all begin to do the two-step and try to eliminate from the dance
floor those who would do the wild interpretive dance? Is method a need to
define! To critiquet To remove?
-Leck 1994, 93.
Note
1. I wonder as I write this: What is "normal?" Is my student status normal? Is
my teacher status normal? It is troubling to me that I want again to "care"
for others by diminishing the unconditional/unproven respect that my voice
accords. I want to "reduce" my "power" because I have experienced the
hurtful place of being on the opposite sides of those who have seemed to
hoard it. Poststructural conceptions of power, then, are difficult for me here.
If power supposedly circulates and acts through each of us, why do some
persons feel like they are unable to find or enact their power? For example,
while Sue Middleton 11993) proposes that women's silence can be a form of
resistance, I struggle with knowing that my silence, my "resistance," lim-
ited my options for participation in educational environments. My shaping
of my own and others' knowing was sadly lacking. I wondered about myself
and others who chose silence, "What knowledge ... do students have of col-
lege classrooms that makes the decision not to talk a 'realistic' decision?"
56 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL TH EORY AND PRAXIS
(Karp and Yoels 1976/ 1994, 457). To what degree is silence a decision to resist
or disengage with the acting out of power and care in classrooms?
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CHAPTER FO UR
What Is Taught
Curriculum integration involves attempts to broaden general education
by including a wider range of experience, perspectives, and knowledge.
Many universities have implemented mandatory courses on race/gen-
der/ethnic relations of one form or another as part of the undergraduate
curriculum. 1 Women's studies courses increasingly fulfill many uni-
versities' diversity requirements. The growing institutionalization and
11
1nainstreaming" of women's studies at many universities make wom-
en's studies a potentially important player in successfully transforming
the curriculum.
While historically women's studies has concentrated on white U.S.
women's experiences, programs are increasingly attentive to issues of
diversity. The focus on diversity expands women's studies curriculum in
two ways. First, the vast majority of women's studies scholars and teach-
ers recognize how women's differing social locations, particularly in
terms of race, social class, and sexuality, within the United States signifi-
cantly shape their experiences (Butler 1991; Bulkin 1980; Gardner, Dean,
and Mckaig 1989). The experiences and contributions of women of color,
working-class women, and lesbian and bisexual women are increasingly
addressed, although techniques to illustrate the intersections of race,
gender, and class in the experiences of women take different forms. Sec-
ondly, curriculum reform within women's studies encourages a global-
ization of women's studies. Teachers and scholars have broadened their
analysis beyond their national borders, examining, for example, the rela-
tionship between industrialized and underprivileged nations on women's
experiences and status (De Danaan 1990).
The debate over how to best incorporate feminist principles in ways
that reflect the diversity of women's experiences reveals the range of
feminist pedagogical practices that characterize women's studies as well
as more mainstream academic departments. Chow (1985) delineates
three teaching strategies that have been employed in sociology to incor-
porate the perspectives of women of color. These strategies are also used
by feminist educators in women's studies and gender studie.s as they
grapple with the complexity of women's issues and experiences.
The first approach used by scholars to integrate diversity in th_e study
of women is the "comparison strategy." This is a typical strategy used in
gender studies courses where men's and women's experiences are com-
pared or in women's studies where white wo1nen and women of color are
compared. The advantage of this technique is that it leads to a broader
exposure of materials, and students begin to explore the diversity within
the groups of women and men. The disadvantage of this approach is that
all too often women of color or women in general beco1ne viewed by stu-
BEYOND ESSENTIALISMS 61
How It Is Taught
Many feminist scholars, while generally agreeing on the necessity of
race and gender inclusive curriculum, argue that pedagogy is a key site in
the transfonnation of our educational system (Carby 1992, Schniedewind
1993). For exa1nple1 Flintoff (1993) argues that we cannot focus simply on
"what is taught and learned [but we need to focus onJ how it is taught in
the sense of the broadest social relations within which learning takes
place" (p. 74).
Women's studies programs have a long history of challenging the so-
cial relations of learning. Several characteristics differentiate a feminist
approach to education from a traditional one. One of the funda.m ental
goals of a feminist approach to education is the replacement of hierarchi-
cal relations with egalitarian and cooperative relations. Schniedewind
(1993) provides concrete examples of how this goal can be met through
cooperative learning and evaluation methods including student task
groups, the well-known jigsaw format, group outcome grades, and con-
tract grading. A second goal, correlated with the first, more specifically
addresses the visibility and vocality of both students and instructors.
Feminist teachers encourage students to express themselves and help
make the link between their own personal experiences to larger politi-
cal, social, cultural, and economic structures that shape their lives. Re-
jecting hegemonic views of society, feminist educators attempt to pro-
vide students with opportunities to counter dominant understandings
through an analysis of their personal experiences. These two tenets are
embraced in order to achieve a more encompassing goal of empowering
students and faculty. Instructors approach this goal in different ways, but
a common practice is to help students view themselves as active agents
of social change. Scanlon (1993) suggests ways to encourage students to
become political activists. She recommends several assignments that re-
quire students to participate in events outside the classroom as . well as
group projects that bring feminism alive.
While feminist educators share the vision of liberatory education
through cooperative methods and egalitarian relations, the difficulties
of applying feminist ideals in educational arenas are highlighted by re-
cent scholars. Feminists educators explore a range of difficulties typi-
cally experienced including student resistance (Bohmer and Briggs 1991),
classroom dynamics (Cannon 1990), and emotional responses when
teaching about oppression and hierarchy (Lee 1993). Others have been
BEYOND ESSENTIALISMS 63
The Team
One of the advantages of team teaching is the potential to use, when ap·
propriate, the individual areas of expertise, teaching styles, and personal
experiences of two or more gendered, racialized human beings. One of
our team is a male cultural anthropologist with expertise in American
culture and psychological anthropology. The other member of the tea1n
is a female sociologist whose expertise is in feminist studies and United
States race and ethnic relations. Both of us are well versed in theories of
gender subordination and stratification. We use our different areas of ex-
pertise to develop a course that exa1nines the social construction of gen-
der and sexuality across cultures.
Course Objectives
In our course we undertake a two-pronged approach to challenge the es-
sentialist assumptions underlying the construction of dominant Ameri-
can gender and sexual ideologies. We first confront static, essentialist
and ethnocentric notions of gender and sexuality by exploring the varied
historical and cross-cultural gender and sexual constructions. Our inclu-
sive curriculum demonstrates the relationality and fluidity as well as the
impact of the sociocultural environment in the process of gender con-
structions and sexua l meanings. We also attempt to move beyond stu-
dent's essentialist expectations of us, as gendered beings, in terms of our
shared abilities and knowledge of the topics at hand. Both of these goals
point to the overall higher education project of raising awareness and
encouraging students to question and critique their own constructions
and meanings, in this case as they pertain to gender and sexuality.
is also a key factor. Examining how our own culture has restricted pos-
sible categories and reshaped practices and experiences to fit within con-
ventional dichoto1nous categories is often a difficult idea for students to
accept because these categories have become so naturalized and unques-
tioned. In addition to discussing transgendered and transexual experi-
ences in the United States, the cross-cultural component adds to this
exploration and questions students' conventional beliefs about the di-
chotomous and essential nature of our own gender and sexual systems.
This examination also encourages students to move beyond a politics of
identity as we discuss the variation across cultures. Students' logic that
only those who experience certain events should be able to accurately
discuss them cannot be applied so easily when we address cross-cultural
gender and sexual syste1ns.
The politics of experience is clearly inadequate in the cross-cultural
study of gender and sexuality. Both of us, while informed and knowl-
edgeable about cultural practices and meanings, have never experienced
many of the practices we discuss. Clitoridectomy, purdah, the experi-
ences of hijras, and transvestitism are topics about which we have read
extensively, but not personally experienced. We use ethnographies and
case studies that d.escribe and explain the context of such practices and
identities.
While these are obvious examples of why a politics of experience is
limiting, we believe sirnilar situations exist when female instructors
teach about United States gender experiences and inequality. Because
women differ in tenns of class and racial privilege, sexual orientation,
physical abilities, cultural traditions, personal biographies, understand-
ing, self-reflection, and so on, being a woman does not inherently provide
female instructors with insight into the diverse and lived experiences of
all ,-vomen within the United States or the ability to teach about it.
ture's construction of gender roles, is that men are more dominant than
wo1nen. Indeed, women who exhibit masculine-identified characteristics
are often negatively evaluated. For this reason, as one of our primary
goals in team teaching, we consciously attend to and emphasize equality
between instructors.
We take several steps to facilitate equality both in terms of the divi-
sion of actual work for the class and in terms of the presentation. We di-
vide the labor for developing and preparing for the class equally. Equal
labor allows both of us the opportunity to optimize our expertise, to
present information, and to lead discussions. This also helps assure that
, class time is equally spent on our expert areas. We closely monitor the
actual time spent in front of students leading the lecture or discussion.
We attempt to participate equally in discussion periods with both of us
commenting on students' remarks or classroom material.
Students' nonverbal behavior, such as body posture and eye contact,
are also possible indicators of assumptions. We find that many female
students direct their comments, gaze, and body posture to our female
teaching member and that male students attempted to interact more
with our male teaching member. This is particularly evident in a course
with an even number of both genders. We believe this tendency for stu-
dents to interact more directly with the same sex instructor is the result
of both comfort levels and issues of legitimacy/authority. Course evalua-
tions by students indicate that on some topics students felt more con1-
fortable directing their comments to the same sex instructor.
Another possible interpretation of the tendency on the part of male
students to interact more directly with our male team 1nember is that it
is less an issue of comfort than it is an issue of authority by virtue of his
maleness. The female student's preference to interact more directly with
our female team member when talking about female sexuality and femi-
ninity in the United States is due in part to students' assumptions that
they share similar experiences by virtue of being women. We observe
that this occurs less when the class is examining and discussing a sexual
and gendered practice outside of the United States. This pattern reveals
the difficulty, but not the impossibility, of escaping socialization con-
cerning one's own cultural constructions of gender and sexuality in the
limited time frame of one semester or quarter. Students find it less diffi-
cult to move beyond their gendered assumptions about which sex is more
knowledgeable and appropriate when discussing cross-cultural variations
in gender and sexual meanings because these are, in many cases, foreign
ideas, thus no one gender "owns" them. In fact, our male team teacher's
expertise as an anthropologist serves a useful function in more than sim-
ply his ethnograph ic knowledge. Students perceive his anthropological
expertise as a legitimate source of knowledge, even when discussing
cross-cultural expressions of female sexuality. We believe that as students
70 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
more open gait and larger surrounding physical space as compared to our
female team member's stance, as evidence of how we unconsciously act
out gender socialization. We review the literature on styles of communi-
cation and verbal patterns of dominance and attend to our patterns and
those of others.
While we use personal examples and stories when relevant, we are
careful not to represent all men or all women through our own gendered
experience, pointing out how other social relations can shape and alter
gendered experiences. Since we are trying to move beyond the limits
imposed by a politics of experience, we do not divide the class material
•
and presentation along gender lines. Together we provide information
and lead discussions about the meaning and construction of masculin-
ity and femininity just as we both talk about same-sex and cross-sex re-
lations. Teaching based on personal experience would limit us to each
speaking only about out corresponding assigned gender and sexual orien-
tation within a specific class, race, and regional experience.
do not want to clai1n or forfeit authority on the topic based solely on our
"experience" of it.
We wonder whether concealing our sexual orientation is the most ef-
fective method of illustrating the constraining nature of gender roles and
sexuality. We do so because we want to problematize heterosexu ality
and essentialism by displacing assumptions about our own sexuality.
The a1nbiguous state in terms of sexuality forces students to move be-
yond the politics of experience. However, remaining "sexually ambigu-
ous" limits much of the experiential material that we could bring into
the classroo1n from our personal histories.
Conclusion
A feminist commitment to liberatory education requires a critique of
essentialism spanning not only the essentialist ideas underlying the
"nature" of gender and sexuality but also the assumptions about who
can best teach what. A critique of both essentialism and a "politics of
experience" allows feminists effectively to engender 1nen, to 1nove be-
yond static notions of femininity and female experience, and to illumi-
nate the dichotomous, relational, and ultimately variant and fluid con-
struction of masculinity and femininity. In addition, this pedagogical
74 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
approach not only escapes reinforcing the gender hierarchies by equ al-
izing responsibility and legitimacy in the classroom but it is an active
part of the solution in working toward nonoppressive gender relations in
daily practice and in the lives of our students. We strongly believe that
this latter effect, one of contributing solutions to the problems of daily
lives in American society and broadening our students' capacity or abil-
ity to contribute, should be one of the primary goals of reform in higher
education.
Notes
1. This integration reform, however, has not been without debate and critics
which have contested both the necessity and the effectiveness of an inclu-
sive curriculum. Conservative scholars such as Allan Bloom and E. D.
Hirsch as well as conservative associations (The National Association of
Scholars) have argued for a return to an established canon with a firn1 foun-
dation in Western civilization.
E. Stein (1992). Finally we draw from our own research, which covers the
construction of identities and the et hnographic history of an American
company town .
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•
CHAPTER FIVE
SAL JOHNSTON
the room have a good laugh and I wonder, "Will this be the class that
comes unhinged?" For the rest of the term, I am in the rather strange
position of deconstructing the stereotypes and assumed relationships
between sex, gender, and sexuality, which I appear to represent. While I
do not walk into class on the first day and proclailn my sexual identity,
my students see my gender violations and assume it. I don't attempt to
leave myself unsituated, but I refrain from coming out through procla-
mation. I want to thwart "coming out" as an identity clai1n that privi-
leges myself and other queers to "teach antiheterosexism." As I will ar-
gue later, I believe that essentialist identity statements are proble1natic
and I consciously work to undermine them.
Given my physical appearance and the context in which I teach, one
would expect me to have a plethora of gruesome tales to report. Yet my
classroom experiences are exceedingly positive. The University of Ore-
gon has a "liberal" reputation and a sizable lefty, feminist, countercul-
ture contingent, but there is also a strong Greek system. Both the state
and the campus are very racially segregated. Eugene is a "lesbian town/'
but I've only had one term in which I had more than three or four identi-
fiable queer students in my class (which typically numbers ninety stu-
dents or more). Youth for Christ is strong enough on campus that we
have "Jesus Week" right after "Gay Pride." This suggests to me that my
success is not primarily a function of student constituency but instead is
due to the theories and pedagogy I employ.
I am unable to "objectively" measure changes in the beliefs or knowl-
edge of students in my courses. What I offer in this essay is a discussion
that draws on my perceptions of classroom interactions, on course as-
signments, and on concrete student feedback from course evaluations.
My course assignments are analytic papers. Students have consider-
able freedo1n over what they write about, but they must incorporate
course issues, concepts, and readings. I evaluate their work on the basis
of logic, depth of analysis, and use of course materials. I consistently re-
mind students that my purpose is to make them better thinkers: they
receive no points for polemics. After they get back their first assignment,
they believe me. By the end of the term even the struggling students im-
prove in their ability to identify some assumptions underlying a com-
mon cultural belief. Because I have only ten weeks with students, I can't
personally effect much change. Thus I try to develop critical thinking,
with the hope that this skill is carried beyond the classroom.
Course evaluations at my institution include a standardized set of
questions and comments written by the students. I ask students to tell
me both what they found useful about the class and what was problem-
atic. Students consistently suggest that they found challenging and valu-
able the class emphasis on learning how to think rather than what to
think. Students may cynically be producing what they think I want to
NOT FO R QUEERS ONLY 83
hear, but I doubt it. They write their comments anonymously, knowing
that I do not have access to them until after final grades are issued.
Deconstructing Experience
"Diversity panels" are supposed to make visible and give voice to those
constructed as Other in an effort to challange dominant thinking about
race, gender, sexuality, and class. Identity categories are often an impor-
tant element of these panels. Scott's critique of privileging experience
points to the need to be exceedingly careful when forming a panel or
bringing in a guest speaker; in particular, we need to think about the
i1nplications of the framing of the issue or individual in question. For
example, while writing this essay I was invited to be on a student-
organized "sexualities panel" for an Introduction to women's studies
course. At my institution it appears that "sexualities" panels have pretty
much replaced "lesbian panels." While this is an important step, it is
insufficient if the construction of the panel is still dependent on an es-
sentialist understanding of identity.
I appeared on the panel with a gay man, a lesbian, and a heterosexual
virgin. The make-up of the panel functioned to rearticulate several aspects
of dominant discourse. Because all the panelists were Euro-Americans
our race was not discussed, a fact that may have made identity appear to
be singular. By not including self-identified bisexuals, the panel replicated
an understanding of sexuality as a hetero-homo binary. Having three of
the four panelists represent homosexuality reinforced the notion that
only homosexuality, not all sexualities, needs explanation. This impres-
sion was further reinforced by the fact that the panel's one heterosexual
was a virgin, implying as it did that active heterosexuality is simply self-
evident. The primary problem was that we were each selected to "repre-
sent" our "identity."
Although labeled a "sexualities" panel, we were not there to discuss
sex but rather to discuss our respective sexual identities. I naively agreed
86 FEMIN IST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AN D PRAXIS
Theory in Practice
•
I'd like to undermine heteropatriarchy, but this commitment does not
manifest itself in my "teaching antihomophobia." I do not teach about
homosexuality per se; I don't attempt to provide a rationale or a justifica-
tion for sexual practices, nor do I pose value-laden questions about sexu-
ality. Instead, I work to disrupt popular understandings of sex, gender,
and sexuality. I direct student attention to particular issues and ques-
tions in order to reframe them in ways that challenge dominant under-
standings of sexuality.
Sex and Identity is an upper-division course, small for my institution
(with thirty to sixty students, mostly majors), and it tends to more women
than 1nen. The course, as I structure it, is an examination of theories of
sexuality with readings, assignments, and discussions that deconstruct
the latter. Race, gender, and class are always part of our analysis, even
though the course situates sexuality as a central concern. The logic of
the course moves from antiessentialist scholarship to various social-
constructionist positions and concludes with deconstructive analyses.
A key concern is the critical examination of the production of knowl-
edge concerning sex, categories, and assumed meanings and relation-
ships. We engage in a basic examination of how different theories ex-
plain/construct sexuality and attempt to analyze how they produce what
they purport to explain. Central questions posed by the course include:
Who produces knowledge concerning sexuality? How and why do they
do so? What relationship between sex, sexuality, gender, and identity is
posited by the theories under investigation? What relationship can we
see between sexuality and race, class, and gender? How are sexual prac-
tices, meanings, and identities produced and reproduced? What is the re-
lationship between sexuality and power?
To introduce students to the idea that sex, gender, race, and sexuality
are social constructs rather than fixed biological "realities," and that sci-
ence does not produce "objective truth," I have students read Ruth Hub-
bard's The Politics of Women 's Biology (1990) and Jeffrey Weeks's Sexual-
ity (1986) by the end of the second week. Students find these texts
conceptually challenging but readable. In conjunction with the readings
88 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
Conclusion
I do not mean to portray postmodernism as a panacea, but I find its
analyses pedagogically and politically useful. Antiessentialist and de-
constructive critiques allow us to move beyond a dualistic construction
of sexuality and to examine the relations of power constructing categori-
cal schema. If we want our pedagogical practices to resist heterosexism,
then we must avoid rearticulating the logic that underlies it. Moving out
of a bifurcated analytical structure also facilitates examining the multi-
plicity of experience rather than reified categories.
Deconstruction does not leave us with nothing to teach but rather al-
lows us to focus on how categories and truth claims are constructed. As
Cindy Patton 11993) suggests, it is postmodernity, not postmodern theory,
that has made it "problematic to posit ourselves as subjects" (175). Fur-
ther, the most important reasons to question, analyze, and theorize es-
sentialist constructs are political and pragmatic: the political and social
agenda of the right is dependent on essentialist constructions of gender,
sexuality, and race. Effective resistance is dependent on a complex un-
derstanding of how these meanings and relations of power are consti-
tuted and deployed. Posunodernism is not at odds with a pedagogy fo-
cused on critical analyses; I think it de1nands it.
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the Pacific Sociological Asso-
ciation Meetings, San Diego, CA, April 14-17, 1994. This essay has benefited
greatly fro1n the insights and critical comments of friends and colleagues and five
anonymous reviewers. I am particularly grateful to Julia Wallace for suggesting
92 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
that I write this piece and for cogent com1nents on multiple drafts of this essay.
My thanks also go to Diane Dunn, Linda Fuller, Kristin Pula, Lycette Nelson,
Roderick Williams, and Sue Wright. Finally, I must thank 1ny students for the
hard work, patience, and thoughtful com1nents that made this discussion
possible.
Notes
l. See, for example, Butler and Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political; Nich-
olson, Feminism and Postmodernism; and Alcoff and Potter, Feminist
Epistemologies.
4. Since I taught this class last, Butler's Bodies That Matter has been pub-
lished; and chapter 4 discusses Paris Is Burning. Other films and videos that
can be used in classes include Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn
Hooker, Love Makes a Family, On Hate Street (48 Hours special that in-
cludes information on the OCA), One Nation Under God (on conversion
therapy), Sacred Lies. Civil Truth, Straight from the Heart, Silent Pioneers,
The Times of Harvey Milk, and Torch Song Trilogy.
5. The resources available for teaching about sexuality are expanding. One
book I highly recommend is The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by
Abelove, Barale, and Halperin. This anthology contains a very thoughtful
compilation of important articles and an extensive bibliography. Another
important resource is the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS),
which has an archive of course syllabi that can provide examples of how to
incorporate analyses of sexuality into various substantive areas. To add your
name to the CLAGS Newsletter mailing list write to CLAGS, The Graduate
School and University Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10016.
Works Cited
Abelove, Henry, Michele Barale, and David Halperin, eds. The Lesbian and Gay
Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Alco££, Linda, and Elizabeth Potter, eds. Feminist Epistemologies. New York:
Routledge, 1993.
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter. New York: Routledge, 1993a.
NOT FOR QUEERS O NLY 93
(Un)enclosed Knowledge
A central organizing tool in traditional educational settings is the course
syllabus, but it becomes a problematic tool when feminist pedagogy is
implemented as the primary principle around which the classroom is
structured. For example, professors at many universities are required to
submit their course syllabi to their department chairperson before the
beginning of each semester, and, at most universities, the course sylla-
bus becomes the contract between student and professor, detailing the
98 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
What outline? This 1nakes me very nervous. We haven't even closed the date
for the field trip. I would prefer things to be more set. I haven't been unsyllab-
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY ANO SCIENCE EDUCATION 99
ied [sic] since high school. It makes prioritizing assignment times difficult. I'm
used to structuring my week relative to my work load. This makes me think
of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: A thing is either good or not
good and we don't need an enforced system of letters to tell us what is what.
On the other hand, life without letters could be difficult. I'm used to compar-
ing myself to the class averages and I'm truly frightened of flying blind.
At the outset, some students were also unsure about the "transformed"
classroom setting. In particular, the natural science majors expressed
great discomfort about sitting in a circle and opening all inquiry to dis-
cussion. After class the first evening, a geology major confided to Peg
(Margaret) that sitting in a circle and verbally participate in class dis-
cussions felt uncomfortable and foreign because she had been so well
schooled in traditional science classrooms. Because of her discomfort,
she was unsure whether or not she could continue in the class. In con-
trast, the social science and humanities majors in the course were quite
familiar with this arrangement. Upon hearing about the discon1fort that
some students felt about the classroo1n organization, a women's studies
major commented, "I wouldn't know what to do if I walked into a class-
room and the chairs were not in a circle or if there wasn't a lot of discus-
sion!" In time, however, we all became more comfortable with the class-
room environment and the emphasis on "process" learning. Students
soon started to provide us with a wealth of ideas about topics that they
desired to explore. In response, we designed class periods to incorporate
their interests and concerns. The strong classroom emphasis on experi-
ential, collaborative, and self-directed learning, however, presented us
with a web of other challenges.
(Un)connected Knowledge
Providing to students, and ourselves, the experience of a process-oriented
learning environment was only one of the hurdles that we faced in our at-
tempt to infuse the classroom with a feminist pedagogy and collaboratively
constructed knowledge. Early in the course, we recognized that achieving
the goal of constructing a truly interdisciplinary course was hindered by
our own academic backgrounds. The following example illustrates this
problem: Peg, trained as a geologist, knew the importance of understanding
plate tectonics, the hydrologic cycle, the rock cycle, the composition of the
earth, and geological hazards and processes. For students to become scien-
tifically and environmentally literate, she maintained that these concepts
100 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
away from science courses since her early high school years. We were
less pleased by the reaction of our male science major. Why had the ap-
proach failed to be of interest to him? What could spur his desire to learn
how fe1ninist critiques of science could be a new approach to evaluating,
understanding, and conducting science? It wasn't until the last two
weeks of the course that we would begin to be able to answer these and
other questions. In the meantime, we were slowly becoming aware of
how difficult it is to develop integrated knowledge.
Our inability to create interdisciplinary knowledge continued to
haunt us. At one point, the students agreed to spend two weeks research-
ing the relationship between concentrations of nonrenewable natural re-
sources and political economies. They were to find literature that ad-
dressed why a particular resource (e.g., diamonds or copper ore) was
concentrated in one part of the world (e.g., South Africa or South Amer-
ica) and the relationship between the presence of that resource and the
country's political organization (e.g., apartheid or revolutions). After the
two-week period, one student reflected the sentiment of many others by
commenting:
I found more than 300 entries in the library [relating to the mineral I wanted
to study], some even in English, but none made any sense. I knew that science
was not an easy subject, but I get the feeling I'm reading a foreign language. In
another section of the library, I found that the De Beers people Ian interna-
tional family cartel] are known as the syndicate and insulated themselves
into the financial fabric of a recalcitrant Australian government. They then
threatened to disrupt the Australian economy if they !the syndicate] were not
allowed to control newly discovered diamond 1nines. I understand some of
what is being said, but I can't put it into words I understand or integrate what
I am reading. This is an impossible task.
Connected Knowledge
It was not until the last several weeks of the course that ,ve began col-
lectively to feel the integration of knowledge. On one occasion, we were
engaged in an oil-exploration game intended to demonstrate the geologi-
cal concepts of oil reservoirs and traps. The game was designed to get
students interested in learning about sedimentary strata, faults, folds,
102 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
My desire to finish first and make a profit clouded my thinking. Never once
did I think about the flora or fauna on top of the earth, only what was under-
neath. I looked at risk factors in terms of dollars only, and never once thought
of huLnan penalties.
than hearing that rocks of such a great age exist. Physical involvement [with
the earth! alone, however, doesn't guarantee a more holistic approach. The
questions and comments and the camaraderie of the group was certainly a
crucial part of the learning process. That process would not have had such
impact if it had been presented in the same dry, sterile method so common to
the usual scientific field trip.
During the second day of the field trip, we entered Mosaic Canyon and
observed faulted, brecciated, and polished limestone that is beautifully
displayed in the steep-sided, narrow, curving passage into and through
the mountains. We stopped to consider how the history of a fault (and its
nature) cannot be captured by observing a limited rock section. Sud-
denly, and spontaneously, the students began to discuss the unforeseen
environmental problems that could result from the spatially limited geo-
logical study being conducted at the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear
Repository site, which is located a hundred miles north of Las Vegas: a
site marked by numerous active and inactive faults. To the onlooking
tourists, students discussing the geological research at Yucca Mountain
may have seemed disassociated from the geological story told by the
rocks in Mosaic Canyon. To our group, however, the limited history of
deposition, faulting, fracturing, and fluid flow that was recorded in the
Mosaic Canyon outcrop constituted a warning. The important questions
became apparent to us all: What geological questions were scientists at
Yucca Mountain addressing? What geological evidence was being over-
looked on account of the limited area within which geological observa-
tions were taking place? Should other questions be asked? Can geological
questions truly be evaluated through "site assessment" or should more
regional investigations be required? Who was being allowed (funded) to
study the geology of Yucca Mountain? Do the questions asked, investiga-
tions conducted, and conclusions formed vary with funding agents? What
are the potential human consequences? Have scientists not already de-
stroyed the sacred land of the Western Shoshone by building roads, drill-
ing wells, and digging tunnels for scientific inquiry to justify the dis-
posal of human waste? Geological processes, the construction of scientific
knowledge, power, influence, and hu1nan consequences all emerged as
important topics of discussion while we observed the faults and frac-
tured limestone of Mosaic Canyon.
After observing how our discussion had moved from the effects of lo-
cal faulting to a critique of the geological studies being conducted at
Yucca Mountain, one student commented:
The field trip from heaven and hell. We are integrating a world view with a
world we are only beginning to know. The discussion in Mosaic Canyon had
the quality of synthesis that we search for when we reach out to read a book,
touch a leaf, quench a thirst, or to hold the hand of another.
104 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
This is just one of many stories to emerge from our attempt to develop a
truly interdisciplinary course and to teach it from a feminist perspective.
(De)constructing Knowledge
Developing interdisciplinary knowledge requires a collaborative effort
and a commitment to process learning. Moreover, this process forces
both students and teachers to engage in a continuous effort to invent new
knowledge.
The significance of process-based learning became clear to us after a
frustrating small-group exercise aimed at demonstrating the various
types of information scientists need for determining the epicenter and
focus of an earthquake. During this exercise many of the social science
and humanities majors, who were mostly women, had difficulty working
through a series of arithmetic and algebra problems, using ruler and com-
pass, and plotting to scale on a map. The angst built to such a level that
the exercise manuals were literally being pushed to the corner of their
desks and shoved into backpacks-pushed away and out of sight, where
they could not intimidate. One student lost all interest in scientific in-
quiry during this agonizing session:
The inner workings of how an earthquake occurs and how its epicenter is
calculated seem understandable. However, once I tried to do it, with the coin-
pass and equation in hand, I was dumbstruck. For the life of me I couldn't
grasp what was seemingly an easy task. Is it really so i1nportant to know where
the epicenter of an earthquake is?
We felt that the level of math anxiety and student disengagement with
the project, which surfaced during the session, needed to be addressed.
The following week we decided to place our central focus on this issue
and "do math anxiety." Maralee, recognizing her own difficulty with the
project, walked the students through the various mental images and
thinking processes that she herself had had to use in an attempt to solve
the mathematical equations. The presentation forced her to discuss her
fear of confronting a proble1n that could not be contextualized br histori-
cized and made her carefully prepare a step-by-step description of how a
"mathematically challenged" mind might go about thinking through
the problem. This strategy, we hoped, would allow students to see that
fears and anxieties brought on by confronting math are neither unusual
nor limited to the "uneducated." Furthermore, we hoped that the strat-
egy would expose students to a multitude of ways to perform mathemati-
cal procedures.
The results were striking: the students fearful of math were now fully
engaged in the problem-solving process; other students began to offer
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY AND SCIENCE EDUCATI ON
105
I think the 1nost i1nportant thing that I gained was a new insight into how
geology and sociology are interrelated and how social policies don't naturally
evolve from things that we are taught to think of as beyond human control,
such as mineral deposits.
Most important to 1ne was the idea that science is not objective. That was a
new concept for me at the time.
For other students the course reinforced previously held beliefs and, for
some, helped them better articulate their environmental and social
attitudes:
Because I have a major that is interdisciplinary, women's studies, before the
class I was always looking for things that were interrelated. The class was
solid proof that everything is interrelated, even geology and sociology. Since
being a women's studies major, I have become more active in my community.
t The Earth Systems class is definitely a part of my continued involvement,
since it was a class in my major field.
I had a lot of knowledge about the earth and U.S. society before taking this
class. What the class did was to clarify what I knew and also to give me the
facts and figures to back up my general knowledge and intuition.
Everything in your life, any bit of learning has some effect. The course rein-
forced my feminist feelings and gave me 1nore confidence in the1n. I now have
fewer doubts about what I want to do, where I want to go, and what I want to
acco1nplish.
For many students the awareness of earth processes and social systems
had an impact on their daily activities. By engaging in individual activ-
ism, most students felt they could be effective agents of social change in
everyday life:
I have stopped dying my hair! I wear cotton clothes now. It's not a good thing
but I still get my nails done, you cannot make me stop. You don't know how
much guilt [the class] made me feel. I cannot do anything in my house. I can-
not throw away Styrofoam containers, I cannot open my refrigerator without
realizing the effect it is having on the ozone layer. When I take my one bag of
garbage out a week, for both 1ne and my husband, which I don't think is all
that much, I feel guilty because it is in a Hefty bag that probably will way
outlive me. I live differently. I don't leave the water running when I brush my
teeth. I don't take bubble baths as often. OK, once in awhile I do. I deserve
them, it's a right. I put in desert landscaping in my backyard. I mean this
class had a profound effect on 1ne, preppy USA.
I quit shaving my legs while the water was running in the shower. That was
my big thing.
When I found out that the water table is diminished to the point it is, now
every time I turn on the faucets I look over my shoulder.
Conclusion
We, as feminists, as well as many others, believe that the creation of a
contextualized science education together with feminist pedagogy will
speak to the interests of many people and will challenge us all to exam-
ine the role science plays in shaping definitions of knowledge, power
relations, and social inequalities. Our experiences developing and par-
ticipating in the teaching of Earth Systems: A Feminist Approach dem-
onstrated that the gap between the social and natural sciences can be
narrowed. Furthermore, our effort to implement feminist pedagogy in an
interdisciplinary "science" classroom strengthened the ability of all stu-
dents (and ourselves) in the class to play an active role in transformative
learning and environmental, social, and political action. As we have
pointed out throughout this chapter, science education may be the pivotal
110 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
arena in which theory and practice can become powerful agents of social
change.
Fro1n our perspective, the course Earth Systems: A Feminist Approach
and others like it are ilnportant additions to the academy providing new
educational opportunities for faculty and students, illustrating the need
for institutional change, and stilnulating debate. We think that institu-
tional changes must include supporting team teaching for faculty educa-
tion, funding interdisciplinary resource development, and rewarding
curriculum reform. Fro1n the perspective of women's studies, our course
provided to students an educational experience that reflected the funda-
mental tenets of feminist education: it was interdisciplinary, it empha-
sized social transfor1nation, and it allowed students to play a central part
in the construction of their education. Furthermore, it illustrated why it
1nay be important to integrate natural science concepts into the tradi-
tional women's studies curriculu1n . From the perspective of conventional
science, however, there may be some question regarding whether it was a
"science course," regarding the degree to which students were prepared to
enter the next level geology course and the need for the course in the cur-
riculum. We are convinced that Earth Systen1s is a science course that
prepares students to bring new perspectives to other science courses and
provides an ilnportant educational component for all of us who live in a
technologically advanced society.
Judging from the students' written work and journal entries, it is clear
that their understanding of geological concepts and social processes had
increased to widely varying degrees by the end of the semester. The so-
cial science and humanities majors demonstrated only a 1nodestly in-
creased understanding of geological concepts, but they had developed a
much more co1nplex understanding about how capitalist and hegemonic
processes shape scientific inquiry and the u ses to which science is put.
The natural science students, by contrast, had developed at least an ele-
mentary understanding of how social systems shape scientific enter-
prises and had begun to recognize the i1nportance of discussing scientific
concepts in a historical and social context. We believe these changes are
important. It remains unclear, however, to what degree this class in-
spired students to pursue other geology, sociology, or women's studies
courses. .
These considerations and questions bring us to suggest several broad
areas for improvement within the academy and within our course. We
believe that the significance of "doing science" and '1doing social life"
beco1nes clearest when course content and discussion continually illu-
minate the connections between everyday happenings and science and
provide students the opportunity to construct connections between sci-
ence and day-to-day experiences. Thus the primary point to consider is
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY ANO SCIENCE EDU CATI ON 111
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the NWSA Journal reviewers and Ellen Cronan
Rose for their helpful co1nments on an earlier version of this chapter. The final
preparation of this chapter was, at least in part, supported by the National Sci-
ence Foundation under Grant HRD-9555721.
112 FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRAXIS
Works Cited
Bleier, Ruth, ed. Feminist Approaches to Science. New York: Teachers College
Press, 1991.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "Bui lding Two-Way Streets." National Women's Studies
A ssociation fournal 4.3 (1992): 5-15.
- -. Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men . New
York: Basic Books, 1985.
- - . "Women and Science." Women 's Studies International Quarterly 13 (1981):
30-32.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1983.
Harding, Sandra. "Forum: Feminism and Science." National Women's Studies
Association fournal 5.1 (1993): 56-64.
- - . Whose Science! Whose Knowledge~ Thinking from Women's Lives. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1991.
Henderson, Rebecca. Female Participation in Undergraduate Math , Science,
and Engineering Ma;ors: Organizational Features. Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, San Diego, CA,
1993.
Hollenshead, Carol, et al. "Women Graduate Students in Mathematics and Phys-
ics: Reflections on Success." fournal of Women and Minorities in Science
and Engineering 1.1 (1994): 63-88 .
Keller, Evelyn Fox. Reflections on Science and Gender. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1985.
Kelly, A. "The Construction of Masculine Science." British fournal of Sociology
of Education 6 (1 985): 133-54.
Kenway, Jane, and Helen Modra. " Feminist Pedagogy and Emancipatory Possi-
bilities." In Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy, C . Luke and J. Gore 1.38-66.
New York: Routledge, 1992.
Maher, F. A., and M. K. T. Tetreault. The Feminist Classroom. New York : Basic
Books, 1994.
Maher, Frinde. "Toward a Richer Theory of Feminist Pedagogy: A Comparison
of ' Liberation' and 'Gender' Models for Teaching and Learning." fournal of
Education 169.3 (1987): 91-100.
Manis, J. M ., et al. An Analysis of Factors A ffecting Choices in Majors in Science
Mathematics, and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Center for Continuing Education of Women, 1989.
Otto, P. "One Science, One Sex?" School Science and Mathematics 91.8 (1991):
367-73. ,
Rosser, Sue. Female-Friendly Science. New York: Pergamon, 1990.
Rosser, Sue, and B. Kelly. "From Hostile Exclusion to Friendly Inclusion: Univer-
sity of South Carolina System Model Project for the Transformation of Sci-
ence and Math Teaching to Reach Women in Varied Campus Settings."
fournal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 1.1 (1994):
29-44.
Schniedewind, Nancy. "Teaching Feminist Process in the 1990s." Women's
Studies Quarterly 21.3-4 (1 993): 17- 30.
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY AND SCIENCE EDUCATION 113
ESTELLE B. FREEDMAN
In the fall of 1988 I began teaching the introductory course in the Femi-
nist Studies Program at Stanford University. "Introduction to Fen1inist
Studies: Issues and Methods" (FSl0l) had grown from a small discussion
class to a mediu1n-sized lecture course with separate section meetings
1- for sixty-six students. The subject 1natter ranges from the origins of sex-
ual inequality and the history of feminism to conte1nporary paid and
unpaid labor, race and feminism, reproductive rights and sexuality, and
violence against women. Because many of these topics raise both emo-
tional and political sensitivities, I felt that FSl0l required a forum in
which students could discuss their personal reactions to classroom learn-
ing. Even more than the U.S. women's history classes I had taught previ-
ously, "Introduction to Feminist Studies" permitted, and indeed neces-
sitated, the integration of the personal and the academic.
In preparing the course, I wondered how I might use consciousness-
raising in the classroom to achieve this end, and whether my 1970s experi-
ence of consciousness-raising would work with the more conservative
students of the late 1980s. By consciousness-raising I mean the sharing of
personal-experience with others in order to understand the larger social
context for the experience and to transform one's intellectual or political
understandings of it. Once before, in a women's history class, I had experi-
mented with the explicit use of consciousness-raising in the classroom.
On the day we discussed documents from the feminist movements of the
1960s and 1970s, I spontaneously turned the class into a consciousness-
raising session. We formed a circle and spoke in turn about how one article
or idea in the readings had affected each of us personally. The experi-
ment took over an entire week of the course, as students shared feelings
of both anger and inspiration, revealed personal experiences with sexism
on campus, and reacted to the differences that emerged in their views.
The evaluations of the exercise were enthusiastic, so the next year I built
a consciousness-ra ising session into the syllabus. Again, the students
reported that they not only understood the historical experience of femi-
nism more clearly, but that they also made important connections be-
tween the past and the world around them.
In addition to this and other positive models, I had more defensive rea-
sons for incorporating consciousness-raising into the introductory
course.1 The preceding year, a hostile male student had tried unsuccess-
fully to disrupt FS101, and at the University of Washington, one 1nale
student had the class placed the entire women's studies program under
attack by claiming that classes discriminated against men. I wanted to
forestall such disruptions as much as possible by creating a place outside
of the classroom where emotional responses might be shared with peers
and not simply directed at faculty. Aside from hostile students, I worried
about the feelings of alienation that students of minority race, class, eth-
nicity, sexual identity, or physical ability would experience in a predomi-
nantly white, middle-class, heterosexual, and able-bodied classroom. 2
Consciousness-raising groups might allow these students to acknowl-
edge their feelings and make personal and intellectual connections be-
tween gender and other forms of social hierarchy.
To faculty who are veterans of 1970s women's studies classes or who
work in public universities or small liberal arts colleges committed to
teaching, my rationale for incorporating consciousness-raising into the
classroom may seem unnecessary. But I work within an extremely elitist
university in which pedagogy is rarely discussed, and academic advance-
ment depends almost exclusively on scholarship. At this university, op-
ponents of the term "feminist studies" shudder at such a self-conscious
reference to the political nature of knowledge and associate feminist
scholarship with a political radicalism they consider anti-intellectual.
Indeed, even a colleague at a feminist studies meeting reacted to my
plans for setting up consciousness-raising groups by warning that it was
inappropriate and unprofessional for me to attempt to do "therapy" in
my classes.3 Students who signed up for FSlOl arrived in a state of ex-
treme fear of feminism. Most associated the term with an unpleasant
militancy and refused to accept the label "feminist" even if they be-
lieved in the liberal goals of the movement.
In this setting, I feel that the use of consciousness-raising has to be
handled carefully, not only for its pedagogical value but for the political
well-being of the course and the program. Even on more liberal cam-
puses, these conservative times might make faculty wary of the explicit
use of consciousness-raising groups. I believe that now more than ever,
however, we need to confront students' fears of feminism and of social
change. As women's studies courses become part of general education
and distribution requirements on many campuses, we can expect more
conservative or nonfeminist students in our classes. From my experience
teaching FSlOl, I believe that consciousness-raising can be an extremely
effective way to address the fear of feminis1n held by many of these stu-
dents. This chapter then, is an effort to share my own and the students'
experience with consciousness-raising in the late 1980s in order to en-
courage the careful incorporation of personal experience into academic
classes wherever this might be appropriate.
SMALL GROUP PEDAGOGY 119
• * ...
With advice from feminist colleagues, I devised a structure for making
consciousness-raising central to FSl0l. Required biweekly group meet-
ings supplemented an already demanding course-three lectures, heavy
reading, a discussion section weekly, and three papers during the quar-
ter.4 Thus, to make clear from the outset that the groups were not extra-
curricular but integral to the process of learning, I spelled out on the
syllabus the rules for attendance and the format of sessions; and I stressed
the importance of a final paper evaluating the groups. On the recommen-
dation of several colleagues, this paper would not be graded, lest students
feel judged for either their emotions or their politics. Knowing Stanford
students' sensitivities about language and politics, I called the process
"small groups." Although I referred to consciousness raising in my lec-
tures, students continued to speak of their "small groups" rather than
"consciousness-raising groups."
The major dilemma I faced, however, was not about naming, but
whether to create random groups that would mix students from various
backgrounds or to create minority support groups- for women or stu-
dents of color, lesbians and/or lesbians and gay men, disabled, male, eth-
nic, or working-class students. As much as I wanted to diminish minor-
ity alienation, I felt that it was more important for each group to confront
the issues of difference with as much firsthand information as possible.
In addition, many students had multiple or overlapping identities; con-
structing separate groups would force them to choose only one basis of
support. For these reasons, the groups were formed by a random sorting
of names into thirteen sets of four or five students each. (I hoped that the
small size, compared with discussion sections of up to twenty-one stu-
dents, would make scheduling easier, allow students to meet in a dorm
roo1n, and help to build friendships.) Each group had to meet five times
during the ten-week quarter, for a session lasting about two hours, at a
time to be arranged by group members.
I assigned readings for the first session only: Pam Allen's "Free Space"
and Irene Peslikis's "Resistances to Consciousness.''5 I also recommended
a rotating timekeeper, leaderless groups, and an uninterrupted five to ten
minutes for each member to speak at the outset of sessions. Suggested
topics para lleled the syllabus and attempted to link course readings and
lectures with everyday life. "How does your personal experience of race,
class and ethnicity affect your response to what you are learning?" fol-
lowed the lecture on race and feminism and coincided with a required
"unlearning racism" workshop.6 When we studied women and work, the
suggested question asked students to relate readings and lectures to jobs,
families, and campus life. I left one week open for student topics and
closed with a question to parallel our reading of Marge Piercy's utopian
novel, Woman on the Edge of Time: "What one thing would you most
120 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
want to change about our current world? 11 Students were asked to keep
private journals after groups but not to submit them. The final paper
evaluating the groups was to draw heavily upon the journal.7
During the quarter, several incidents on campus, in the community,
and in the classroom intensified the importance of consciousness-raising
and expanded it beyond the groups and into the lecture sessions. On
·campus, two white students posted racist slurs in the Afro-American
theme house, igniting a yearlong debate over the action and the adminis-
tration's response, and heightening awareness of racism. Then, against
the backdrop of the Bush-Dukakis campaign, a few antiabortion activists
mobilized conservative women to join Operation Rescue's blockade of
local abortion clinics, while campus feminists formed a prochoice alli-
ance. Within the classroom, students responded to the readings on les-
bian feminism with such a profound silence that I felt compelled to chal-
lenge their homophobia. Borrowing a technique from a colleague at an
even 1nore conservative university, I asked students to write hypotheti-
cal "coming out letters" to their parents, drawing on their readings about
lesbianism and hon1ophobia. 8 At the same time, the students' presump-
tion of their instructor's heterosexuality made me extremely uncomfort-
able about "passing" as straight and raised 1ny own consciousness to the
point that for the first time I came out in a classroom as a lesbian.
Thus for me, as well as for the students, FSl0l took unexpected turns.
On two occasions, for example, students raised my consciousness about
issues that personally affected them. First, shortly before my lecture on
sexual violence, I received a call from an incest survivor in the course
who had been distressed by the lack of readings on incest. I asked her
permission to discuss the call, anonymously, in class, and used the epi-
sode to talk about my own preconceptions about violence.9 Secondly, in
anticipation of the lecture on women and food, a student volunteered to
speak in class about her own struggles with anorexia and buli1nia. Her
moving, expert presentation provided both personal testi1nony and infor-
mation about support groups on campus. Inspired by her offer, I invited
other students in the class to speak about their personal involvement in
issues we studied. Members of the Rape Education Project did so, and
since no students came out in the lecture class, I invited representatives
from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance to speak on available student-support
services.
Meanwhile, students managed the small groups independently. Every
other week I asked for feedback on the groups during lecture. Although
students made few concrete comments at the time, they suggested that
the groups were going well and were important to them. Only at the end
of the course, after I read the set of sixty-six papers describing and evalu-
ating the groups, did I realize how critical they had been to the educa-
tional process. Several students felt that the groups were as important as
SMALL GROUP PED AG OGY 121
the class itself; for some, they were "the best part," and for at least one,
"the most personally enriching part of the class.1110 Not every group,
however, succeeded in establishing a sense of purpose and facilitating
growth. Several groups had difficulty finding meeting times or sharing
personal experiences; their members felt disappointed when they com-
pared their experiences with those of the majority of students. Generally
though, papers from eleven of the thirteen groups testified to the power
of the small groups for enhancing student understanding of issues raised
in class and for contributing to both self-understanding and greater un-
derstanding of others.
,.
As they did for second-wave feminists of the 1960s and 1970s, conscious-
ness-raising groups in FS101 functioned to move students from silence to
speech, from isolation to community, and sometimes from political
ambivalence to political commitment. Once empowered to explore
ideas and feelings, a number of students were able to confront personal
dilem1nas, especially those concerning sexuality and race. As a result,
their definitions of feminism expanded. By the end of the course, the
majority of students reported that they had shifted from discomfort with
feminism to enthusiastic embrace of the term and its complexity. A
few made commitments to political activism. One sma ll group contin-
ued meeting throughout the year to support the feminist activism of its
members.
Although the degree of change varied greatly, the majority of students
reported that initially they had been "skeptical," "wary," "a little leery,"
"worried," "nervous," or "doubtful" about going to these "weird" and
"extra" groups. "Initially, I honestly dreaded the meetings," one student
who was "skeptical about [their! value" confessed; and another thought
she would "dread going every other week." A freshwoman felt "intimi-
dated at the thought of having to talk to such knowledgeable people"
and went to the first session "with a slight feeling of apprehension." For
several groups, the first meeting was "awkward," but rather quickly,
most students recounted, they were "pleasantly surprised," particularly
by "the high level of engagement and interest." Students "truly began to
look forward to the sessions." Repeatedly, the papers used the term "com-
fortable" to describe the atmosphere in which students found themselves
"eager to talk" and to listen to others. As one woman explained after the
first meeting, she "was actually excited to discuss new ideas openly and
honestly with the members of my group."
Throughout the small group papers, students expressed wonder at
their ability, even need, to talk about course issues. "We all began by say-
ing that we could not possibly talk as long as we were supposed to," one
woman recalled. "We then proceeded to talk longer than that, amazed
that we each had so much to say." Similarly, a member of another group
122 PEDAGOGICAL PRAC TICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
initially felt "Are we really supposed to just sit around and talk for an
hour and a half? That's such a long time and I've got real work to do for
other classes." Here, too, the group ran over time and "had no problem of
thinking of things to say." The student "came away from that meeting
with a sense of urgency that I had to tell others about this revolutionary
concept of small groups."
Students quickly adapted to this unusual assignment, in part because
the groups provided a safer place to try out ideas than did the traditional
lectures or sections. A woman of color in her first year of college found
the groups "extremely helpful" in discussing course topics "perhaps be-
cause I a1n not a very outspoken person, yet these groups were very com-
fortable, so I could express my feelings openly." Many other students re-
ported on the importance of meeting informally outside of the classroom.
The first group session "made me feel slightly more comfortable express-
ing myself in [the lecture! class because I had some idea of how others
might react," one woman wrote. "Basically, I didn't feel as alone with my
viewpoints after the first meeting." An Asian immigrant compared the
"sense of well being" in the group meeting to "times I used to share my
thoughts and dreams with my mom, my sister, my woman friends." The
experience was "empowering" for her because "I, a minority woman,
was taking part in naming myself, in taking control of my life." The per-
sonal gatherings, she explained, represented "a political statement."
The creation of safe space for talk rested upon the ability to listen. "A
very important part of making the discussion groups work so well was
that we really listened to each other, and let each other speak," one
woman wrote. For her, having uninterrupted time "was good practice
listening to people." A senior felt "comfortable speaking to an audi-
ence that was listening, not judging," while a highly articulate sopho-
more felt that "Small groups gave quieter people a chance to talk (un-
like 'loudmouths' like 1nyself)." Reciprocity of speaking and listening
seemed to characterize all groups, easing my fears that certain students
would dominate. As a senior wrote of her group: "All of a sudden I had
four therapists to listen to me. I in turn, could speak to their problems,
or simply listen to them." Like therapy, groups relied on speech to
achieve consciousness; but unlike therapy, they included neither experts
nor leaders. Because students preferred a natural flow of speech-and felt
their groups achieved balance among members, evaluations overwhelm-
ingly rejected the opening five to ten minute format. Students also criti-
cized the assignment of topics, preferring to choose their subjects
spontaneously.
Student papers provide many clues about why the groups offered safety
so quickly. For one, a supportive environment was especially necessary
for 1nembers of this class, given the hostility to feminism in the culture
at large and the university itself. Even enrolling in a fe1ninist studies
SMALL GROUP PEDAGOGY 123
course could be stressful. Because many students "met with nervous re-
sponses from family and friends over taking the course," they "found it
was helpful to discuss these problems with others" in the small group.
Most members of one group thought that "our fathers felt threatened by
our studying feminism," and the students shared their responses from
family members.
Male students, who made up just under one-fifth of the class, may
have been particularly vulnerable to stigma. A freshman explained at his
first group meeting "how difficult it was being a guy feminist," for "not
only did he get badgered by guys, but also he got heat from women who
i saw his feminist comments sometimes as pickup lines." Another man
discovered from the different reactions of male and female friends "the
extent to which" his enrollment "was viewed as a political decision."
The experience of one male student illustrated the extent of male resis-
tance on campus. While distributing pamphlets from the Rape Educa-
tion Project in his dorm, men typically asked "Oh, are you going to teach
us how to rape?" In another group, every member wrote about an inci-
dent that showed them firsthand the kind of chiding directed at male
students who took feminist classes. While they met at an outdoor eating
area, a student described by one woman as "a domineering white male"
approached his buddy in the group. Learning what the small group was
doing, the outsider "started to tease" his friend, "hollering disbelief."
After one woman accused the intruder of sexism, the group had a forty-
five minute debate on the meaning of the attack, the usefulness of her
counterattack, and the way the incident clarified points about oppression
made during the unlearning racism workshop. 11
As might be expected, for men the experience of groups tended to be
more intellectual than personal. One man wrote that he "felt somewhat
alienated" in group because he didn't share the experience of gender with
others. Another felt at the first meeting that the issues "did not always
seem to affect me directly"; but at a later session, discussions of the read-
ings on the politics of housework engaged him quite personally. 12 By the
third meeting he "spoke at length" of the struggle to create an "equali-
tarian" relationship in living with a woman. At least one man, already
aware of being a member of a "targeted" racial group, now saw how gen-
der affected women daily. "I've come to realize what kind of stuff women
have to go through," he wrote, "and more importantly, how gender af-
fects me."
In addition to feeling conflicted about enrolling in the class, reading
about issues such as rape, racism, sexual identity, body types, and stan-
dards of beauty proved disturbing to many students. Other instructors
had warned me that heightening student consciousness of discrimina-
tion and sexual vulnerability often creates emotional stress in women's
studies classrooms. The students echoed this theme in their papers. "We
124 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
all agreed that [by the] third meeting the class had changed our lives in a
profound way; we now felt surrounded by sexism." Or, as another student
explained, "the material in this class was overwhelming, which made it
particularly i1nportant to have a place to express reactions to it as we
went along."
Anger was a primary reaction to the readings but one that evoked deep
conflict, especially for women. At the beginning of the course, many
students stereotyped feminists as "angry" and feared being so-labelled.
The small groups functioned to legitimize anger and make it less over-
whelming. "Our first group meeting can be summed up in one word:
ANGER," a student recalled. "Unfortunately," she continued:
" . "
Reflecting the feminist politics of the 1980s, when women of color moved
feminism from its white, middle-class focus to a more inclusive political
worldview, FSl0l attempted to emphasize the intersections of race and
gender inequality. Along with the readings on race and feminism, the
unlearning racis.m workshop and campus incidents made race and rac-
ism highly charged topics within the class. Small groups offered a poten-
tial space for understanding racial difference and patterns of domination.
The demographic composition of the groups, however, strongly influenced
the tone and depth of their discussions of race. Because three-quarters of
the students were white, minorities were either absent or rare in small
groups. Predictably, all-white groups had the least insightful discussions;
highly unbalanced groups placed the burden of education on the single
1ninority student; and highly mixed groups had the most valuable sessions
on race.
The all-white groups tended to focus on the shared experiences of
women and on nonracial differences between members. A man in one of
these groups regretted its racial co1nposition. Although he enjoyed the
comfort and intimacy of his group, he realized that it felt more like a
11
womb than a coalition," in the terms of Reagan's article. Had the group
been more diverse, he felt, 1ne1nbers would have been forced to deal with
differences in other ways. Often, these groups sought ways to resolve
their discomfort over white privilege, with some interesting results. For
instance, one white student used the concept of 11silnultaneous oppres-
sion" in her own way. Rather than referring to the multiple and simulta-
neous oppression of women of color (by gender, class, and race), she took
the term to mean that white women were both oppressed and oppressors.
With this interpretation, she identified through her gender with subordi-
nate groups, while she accepted responsibility for her position of racial
dominance.
For both mixed and all-white groups, the themes of white guilt and
feelings of helplessness recurred in the papers. 15 White students in a
mixed group felt immobilized by the realization, as one wrote, that 11at
one time in our lives we are all the oppressor. 11 "Our group teeters on the
brink of an intellectual abyss, 11 she wrote of the unsatisfactory conclu-
sion. "We say n ice things to each other and depart." Or as the one black
member of the group put it, the white women "all admitted to feeling
guilty for being white.11 As another white member acknowledged, recog-
nizing difference within feminism 11was really very eye-opening and
made some of us feel as though we had been pretty spoiled and blind."
Silnilarly, a white woman in another group commented after listening to
a Chicana describe the dual effects of racism and sexism: 11 It was hard for
the white people in our group to accept that we would never be able to
truly identify with the minority women's experience."
SMALL GROUP PEDAGOGY 127
Despite this student's attempt to identify with the poor, her attitude
left one of the minority women in her group feeling "peeved" and fearful
that another woman of color "was about to cry, and so was I, a little."
The problem, she explained, was that the privileged students "sound like
such do-gooders, as if racism and prejudice don't really affect them-as if
racism were some immoral practice which must be abolished." The as-
sumption that whites could "take themselves out of the arena of racism"
struck her as "superior and condescendi ng/' and as a betrayal of the com-
mon bond of feminism. Racism, she implied, is everyone's problemi the
good intentions for uplift expressed by some white students alienated
minority students in her group.
These episodes reflected the dilemmas of mixed groups. On the one
hand, these groups did most to educate white students and sometimes
helped alleviate their guilt. In the process, they risked relying on stu-
dents of color as racial educators who explained differences among
women, rather than addressing the deep personal and structural barriers
to race equality. On the other hand, the few minority students in these
groups learned a great deal about white attitudes toward race and how
these attitudes affect them personally. Given the race and class stratifi-
cation of our society, students of color will no doubt confront these views
throughout their lives; small groups can serve as testing grounds for
clarifying their responses. Overall, the racially mixed groups ·worked at
identifying the dilemmas of difference better than the all-white groups;
but they would have been even more effective if they had a greater pro-
portion of students of color. That way the minority students would feel
less isolated and less targeted as racial educators. At a more racially
mixed campus, or in a course with greater minority enrollment, groups
could go even further in raising consciousness about racism. In this set-
ting, mixed groups can go only so far toward exploring the relationship
between gender and racial inequality.
* • "
SMALL GROUP PEDAGOGY 129
Whatever progress the lesbian and gay movement has made since the
1970s, for most Stanford students, lesbianism remains a frightening
topic. In signing up for FSl0l, a woman student risked being labelled, in
the words of one, as "the feminist dyke." Or, as another woman told her
group, she "felt funny because people who knew she was taking the class
would think of her as a lesbian." The association of feminism with lesbi-
anism ran deep among students who brought to the class strong preju-
dices about homosexuality. Several expressed their religious opposition
to gay sex, or, in response to viewing the film "Choosing Children," to
lesbians or gay 1nen raising children. Even liberal students wanted to
distance themselves fro1n homosexuality by defending feminists against
the label of lesbianism.
Not surprisingly, the coming out letter challenged the class enormously
and proved to be "harder than we had thought." Everyone expressed dis-
co1nfort about doing the assignment. Students who had thought they
were tolerant of lesbians and gay men found themselves hiding the as-
signment from roommates; some wrote 11 'Fem-Stud Assignment' across
the top in big letters," in case friends passed by as they wrote. In the
words of one student, we "were continually worried that somebody was
going to look over our shoulder and misinterpret what we had written."
The small group following the letter writing assignment was, for
many, "by far the most tense of the quarter." One of the most highly po-
litical groups seemed to spend little time discussing the letters. One
member was reportedly "speechless" and "couldn't imagine how others
managed to do it." Another woman became "very depressed" writing
hers, and for telling reasons: "I knew my parents would go off on another
fit, and that once again I had to face the fact that their love and financial
support is conditional." Fear of parental disapproval loomed large in the
discussions and helps explain the tone of so many of the letters, well
summarized by a freshman who wrote critically that several members of
his group had made "a total emotional plea to their parents telling them
of their misfortune and asking for acceptance." The members of another
group "all agreed that it took a while to finally get around to actually
saying 'I am lesbian' - a term that many letters avoided altogether.
11
The discussion shifted when this same student also revealed that she
was an incest survivor and explained that she was not alone among Stan-
ford students. Group members, she reported, "were more shocked by this
than the lesbianism, and had a hard time dealing with it .... As for my-
self, I didn't think I could deal with talking about either subject without
being honest about it. I also felt I owed to other lesbians and to other in-
cest survivors to speak out." In the small group setting, she was able to
do so.
Just as all-white groups had more superficial discussions of race, the
,. overwhelmingly heterosexual groups often began with the question of
homosexuality but soon moved to the general topic of sexuality and rela-
tionships. In two of the women-only groups, the coming out discussion
turned to comparable fears of rejection or exposure among straight peo-
ple. "Just as gay people are expected to be ashamed of their sexuality, fat
women are supposed to view their weight as a transitory state," ex-
plained one student. Another group moved from discussing lesbians' fear
of rejection by their families to memories of their own childhood rejec-
tions by other girls and the lasting fear of being different. The parallels
gave them insight into homophobia in the absence of firsthand accounts
from lesbian or gay male students.
I was surprised by how few lesbian and gay male students either took
this class or came out in it; fear of disclosure by association with femi-
nism may have kept them away or in the closet. Nonetheless, the pre-
dominantly straight groups learned more about homophobia than they
had expected, in large part due to the letter writing assignment. Despite
their resistance, once students tried on a homosexual identity, they had
at least a glimpse of the firsthand experience that was missing in most
groups. Forced to identify with the sexual n1inority, students seemed to
confront their homophobia more personally, and with less guilt, than
they confronted their racism. Thus, although the presence of minority
students within groups did not necessarily raise consciousness dra1nati-
cally, an assignment that encouraged personal identification with minor-
ity vulnerability had strong potential to do so.
During the first lecture of the quarter, before I distributed the syllabus, I
had asked each student to write a paragraph or two about how they de-
fined and reacted to the term "feminist." The overwhelming majority of
the class described the goals of liberal feminism positively, but they found
the label "feminist" too frightening to adopt for themselves. At the begin-
ning of the small groups, students addressed these feelings. "All of us ste-
reotype a feminist negatively," one black woman explained, "that is, as a
militant person." Or, as one student summarized the reaction to femi-
nists voiced by each member of her small group: they "hated men," "did
not want to appear attractive," and "were radical and rebellious."
132 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
When I see the word "feminist," I feel like celebrating and crying at the sa1ne
time. I feel a sadness because I know that many people will react to it nega-
tively ... I also respond with a feeling of happiness because I know that
through education, the incredible ideas of femini sm have and will break
through the negative stereotype
Now, when I see or hear the word fe1ninist I invariably respond positively.
I feel a bond with the person it is directed toward, and proudly feel a renewed
women-centered identity.
When I hear the word fe1nini st, I think: this is a person I want to get to know.
To be sure, when I see or hear the word fe1ninist, I respond with a proud,
warm, connective feeling. I 1nyself am a feminist and it's nice to know that I
have sisters and brothers who are the same.
Students from several groups echoed this last student's historical insight:
"I now understand why feminist consciousness-raising groups in the
1970s were so effective in generating wo1nen's energies."
While most students claimed a greater willingness, to identify as femi-
nists, to themselves or to others, and a 1nore complex definition of femi-
nist constituencies and goals, others addressed the li1nits of their politics.
Unlike the generation that initially adopted consciousness-raisi ng in
an era when radicalism was fashionable, today's students shy away from
any taint of political rebelliousness. "Even after having taken this class,"
a woman wrote, "I have yet to conquer my enduring uneasiness with
the word 'feminist.' ... I do still feel a deep and vague discomfort with the
word ... and continue to have difficulty saying 'I arn a feminist'" because
of the connotation of "radicalism, rebelling, and a touch of 'man-hating'
that I am not yet able to accept or overco1ne."
In a different way, other students expressed how, by the end of the
course, they had become acutely aware of their political limitations. As
134 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
ing internal, emotional shifts to occur gradually in students who had been
resistant to feminism. Although the purpose of the groups was to enhance
classroom learning and not necessarily to achieve political conversion, the
two seemed to happen simultaneously. The intellectual challenge of read-
ings, discussions, and papers certainly contributed to the process, but
consciousness-raising provided something that traditional academic work
could not: a safe space for discussing personal difference and connecting
these differences to gender inequality. Given the complexity of feminist
identity that emerged in the 1980s, as well as the negative stereotypes of
feminists that persist among students, consciousness-raising offers a unique
method for learning the very things feminism espouses.
Finally, in addition to emphasizing the importance of consciousness-
raising as a form of pedagogy and urging its adoption in other classes, I
want to credit the students in this course with making consciousness-
raising work. Those who were willing simply to enroll in FSlOl at a cam-
pus that was generally hostile to feminism had to be exceptiQnal stu-
dents. Revealing their own fears of feminism, their anger and guilt about
racism, and their discomfort with homosexuality took courage and en-
tailed risks. The requirement of attending consciousness-raising groups
may have motivated change, but the students themselves made possible
the personal and political growth that their papers document. For a femi-
nist teacher, their learning has been an inspiration and a source of faith
that feminism will survive, even in these conservative times.
SMALL GROUP PEDAGOGY 135
Acknowledgments
In planning this course, I benefited especially from the experience of my col-
league Jane Collier {Anthropology), who had previously taught FSl0l, and from
1ny two graduate teaching assistants, Lisa Hogeland (Modern Thought and Lit·
eraturej and Kevin Mumford /History). I thank them, along with the following
other 1nembers of the feminist community at Stanford, for their responses to
this paper: Laura Carstensen, John Dupre, Mary Felstiner, Regenia Gagnier, Pa-
tricia Gumport, Margo Horn, Susan Krieger, Diane Middlebrook, Adrienne Rich,
Alice Supton, and Sylvia Yanagisako.
Notes
l. Two experiences outside my own classroom influenced 1ny use of
consciousness-raising in FSl0l. I learned a great deal from sociologist Susan
Krieger's example when she successfully incorporated small groups in a
class of conservative prebusiness students. Her students wrote self-refl ective
papers about small group dynamics, rooted in personal experience. If such
groups could work with these students, the groups seemed to have great po-
tential for feminist studies. Another model was an unlearning racism work-
shop I had attended at the Stanford wo,nen's center some years ea rlier, facili-
tated by the late Ricky Sherover-Marcuse. In order to require such a workshop
of all FSl0l students, the feminist studies progran1 hired an experienced fa-
cilitator to conduct workshops for members of this class.
2. Of the sixty-six students who took this course for credit (no t counting audi-
tors), 74 percent were white and 26 percent black, Asian, or Chicana. Men
constituted 17 percent of the entire class, 12 percent of minorities and 18
percent of whites. Students tended to ident ify themselves in terms of race
and gender. Similarly, in this paper I refer to students by gender and race,
unless a student has indicated another identity.
4. I assigned the following readings: Johnetta Cole, ed., All American Women:
Lines that Divide, Ties that Bind (New York: Free Press, 1986); E1nily Honig
and Gail Hershatter, eds., Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s
/Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of
Motherhood (New York: George Braziller, 1979); Virginia Woolf, Three
Guineas /1938; reprint, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1963); Marge Piercy,
136 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
Woman on the Edge of Time (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1976); Alison Jaggar
and Paula Rothenberg, eds., Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical
Accounts of the Relations between Women and Men (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1984); and a thick course reader.
5. Pamela Allen, "Free Space," in Radical Feminism, ed. Anne Koedt, Ellen
Levine and Anita Rapone (New York: Quadrangle, 1973), 271-79; Irene Pesli-
kis, "Resistances to Consciousness." In Sisterhood is Powerful, ed. Robin
Morgan (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 379-81.
7. Despite my effort to make the group meetings required, several papers com-
plained of members who appeared irregularly, because it seemed "almost
like a luxury-and when it comes to a clash between 'real' classwork . . .
and therapeutic classwork, it's hard to break the Stanford mold and take the
ungraded activity seriously." Evaluation papers suggested that attendance
would improve if I scheduled group meeting times rather than leaving it to
students. They also complained about the rigid format I outlined and con-
vinced me that in the future the groups could determine their own process
and discussion topics. After the second year of teaching this course with
consciousness-raising groups, I have decided that it is essential to structure
the meeting times into the course schedule in advance. Doing so would be
especially important for nonresidential schools, where it is even more diffi-
cult for students to find informal meeting times and places.
9. After the lecture, which did discuss the problem of incest, two other incest
survivors identified themselves to me privately, and one suggested readings
for the next year. From this experience I learned about the importance of
making sensitive topics visible on the syllabus in advance and not only in
the lecture class.
SMALL GROUP PEDAGOG Y 137
10. In quoting from the student papers, I have corrected typographical errors but
have left grammar and punctuation intact. Students did sign the papers, so
they 1nay have had an interest in presenting a positive evaluation of the
groups in order to please the instructor. The papers, however, did not affect
grades, and many students offered criticisn1s about the structure or timing
of groups, alongside their reflections on how groups influenced them.
11. To n1y surprise, coining from the sepa ratism of the 1970s, 1nixed-gender
groups evoked no protest and in fact satisfied almost all students. One all
women's group did report a special openness, and members tended to dis-
cuss childhood memories and sexuality more freely. But members of other
all-fe1nale groups said they missed a male perspective." In 1nixed gender
11
13. Another student wrote that when she described her father to the group, she
understood why she couldn't get angry: " I realized that as a child, it see1ned
to me that my fath er was constantly yelling. He scared 1ne most of the time
with his anger, and for this reason, I think that 1 express my anger quietly
and in a somewhat controlled fashion ." She did not elaborate on whether she
wished to change this behavior, but she felt that the insight was an impor-
11
14. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Coalition Politics: Turning the Century." In Home
11
Girls: A Black Feminist An thology, ed. Barbara Sn1ith (New York: Kitchen
Table Press, 1983), 356-68.
15. For example, a white woman who missed the m eeting on race in her mixed
group wrote: ! suppose I could have talked about the white guilt everyone
11
tells me is not healthy to have but that I have anyway. I just don't under-
stand why I can go to Stanford while other people are starving."
CHAPTER EIGHT
JULIA T. WOOD
the other meant by her or his comments. Then I asked every student, not
just those who had spoken, to write out answers to three questions:
1. What did you hear Myra say? Explain what you understood her to
be thinking and feeling about her situation.
2. What did you hear Joe and Bill say? Explain what you understood
them to be thinking and feeling about this issue.
3. What do you think Myra wanted as a response to telling us about
the situation with her father?
The students' responses fairly consistently reflected patterns distin-
guishing male and female moral orientations along the lines indicated by
researchers in this area (see Belenky et al. 1986 and Gilligan et al. 1988).
Four of the five men and four of the women in the class thought that
Myra described a situation of conflicting rights: "She thinks !her father's]
rights supersede her own and she's willing to let his problems infringe on
her life." Twenty-one of the twenty-five women in the class along with
one man phrased Myra's predicament in terms of personal needs and re-
lational responsibilities: Myra felt her father's needs and wanted to re-
spond to them compassionately.
Students' interpretations of Joe and Bill's comments fell similarly in
line with gender generalizations about patterns in moral thinking. Four
of the men and four of the women "heard" Joe and Bill as being concerned
about Myra's rights in the situation and as thinking her father was out of
line in his request that she take care of him. Twenty-one of the women
and one man "heard" Bill and Joe as disregarding the father's needs and
ignoring the responsibilities of being involved in a family where 1nem-
bers are supposed to look out for each other.
In responding to the third question I had posed, a similar pattern
emerged. The majority of men and a minority of women thought Myra
wanted advicei they defined a constructive response as giving her counsel
on what she should do. Yet the majority of women and one 1nan thought
that Myra wanted someone to listen to and understand the conflict she
was experiencing between her personal goals and her desire to take care
of her father.
The next step in this experiment was my asking Myra to tell us what
she had written in response to the first question. This was heF,answer: "I
am feeling really torn about wanting to pursue my education' now and
needing to take care of my father. He is ill and scared and needs me now,
so I can't turn my back on him, but I'd really counted on starting my
graduate studies." I then asked her whether what she felt about the situa-
tion was addressed by the responses from the four men and four women
who heard her talking about rights. "No," she replied. "I don't see what
rights have to do with the situation. It's not a matter of rights. I don't
even think that applies to us."
BRING IN G DIFFERENT V O I C ES INTO T HE CLASS ROOM 141
Again, Bill and Joe assumed center stage by launching into justifica-
tions of their responses as both appropriate and correct. At this point,
however, I did intervene, asking them to withhold defense of their re-
sponses. I then introduced the class to the concept of different voices and
explained the distinctive natures of the voice of caring and the voice of
fairness. The voice of caring emphasizes the responsibilities people have
by virtue of their relationship with each other. From this perspective the
titular moral goal is to respond to others in caring ways. Conversely, I
pointed out, the voice of fairness assumes that what we "owe" to others
and are entitled to expect fro1n others depends on our rights and the
highest moral goal is to be fair in how we treat others by honoring their
rights while not violating our own.
Following my theoretical summary we entered into a discussion that
was to last three class periods. During this time I outlined differences
between the voices of caring and fairness (see table 1). Early responses
from students made it clear that many thought there was a better or right
voice that I simply wasn't revealing to them. This led 1ne to emphasize
repeatedly throughout our discussion that the voices are best understood
as distinct and that both represent valid ways of understanding oneself
as well as relationships with others. Using phrases like "different and
equal," "not co1nparative1 " and "equivalently valid," I stressed the inap-
propriateness of judging the two voices hierarchically.
An incident that occurred during the second day of our discussion
clarified the thesis of our evolving unit on different voices. One student,
after another unsuccessful effort to persuade me to reveal which voice
was "right," burst out in frustration with the challenge, "Well, if you're
not trying to teach us what is right and what we ought to do, then what
are we supposed to learn from all of this?" After several students offered
their perspectives (some of which echoed the speaker's frustration), I sug-
gested there were two purposes: understanding and respect.
Understanding I defined as being able to comprehend another person's
perspective even if it is different from your own-just to understand
without judging it. This purpose seemed most co1nprehensible to stu-
dents when I likened it to learning another language and being able to
translate from one language to the other. Respect I defined as recognizing
that a perspective other than your own can be legitimate, equal in valid-
ity to the way you view the world. Respect does not require personal ac-
ceptance of another's position, yet it goes beyond mere toleration. This
seemed to click best for students when I suggested that the kind of respect
we were talking about was analogous to admiring so1neone who does a
job well that you yourself couldn't or ,-vouldn't do. Whether or not we
want to do what the other does, we can still respect his or her abilities.
As students realized I really didn't have a "hidden right answer" and
that I was not judging any of the responses to Myra's comments as right
142 PEDAGOGICA L PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSRO O M
Table 1
Gender Differences in Developmental Patterns
Developmental Voice of Caring Voice of Fairness
Issue (usually women} (usually men}
Basic interper- Connections with others are Connections with others are not
sonal stance desired and enhance personal so desired and may threaten
security; separation feels personal security; indepen-
unsafe while interdependence dence feels safe.
feels fami liar and safe.
Moral prin- One should show care by One should be fair by impartially
ciples that responding compassionately to respecting others' rights.
guide others' needs.
she 1nade her com1nent? After I'd introduced this focus for discussion,
Joe volunteered that he now understood what had been "wrong" about
his response. He proceeded to explain quite eloquently that rights and
needs are different vocabularies that refer to different ways of thinking
about relationships so that his response about Myra's rights was oblique to
h er concern about her father's needs. Others in the class joined in to elabo-
rate Joe's insight, making the points that showing care and being fair re-
flect different understandings of what relationships are and that helpful
responses are contingent on the perspective of the person talking.
I then asked Myra whether she agreed with Joe's critique of his re-
~ sponse. Now more enabled to claim her voice than she had been three
days before, Myra confirmed Joe's recognition of the difference between
needs and rights views and added that his response was unhelpful in an-
other way. She noted she also hadn't appreciated his giving advice since
she hadn't asked for any. Once again, the class split with the majority of
women nodding in understanding while most of the men expressed mys-
tification and anger, insisting that if Myra hadn't wanted advice she
shouldn't have brought up the issue and that Joe was only trying to help
her.
This allowed me to introduce 1naterial that describes differences in
how women and men use communication and, relatedly, differences in
what they generally desire from others. We talked about what Deborah
Tannen (1990) has called "troubles talk," the kind of conversation in
which one person describes something that is frustrating him or her.
Drawing upon a wealth of research in communication and linguistics,
Tannen demonstrates that women most often engage in troubles talk to
connect to others and the response they desire is evidence that their con-
versational partner understands their feelings and cares that they are
troubled. Men, however, engage in troubles talk less frequently; when
they do, they tend to want advice on how to resolve a problem. (This is, of
course, but another variant on the well-established distinction between
expressive and instrumental goals in com1nunication that tend to di-
verge along gender lines.) Further, Tannen points out that 1nen feel com-
pelled to solve problems others present and especially feel so when
women express dilemmas since the male role of protector is "at stake" in
their capacity to take care of whatever is bothering a ,-voman.
After I had su1nmarized research on co1nmunication styles, I sketched
conceptual distinctions for students, showing how these differences in
desired responses corresponded to the different voices we had been dis-
cussing. Women in the class became highly vocal in confirming the dis-
tinction and in almost uniformly declaring men's penchant for doling
out advice and not attending to their feelings to be one of the most frus-
trating things about talking with guys. The men in the class, perhaps
feeling some defensiveness at what felt like an attack, countered that
144 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEM INIST CLASSROOM
Notes
I. Although Gilligan claims that "The different voice I describe is character-
ized not by gender but theme" (2}, the narrative weight of the book argues
otherwise. Both Gilligan's own descriptions throughout her work and inter-
pretations of her findings by others represent the different voice she identi-
fies as at least strongly associated with, if not the product of, gender.
3. Not only has male authority been privileged, but also most men in my class
responded in a manner consistent with conventional moral theory's empha-
sis on individual autonomy and rights. Uninformed by women's experiences
but nonetheless universalized to them, accepted views of morality grow out
of classic works by three men widely regarded as the "great" moral theorists
of this century: Eric Erickson, Childhood and Society; Lawrence Kohlberg,
"The Development of Modes of Thinking and Choices in Years 10 to 16";
and Jean Piaget, The Moral fudgment of the Child.
Works Cited
Apter, Terri. Altered Loves: Mothers and Daughters during Adolescence. New
York: St. Martins, 1990.
Belenky, Mary, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule. Women's
Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York:
Basic, 1986.
Brummett, Barry. "Absolutist and Relativist Stances toward the Problem of Dif-
ference: A Model for Student Growth in Public Speaking Education." Com-
munication Education 25 (1986): 269-74.
Disch, Estelle, and Becky Thompson. "Teaching and Learning from the Heart."
NWSA fournal 2 (1990): 68-78.
Eichenbaum, Luise, and Susie Orbach. Between Women: Love, Envy and Com-
petition in Women's Friendships. New York: Viking, 1988.
Erickson, Eric. Childhood and Society. New York: Norton, 1950.
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Devel-
opment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
- - . "Moral Orientation and Moral Development." In Women and Moral
Theory, ed. E. Kittay and D. Meyers. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield,
1987. 19-33.
Gilligan, Carol, Janie V. Ward, and Jill M. Taylor, with Betty Baldridge, eds. Map-
ping the Moral Domain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
hooks, bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist , Thinking Black. Boston: South
End Press, 1989.
BRINGING DIFFERENT VOICES INTO THE CLASSROOM 149
SAUNDRA GARDNER
violent behavior. The course is offered every three semesters and enroll-
ment is limited to forty.
While the class attracts students fro1n a wide variety of majors, the
fields of education and social work are often overrepresented. The major-
ity of students are middle-class, and nearly all students are white. Stu-
dents' ages typically range from eighteen to fifty-five, but the majority
are under twenty-three years old. My classes also tend to be dispropor-
tionately female. Since I have taught the course, only thirty out of a total
of 144 students have been male.
Of all my courses, domestic violence is a1nong the hardest to teach
and it certainly is the most emotionally draining. This is due, in part, to
the subject matter of the course, but another key factor is the high pro-
portion of students in the class who have experienced physical and/or
sexual violence during childhood or as adults. Typically, about one-third
of those who enroll in the course "know" they are survivors and another
third come to this realization about midway through the semester. Al-
though these figures are relatively high, they are not unusual. Others
who have taught domestic violence or related courses, such as Janet Lee
(1989, 543-44) and Brenda D. Phillips (1988, 289), report similar patterns.
Thus, for 1nany students, the course either opens up old wounds or trig-
gers an awareness of past experiences with violence that have been bur-
ied for years. 5 For those who have not directly experienced violence, the
course is also a struggle since it directly challenges their taken-for-
granted and, oftentimes, idealized conception of the family. Most ini-
tially respond to this challenge by either doubting the prevalence of do-
mestic violence or by blaming the victiin for such behavior. Although
these patterns of resistance begin to disappear by the third or fourth
week of the se1nester, frustration and depression often take their place.
For those teaching courses on do1nestic violence, especially for the
first ti 1ne, these responses to the course can create a great deal of per-
sonal anguish. I reme1nber, for example, seriously questioning whether it
was even appropriate to teach a course that focused on such an emotion-
ally volatile and sensitive topic. Were the costs to myself, and to the stu-
dents, just too high? I also remember feeling confused about 1ny ethical
responsibilities, particularly in relation to survivors in the class. As I
struggled with these issues, I sought the advice of others, including col-
leagues, members of the class, representatives of a local battered wo1nen's
project, and personal friends who were survivors. All offered valuable
suggestions for how I could reduce the personal trauma experienced by
survivors in the class as well as minimize the resistance and fatalis1n so
co1nmon among the other students. These early discussions allayed my
anxieties about the course and, perhaps more important, they provided
the impetus for many of the curricular changes and teaching strategies
outlined in this article.
152 PEDAGOG IC A L PRACTI C ES I N THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
ascertain the circumstances under which judges were most likely to grant
a protection-from-abuse order. This information was then shared with
staff of the local shelter and others who provide legal services for battered
women. In a related project, another group interviewed formerly battered
women to assess how well current shelter and community services met
their needs and to ascertain how such services could be improved. Other
students interviewed local police officers regarding the strengths and
weaknesses of current domestic-violence laws, problems associated with
their enforcement, and ways to improve the existing statutes.
Student evaluations of the social-change assignment have been ex-
tremely positive. In fact, many have described this aspect of the course
as one of the most empowering and transformative experiences of their
college careers. For instance, one student wrote: "This is the first time in
four years that the work I've done for a course has actually been relevant
to the real world." Others commented more directly on the link between
theory and praxis and, in particular, how it affected their emotional re-
sponse to the course: "I don't feel stuck or paralyzed anymore since we
were able to use our knowledge to do something positive and concrete
about domestic violence. We didn't just talk; we put our education to
work." Such comments clearly suggest, that in courses on sensitive topics
like domestic violence, it is particularly useful for students to become
actively involved in their education and this includes the process of social
change. By working with others who share their concerns and by having
the opportunity to design and implement projects such as those described
here, students soon realize they can effect change; they can "make a dif-
ference." Thus, by incorporating assignments designed to promote social
activism, faculty can help reduce the feelings of despair and powerless-
ness so common among students in their domestic-violence classes.
In conclusion, one of the most difficult tasks facing those of us who
teach domestic violence or related courses is to create a learning envi-
ronment in which students feel both safe and empowered. There are obvi-
ously countless ways to achieve this goal, and the most successful are
likely to be those that take into account students' emotional as well as
intellectual needs. In this regard, I hope the teaching strategies and course
curriculum outlined here prove to be useful resources.
Notes
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Na-
tional Women's Studies Association, June 1989, in Towson, MD.
1. For an excellent overview of this literature, see Weiler; Ryan; Culley and
Portuges; and Bunch and Pollack.
TEACHING ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 15 7
4. It is important to note that these issues can emerge in any course that in-
cludes one or 1nore class sessions on the topic of domestic violence. See, for
exa1nple, the works by Lee and Phillips.
6. My lectures draw on a wide variety of materials, but 1 have found the work
of the following authors to be especially useful: Gelles and Cornell; h ooks;
Gordon; Lobel; and Russell.
Works Cited
Bass, Ellen, and Louise Thornton, eds. I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women
Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. New York: Harper and Row, 1983.
Bunch, Charlotte, and Sandra Pollack, eds. Learning Our Way: Essays in Femi-
nist Education. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1983.
Gulley, Margo, and Catherine Portuges, eds. Gendered Subjects: The Dynamics
of Feminist Teaching. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.
Disch, Estelle, and Becky Tho1npson. "Teaching and Learning from the Heart."
NWSA fournal 2 (1990): 68- 78 .
Dobash, Emerson, and Russell Dobash. Violence against Wives. New York: Free
Press, 1979.
Gardner, Saundra, Cynthia Dean, and Deo McKaig. "Responding to Differences
in the Classroom: The Politics of Knowledge, Class, and Sexuality." Sociol-
ogy of Education 62.1 (1989): 64-74.
Gelles, Richard J., and Claire Pedrick Cornell. Intimate Violence in Families.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990.
Gordon, Linda. Heroes of Their Own Lives. New York: Viking Penguin, 1988.
Hart, Barbara. " Lesbian Battering: An Examination." In Naming the Violence:
Speaking out about Lesbian Battering, ed. Magda Lobel, 173- 89. Seattle: Seal
Press.
Herman, Judith Lewis. Father-Daughter Incest. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1981.
158 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
literary and first person accounts, oral histories, and interviews with in-
dividuals who have challenged gender norms and the heterosexual im-
perative. Growing-up narratives and coming-out stories, a staple of les-
bian and gay culture, encourage students to grasp socialization pressures
as well as the joy of self-discovery. Selected readings from this genre help
students recognize that, while violations of societal norms are difficult
and often painful, such violations are necessary for personal and politi-
cal empowerment.3
To insure a diverse representation of experience, special care is taken
to incorporate the writing of lesbians of color and working-class lesbi-
ans.4 These perspectives help students to comprehend the complexity of
multiple identities and the systems of oppression based on differences of
race and class. When the experiences of women with multiple marginal-
ized identities are validated, several responses are possible. One response,
which we see frequently, is that heterosexual students who are marginal-
ized in other ways may bridge their resistance to homosexuality through
solidarity on the basis of race or class. Students can recognize in the mul-
tiplicity of identities the potential for conflict and for common cause.
Historical materials are important in this course because they provide
students the opportunity to examine the economic and social changes
that make it possible for women to claim a lesbian identity. The materi-
als also show how lesbians can build communities and politics around
their identity. Historical texts also provide concrete examples and illus-
trations of changing sexual mores and practices and in this way further
undermine the naturalness of sexual categories and reveal the political
nature of sexual definitions and categorization.5
Through a variety of activities and exercises, students begin to iden-
tify and analyze the pressures they have encountered from pa.rents,
teachers, clergy, peers, and popular culture to adopt a heterosexual iden-
tity. These activities include writing a hypothetical coming-out letter to
parents; asking students to locate or create a greeting card for a same-sex
lover, lesbian, gay family member, or friend; and participating in role-
playing exercises, for example, bringing a lesbian lover to an office party,
being a lesbian at a parent-teacher conference, coming out at a family
reunion, or holding a lesbian/gay marriage ceremony. But we believe one
of the most effective tools in aiding students with the task of deconstruc-
tion is the lesbian panel.
Late in the term, usually around the seventh or eighth week, instructors
invite a panel of guest speakers to discuss their lesbianism with the stu-
dents. Speakers typically share biographical information about coming
out or coming to consciousness as lesbians. Most of the students' ques-
tions focus on intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships: How do
lesbians relate with their families of origin, lovers, friends, coworkers,
SHIFT TO THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY 161
In order for this exercise to work, students 1nust be willing to see past
the comfortable stereotypes that serve important psychological and so-
cial functions for them, and instructors must be willing to recognize the
e1notional and intellectual difficulty of such a project. Throughout the
term we ask students to reexamine their most cherished values and as-
sumptions about human nature, gender, and the nature of relations be-
tween the sexes. When we succeed, they no longer see gender as a fixed
and stable category. Can we say the same for heterosexuality? Though we
have carefully woven infor1nation about the experiences and contribu-
tions of lesbians throughout the course, our best efforts to deconstruct
heterosexuality are tested 1nost severely by students' face-to-face con-
frontations with lesbians.
In addition to a lack of basic kno,,vledge about homosexuality, students
bring to the college classroo1n their o,,vn sexual histories, experiences,
and insecurities, which have been shaped by their gender, age, race, class,
and sexual orientation, and which interact in co1nplex ,,vays with our ef-
forts to teach about sexuality and sexual identity. Side by side, in the
same classroom, are lesbian, bisexua l, heterosexual, and gay students of
162 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
A white woman who had dated a black man made the following con-
nection:
The fact that lesbians sometimes have to hide their partners is similar to in-
terracial dating. I was in an interracial relationship for nearly six years and
had to hide that from my family. They never even met him, and wouldn't! I
guess that "coming out" is impo.rtant to your happiness in relationships. It
hurts to hide the one you love.
more"; "I feel more open minded because of being confronted face to face
with homosexuals"; "The stereotypes I had were really shattered .... I
feel more of an understanding."
Ethical considerations demand careful attention to the creation of a
safe environment in which all participants can discuss sensitive topics.
Gay students and instructors will be exposed to the homophobic reac-
tions of nongay students, who need to have the freedom to reveal their
prejudices and lack of knowledge in order to have them challenged. For
real learning to occur, confrontations with students about their ho-
mophobia must be dealt with directly, in a way that does not shame or
humiliate the offending student and at the same time repairs the damage
done to the self-respect of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students. It is impor-
tant not to reproduce in the classroo1n the racism, class privilege, sex-
ism, and heterosexism found in society. To foster a positive environment
in which students can acquire an understanding of diversity, including
sexual diversity, some instructors distribute a set of guidelines devel-
oped by Lynn Weber Cannon that lays the ground rules for classroo1n
discussions of social and cultural diversity. 9 Early in the course we talk
about the power of words to coerce and silence as well as to liberate, and
we insist that students use language that honors diversity.
"I" statements encourage accurate placement of responsibility for stu-
dents' feelings. Students, for example, can look to themselves for the
reasons they are homophobic, rather than projecting their reasons onto
lesbians. We also find it useful to disclose our own struggles with racism,
sexism, heterosexism, and class biases. 10
It is evident from our experience that, in an effort to transcend de-
scriptive categorization, lesbianism must first be reclaimed from domi-
nant stereotyping and presented as a total human experience. Within the
process of naming and defining their own lives, speakers repair and vali-
date an experiential, as opposed to an ideological, lesbian identity. As
students hear the speakers talk about their aspirations, needs, desires, and
practical day-to-day living, many students respond by recognizing how
"normal" lesbians are. One student wrote, "Homosexuals have the same
hu1nan desires as heterosexuals, only towards the sa1ne sex. They want
love, respect, knowledge, etc. In fact, they're probably a lot more human
and honest than most heterosexuals I know." Other students have writ-
ten, "It [the panel] makes a lesbian more human, like myself, instead of
being someone weird"; and "The panel made me realize even more that
there is no difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals, both lead
the same types of lives, both have feelings and both put their pants on the
same way."
Beyond humanizing the topic, panelists identify homophobia as the
culprit responsible for distorting lesbian lives. When speakers reveal ho-
1nophobia as the ideological barrier keeping lesbian and gay people from
164 PEDAGOG IC AL PRAC TI C ES I N T HE FEMIN I ST CLASSROOM
In total honesty, the lesbian panel made me think about my reasons for being
a heterosexual and whether I have made the right decision. I'm not sure if I
a,n just curious as to what it is like to be a lesbian or if, rnaybe, I ,night have
some tendencies towards being a lesbian- I'1n just not sure now- and this
forces me to really think about it.
Notes
Portions of this paper were published under the title "Teaching College Students
about Sexual Identity from a Feminist Perspective," in Sexuality and the Cur-
riculum, ed. Ja1nes T. Sears !New York: Teachers College Press, 1992).
168 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
2. For a fuller discussion of these issues, see Carole S. Vance, "Social Con-
struction Theory: Problems in the History of Sexuality," in Homosexuality,
Which Homosexuality!, ed. Dennis Altman (London: GMP Publisher, 1989),
13-34; Steven Epstein, "Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity: The Limits of Social
Constructionism," Socialist Review 17 (May-August 1987): 9-54; Scott Brav-
mann, "Invented Traditions: Take One on the Lesbian and Gay Past," NWSA
fournal 3 (Winter 1991): 81-92. We are particularly aware of feminist con-
cerns about the political paralysis associated with constructionist argu-
ments and the universalizing tendencies of essentialism.
4. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Freedom, CA.: Crossing Press, 1984); Gloria
Anzaldua, ed., Making Face, Making Soul Hacienda Caras: Creative and
Critical Perspectives of Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Founda-
tion, 1990); Barbara Smith, ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
(New York: Kitchen Table Press, 1983); Cherrie Moraga and Anzaldua, eds.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Water-
town, MA.: Persephone Press, 1981); Faith Conlon, Rachel da Silva, and Bar-
bara Wilson, The Things that Divide Us (Seattle: Seal Press, 1986); Janet
Zandy, Calling Home: Working-Class Women's Writings (New Brunswick,
NJ.: Rutgers University Press, 1990).
6. Meredith Maran, "Ten for Bravery, Zero for Common Sense: Confessions of
a Speakers Bureau Speaker," Outlook 7 (Winter 1990): 70.
SHIFT TO THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY 169
7. Panelists are not professional speakers or activists. Most are fonner stu-
dents, friends, or relatives of instructors. The emphasis is on selecting pan-
elists who represent cultural and social diversity, not a particular political
perspective. This diversity affords students the opportunity to co1npare
fe1ninist analyses of sexuality with lived experience .
8. Quotations in this essay are from students who were enrolled in the course,
Introduction to Women's Studies, spring quarter 1990 at the Ohio State Uni-
versity, Columbus, Ohio.
9. Lynn Weber Cannon, " Fostering Positive Race, Class, and Gender Dynam-
ics in the Classroom," Women's Studies Quarterly 18 (Spring-Summer 1990):
126- 34.
10. For other discussions on homophobia in the classroom, see Allison Berg,
Jean Kowaleski, Caroline LeGuin, Ellen Weinauer, and Eric Wolfe, "Break-
ing the Silence: Sexual Preference in the Con1position Classroo111," Femi-
nist Teacher 4 (Fall 1989): 29- 32; David Bleich, "Homophobia and Sexisn1 as
Popular Values," Feminist Teacher 4 (Fall 1989): 21-28; Laurie Crumpacker
and Eleanor M. Vander Haegen, "Pedagogy and Prejudice: Strategies for Con-
fronting Ho1nophobia in the Classroom," Wo1nen 's Studies Quarterly 15
(Fall-Winter 1987): 65-73.
12. Suzanne Pharr, Homophobia : A Weapon of Sexism (Little Rock, AK.: Char-
don Press, 1988).
13. For discussions of social change through the standards of do1ninant dis-
course, see Joan Scott, "Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference: Or, the
Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism," Feminist Studies 14 (Spring
1988): 33-59; and E. Frances Wh ite, "Africa on My Mind: Gender, Counter
Discourse and African-American Nationalism," fournal of Women's His-
tory 2 (Spring 1990): 73-97.
15. Mariana Valverde, "Beyond Gender Dangers and Private Pleasures: Theory
and Ethics in the Sex Debates," Feminist Studies 15 (Summer 1989): 237-54;
Jonathan Ned Katz, "The Invention of Heterosexuality," Socialist Review
20 (January-March 1990): 7-34.
16. There are a number of i1nportant jou rnals that regularly publish scholarly
articles and book reviews about gays and lesbians. These include fournal of
the History of Sexuality, a new journal located at Bard College; fou rnal of
170 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
17. Linda Alcoff, "Cultural Feminism vs. Post Structuralism: The Identity Cri-
sis in Feminist Theory," Signs 13 (Spring 1988): 405-36.
18. John De Cecco and Michael G . Shively, "From Sexual Identity to Sexual
Relationships: A Contextual Shift," fournal of Homosexuality 9 (1984):
1-26.
20. Dale M. Bauer, "The Other 'F' Word: The Feminist in the Classroom," Col-
lege English 52, no. 4 (1990): 385-96.
CHAPTER ELE VEN
SUZANNA ROSE
example, the young white wo1nan angered about the sexy legs contest
decided to investigate the decision-making process and funding for these
events. When she learned it was not a campus-sponsored activity, she
nonetheless pressured student and faculty representatives of the Univer-
sity Senate to challenge Student Affairs for not censuring the event. She
also wrote an article for the women's studies newsletter about the con-
test and resolved to get involved the following year in the Student Affairs
co1nmittee that reviews such events. Likewise, the white student who
protested police unwillingness to file a report on gang violence and who
co1nplained about racist co1nments the police made about the youths,
refused to withdraw her co1nplaint against the officer despite pressure
and a visit from the police to her ho1ne. She eventually was sent a letter
of apology from the police captain indicating that new procedures for
dealing with similar incidents were now in effect.
Only one student had considerable difficulty with the assignment and
did not complete it as originally defined. She cared about feminist issues
but could not think of a target for protest. The group shared their experi-
ences and tried to help her pinpoint an issue, but she floundered until the
very end of the semester. The idea of complaining made her anxious; she
often missed class. Finally, I proposed that she initiate a positive action if
she could not develop a protest and urged her to speak out in praise of an
event or institution she viewed as particularly egalitarian or nonsexist.
Even this was hard for her to do, but she at last wrote a very substantive
letter of praise to a local news station for their series on battered
wo1nen.
The 1nerits of using the protest as an assignment in wo1nen1s studies
classes, based on this one trial, are threefold. First, it helped students
translate vague dissatisfactions about "the way things are" into specific
issues and targets. One effect women's studies courses have had is to
1nake students aware of how pervasive sexism is; however, this outcome
also often depresses 1notivation for action. By encouraging students to
identify a concrete target of sexism and to act against it, the chinks in
the structure become visible.
Second, planning a protest, even if it is only letter writing, teaches
students political strategy. Students considered and discussed who was
responsible for a specific oppression, where the best outlets were for their
messages, and what issues and strategies made the best use of their en-
ergy. Should the protest be aimed at the television station manager or the
advertisers or both? Should co1nplaints be addressed to the police captain
or the mayor? Was there enough community support for leafleting or
picketing? Many ideas were discarded after discussion or were started
and then abandoned; for exa1nple1 one black woman considered protest-
ing a local automotive-supply store where her boyfriend shopped because
pictures of nude wo1nen were hanging all over the store. After the group
174 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
discussed this idea, she decided to reject it because not enough women
shopped at the store for her protest to appeal to them; she also thought
any public protest might give the store free publicity and improve its
business. Another student, a white woman on an athletic scholarship,
began investigating why women's sports were so poorly funded by the
university. She was unable to get access to budget information and was
stonewalled by the coaches and athletic director, so she eventually gave
up on the idea. These "failures" were learning experiences in themselves,
helping the women evaluate initial ideas, carefully strategize, and prepare
to cope with frustration.
The third advantage of the protest assignment was its effect on stu-
dents' feelings of efficacy. Even when a student did not achieve the out-
come she desired or did not receive any response to her actions, the act
of protesting was empowering. The peer-group norm that was created
supported each woman's right to be annoyed, disgusted, or outraged at
oppression and to do something about it. The peer support was crucial,
particularly for students with friends, family, or boyfriends who ridi-
culed or discouraged their anger.
Two problems associated with the protest assignment did arise, how-
ever, that require faculty preparation. First, even after teaching women's
studies courses for more than ten years, I was surprised by the anxiety and
uncertainty the assignment generated among students. I was well aware of
how difficult it is to get students lor anyone) involved in social action but
still could not comprehend what obstacles prevented some students from
focusing on an issue, given the availability of countless worthy causes. I
was frustrated by their unspoken desire for me to tell them what to do.
In using this teaching technique, one should be prepared to give sugges-
tions but also to avoid making decisions for students.
The second problem concerned the need for me, as teacher, to gauge
the consequences of the protest for both the student and myself. Inexpe-
rienced students frequently are unaware of the depths of misogyny in
our society and are personally devastated by an antifeminist backlash.
In addition, not all students have the emotional strength to be non-
conformists; for example, the student who protested the sexy legs contest
was very upset when a hostile male student's response to her was pub-
lished. She also was quite distraught about a negative personal ad some-
one placed in the paper about her. She wanted to respond by picketing the
event. Her distress concerning the backlash alarmed me, however, and I
discouraged her from picketing when she could not arouse sufficient
support for the action from other students. In my judgment, she was not
able by herself to handle the hostility picketing would generate. In class,
other strategies were suggested, which she later pursued. Thus, it is cru-
cial that the teacher encourage students to anticipate all possible personal
co_nsequences of a protest and to evaluate their ability to accept those
PROTEST AS A TEAC HIN G TE C HNIQUE 175
Notes
This paper was presented at the National Women's Studies Association confer-
ence, Minneapolis, Minn., June 1988.
ANNIS H. HOPKINS
It happens all the time-at Wendy's, at the grocery store, the mall, the
bookstore. My students lovingly call our time together "The Annis Win-
frey Show," and we have a cadre of faithful viewers that let me know
they haven't gotten tired yet of hearing about "women in contemporary
American society," even though they watch the "same old class" semes-
ter after semester. Some of then1 are channel surfers who've caught our
curl, some have actually gone looking for "the educational channel," and
some are even former students checking up on me, but they all come to-
gether on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (or set their VCRs) to hear
and see what the issue of the day will be.
Of course, there are registered students watching, too, about ninety
each semester, most of them full-time workers who videotape "the show"
and then invite me into their living rooms in the evening or on Sunday
afternoon, with husband, wife, kids, and neighbors buzzing through to
comment and argue with what "that crazy lady is saying this time."
For the past five years, I've been teaching the only live-cablecast intro-
ductory women's studies survey course in my region, and, in light of my
research, perhaps the only course of its kind in the United States and
Canada.
Why am I the only one? I have some ideas about the reasons. Equip-
ment needs, lack of vision on the part of distance-learning departments,
resistance to women's studies, and women's studies progra1ns' own re-
luctance to participate may be obstacles that must be overcome. Con-
cerns grounded in fe1ninist pedagogy about conducting courses in a lec-
ture format without direct interaction are valid but not insurmountable.
In this chapter I offer some strategies that have been working in my class
in the hope that more women's studies faculty will take the plunge. A
course containing a balance of theory with personal narrative offered by
the teacher, a selection of exciting guest speakers, and the students them-
selves raises consciousness and leads students into analysis and skills
that will permanently enhance their lives, whether they are in a tradi-
tional classroo1n or not.
serve adult students for whom distance is just one of several barriers to educa-
tion, along with limited time, work and family commitments, and con-
strained financial resources. Distance education affords students greater con-
trol over where they study, and often, how long they take to co,nplete a
course. (The Electronic University 1993, xiii)
My students fit this national profile of students who can't get to campus.
For example, nearly every se1nester, I have at least one brand-new mom
who is homebound by health or by choice; I can't imagine a better way to
start life than by having a budding feminist for a mom!
Current Courses
Very few women's studies classes are currently being offered via distance
learning.2 The standard distance-learning guides list only four. 3 In May
1995, I posted a request for more information to the Internet via the Wom-
en's Studies List and the Distance Learning List sponsored by the Western
Interstate Commission for Higher Education Teleco1n1nunications Coop-
erative. My e-mail respondents referred to electronic discussion groups,
178 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
There are three cameras positioned around the room, one directly in
front of the lectern (for the speaker), one over the speaker's desk (for use
as an overhead projector), and one in the right rear corner of the room (to
provide a wide shot of the entire classroom). The cameras are in fixed
positions and are operated remotely from a tech room located behind a
one-way window to the speaker's left. The technician can manipulate
the cameras to provide close-ups of individual students when they are
talking, so that we are all engaged by a full-face picture on the four
monitors that show us the same picture home viewers are seeing.
While the setup may seem intimidating, teaching in this situation is
not as different from teaching in the regular classroom as one might ex-
pect. There are no teleprompters and no stopwatches, although I do have
to make that final point before the clock ticks and the camera is turned
off. A novice might want to practice a few lectures on video before going
on live, although it isn't really necessary. The essential ingredients are
enthusiasm, a firm grasp of the material, and a willingness to take the
risk.
To my continuing dismay, however, a format primarily based on lec-
tures does work best in this setting, although some degree of general
discussion is possible, provided one response is given at a time; the for-
mat accommodates only extremely brief small-group discussion. We
have no choice but to forgo many of the teaching techniques and tools
that have become part of the feminist pedagogical array, including a low
student-teacher ratio. Another difficulty is that here I cannot "wander,"
except with a very wide shot of the classroom; and students must remain
seated. This structure is especially hard for me, since I prefer to roam
around a classroom talking one-on-one with students.
Also, video clips that I might use in a regular classroom usually can-
not be shown due to copyright restrictions and the limited availability
and expense of broadcast-quality tape. It is possible to secure some per-
missions, if you start early enough and have the necessary funding.
Small-group discussion and in-class team projects are also problem-
atic. For one thing, live television demands that "something" be happen-
ing at a focal point at all times, so extended "dead air space" is unaccept-
able. In a class whose material makes people want to talk, the broadcast
medium's demand for "action" can be intimidating, even frustrating at
times. To meet this challenge, we frequently have exercises in which all
students quietly discuss the topic at hand in small groups, with a camera
trained on only one pair or triad, whose mike is activated. While the din
in the background is distracting, cable students report positive reactions
to being included in such "private" conversations between classmates.
The conscious intention of the on-mike students to draw in and include
the otherwise isolated viewer matters too.
WOMEN ' S STUDIES ON TELEVISION 181
A related difficulty concerns the fact that the cablecast is live; there-
fore anyone who speaks must be rather careful. Not only do FCC rules
prohibit some language that might be appropriate in a nontelevised class-
room, but also speakers must be aware that everything they say is being
cablecast and taped, without any possibility of editing.
On the positive side, live television encourages a level of preparation
that might otherwise not occur. When I'1n paying close attention to ev-
erything that comes out of my mouth, I tend to stick more closely to 1ny
outline and cover the material more completely than I do in so1ne other
situations. Even when I throw in personal anecdotes or get involved in a
heated exchange with students, I take more care than I otherwise might,
to everyone's benefit.
One last issue, the large class size, is familiar to all women's studies
programs that provide "service courses" at a large university; the tele-
vised section is not significantly different from my usual class size. Even
for those accustomed to small numbers, a class of 150 loses some of its
negative impact when it is refrained and welcomed as an opportunity to
reach more people with the messages and analyses of society so impor-
tant to women's studies. After all, if ,-vhat we want to do is change the
world, what better place to start than in people's own living rooms?
Lecture-Format Issues
The lecture as a teaching technique has been identified by so1ne critics
as part and parcel of the "traditional approach" to education that ex-
cluded both wo1nen and information about women from the learning
process. Many feminist teachers have worked to eliminate the lecture as
a primary teaching tool; in fact, at my university, lectures given by the
instructor take up less than half the time in the average women's studies
survey course. Frances Maher and Mary Tetreault (1994) observe that
in traditional approaches, the scholarly expert, having distilled lithe truth"
fro1n the best 1ninds in the field, trans1nits it to students. Students learn ei-
ther through lectures, or by engaging with the professor in a form of so-called
"Socratic" dialogue, in which the professor elicits, through a series of probing
182 PEDAG OG IC AL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
This response from a cable student who watched the course on tape shows
that, even without live participation, theoretical fra1neworks brought to
life by the experiences of real people change students' attitudes and in-
spire activism.
During these visits, we in the studio actively engage the guest lectur-
ers. When students see themselves playing a role in analysis, either actu-
ally or vicariously, they see their opinions as critical to the dialogue. As
a result of such conversations, however brief, students learn not to blindly
accept everything people say, including everything their instructors say.
I remind them on an almost daily basis that their responsibility is to de-
velop their own social theory, to collect as many different perspectives
as they can, and then decide for themselves on an ongoing basis which
are most likely to get them what they want in their lives. Students often
articulate these learning processes quite clearly:
I completely accept the proposition that oppression must be challenged ....
In order to obtain social justice, people ,nust fight oppressive structures. This
course has taught me many ways to co1nbat oppression. People rnust ac-
knowledge that oppression exists. We must survive in spite of it. People need
184 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
Interactivity Issues
Classroom interactivity has long been accepted as a positive characteris-
tic by contemporary educators, including members of the collaborative-
learning movement and those advocating feminist pedagogy. In The
Feminist Classroom Maher and Tetreault point out that
what has made feminist pedagogy unique ... has been its attention to the
particular needs of women students and its grounding in feminist theory as
the basis for its multidimensional and positional view of the construction of
classroom knowledge. As Maher puts it in one article, "we need an interac-
tive pedagogy, a pedagogy which integrates student contributions into the
subject matter, just as the subject matter integrates the new material on
women."
One mark of this pedagogy is that learning proceeds at least partly from
the questions of the students themselves and/or from the everyday experi-
ences of ordinary people. (9)
When, after five years in the regular women's studies classroom, I was
initially invited to conduct a women's studies survey course via cable
television, I struggled with the problem of reduced interactivity. Some
direct interaction with cable students is possible. Registered cable stu-
dents may call a restricted-access telephone number during the cablecast
to participate in discussion. Callers bring a fresh voice to the room and
in-studio students perk up to listen, perhaps more carefully than to what
goes on in the room. In-studio responses are most often welcoming and
delighted, making the caller feel that she or he is a vital part of the class;
students who cannot or choose not to call nevertheless reporJ feeling
welcomed into the discussion.
However, the majority of students taking the course on cable video-
tape the class for later viewing, because they work full-time or take other
courses during the live cablecast. Thus our in-depth written communi-
cations serve as the primary link between classroom, teacher, and stu-
dent. Cable students and teacher interact weekly through journaling
(called learning evaluation), study questions that bring together readings
and lectures, and formal essay assignments.
WOMEN 'S STUDIES ON TELEVISION 185
The amount of written work generated in this way is, quite frankly,
mountainous. With a work-study student or TA available only for check-
ing off graded assignments, I devote considerable time to reading and re·
sponding to student materials. I believe this commitment is necessary if
my teaching is to remain consistent with my feminist ideology.
Lack of direct interactivity is a legitimate concern. However, studies
on interactivity in distance-learning situations suggest that actual indi-
vidual interactions with an instructor or with other students may not be
as essential as someti1nes thought. Shuqiang Zhang and Catherine Ful-
ford (1994) "examined relationships between student perceptions of class·
roo1n interaction and the actual amount of time allocated for interaction
in a IO-session interactive television course with an enrollment of 260
students" (58). They found that "students' assessment of overall interac-
tivity was found to be largely based upon their observation of peer par-
ticipation rather than overt personal involvement" (58). In fact, they
concluded that
vicarious interaction- interaction that is observed but involves no direct and
overt participation of the observing student-consistently contributes 1nore to
a person's assess1nent of overall interactivity than his or her own observable
participation in interaction .. .. This provides an empirical basis for a claim
that student perception of overall interactivity is shaped 1nore by the participa-
tory behaviors of the peers than by his or her own share of the action. (62)
home, the message conveyed made me feel there. My wife has also learned from
being there as I watch the tapes of your class. Yes, the class has liberated me.
These comments from a young man whom I have never met or spoken to
are similar to those of many other students. A balance of theory and per-
sonal narrative draws students into the women's studies curriculum,
even when they encounter it via television.
It must be noted as well, however, that there's more going on here than
content. I know that my personality helps. Elsewhere in his essay, the
student just quoted makes it clear that a large part of "the method of lec-
ture" is my manner, my ease with the subject matter, and my consistent
unflappability. It is true that neither teaching women's studies nor teach-
ing on television is for the seriously faint of heart, but it's well worth the
effort.
There are other benefits to learning about women's studies at home,
especially on videotape, beyond the obvious advantage to the home-
bound or working student of class availability. Further research to find
out which of these benefits are consistent, and whether they actually
outweigh any disadvantages individual students may encounter is in
order, but what I have already observed has convinced me of the positive
impact of the course materials when students use videotaped class
sessions.
One benefit is that whereas students taking women's studies in a nor-
mal classroom must take notes and experience their reactions to the
materia l "as it goes by," students watching on video may stop the tape,
rewind, listen again, and pick up details they missed the first time. This
means that rather than "missing out," they actually get significantly
more of the course material than students in the classroom. All students
in this class are required to hand in notes covering each class session as
evidence of "attendance." While there is great variation in the compre-
hensiveness of student note taking, it is possible to tell from a cursory
examination which notes were taken on a single run-through of the
material-either in class or viewed live- and which were the result of a
more reflective viewing of the taped broadcast. The physical distance
entailed in the format actually provides more space for meaningful con-
templation than can usually be afforded in-class students.
When a guest speaker presents highly emotional material, ·physical
distance becomes crucial. For example, an incest survivor who regularly
visits during the unit on violence against women provides such an in-
tense experience that most "live" students take very few notes; they
later wish they had, but the opportunity is gone. In contrast, students
who view a taped version of the session usually submit detailed notes,
often interspersed with personal comments; their learning-evaluation
comments also reveal greater depth of analysis.
WOMEN' S STUDIES ON TE LEV IS IO N 187
Conclusion
Making the case for using television and other distance-learning tech-
nologies in women's stud ies has brought me insights that will beco1ne a
part of all my teaching in the future. It would be good for all of us to ex-
amine "how we do things" regularly. We should ask ourselves, What is it
that we wish to achieve in our courses, particularly in the large survey
sections that serve the university by 1neeting general-studies require-
ments for graduation? What evidence do we have that our methods are
effective? Although certain aspects of these questions deserve a great
deal 1nore research, 1ny experience has revealed that it is possible to
bridge even the actual physical distance between my podium and a stu-
dent's living room. As one reentry woman student co1nmented1
This material has enriched 1ny life and taught 1ne to think in new and differ-
ent ways. It has led me to be concerned with social justice for everyone. It has
provided me with a chance to express my feelings and opinions about society
and human nature. The info rn1ation has taught n1e to be more open-
minded . . .. It has also inspired me to take action. I am very angry that soci-
ety is full of oppressive structures .... We must take action.
Other students focus more on their personal growth:
This class ... has taught 1ne to think differently and to look at things from a
different perspective. But what I have found most enlightening is a greater
understanding of myself as an individual. This class came to me at a perfect
time in my life. Because of this class, I now have a better sense of who I am,
what I am about, and what n1y goals are for the future.
I am convinced that a mix of feminist theory and personal narrative not
only works to overcome the initia l resistance of students and nonregis-
tered viewers to the women's studies curriculum but also leads them to
exa1nine their lives as they have never done before. They learn that
parts of their society are ugly, but they also learn that they can commit
190 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
to not being ugly to each other. They learn that as caring, thinking hu-
man beings, they can contribute to the amelioration of the human
condition.
I urge women's studies teachers, whatever their fears, to make our
transformative curriculum available through distance learning. If framed
appropriately, the material speaks for itself. It's time to move beyond
the confines of our classrooms into the technology of the twenty-first
century.
Notes
1. Extended education includes evening and weekend classes both on and off
campus, adult continuing-education programs, and correspondence study,
as well as distance learning using technologies. While the 298 universities,
colleges, community colleges, consortiums, public-broadcasting stations,
and statewide telecommunications services listed in Oryx Press's 1994
Guide to Distance Learning by William Burgess (1994) offer a wide variety
of course work, six subject areas predominate: accounting, business admin-
istration, computer science, engineering, nursing, and teacher education.
Counted as one area, liberal arts forms a seventh category with myriad
courses.
3. The Electronic University has none, and the Oryx guide identifies these:
Introduction to Women's Studies (University of Nevada, Reno-audio- and
videocassette); Northern Minnesota Women: Myths and Realities (Univer-
sity of Minnesota-audiocassette); and Women in Western Culture and
Women in Judaism (University of Arizona-live broadcast). According to U
of A Video Services, their two courses were taught only once, and the tapes
were not retained. ·
4 . "They include 15 video lessons, an extensive course guide with readings and
lessons, and interaction via voice mail and/or e-mail with the instructor"
(e-mail from Muriel Oaks).
6. We define social theory as follows: a set of statements about how the world
is, how it got to be that way, and how it ought to be changed, from a particu-
lar perspective, with a particular focus.
9. All of the anony1nous student coinments cited here are taken frorn written
materials subn1itted by students in the spring 1995 cablecast WST 300
section.
11. Paper exchanges are conducted in two ways. First, students who are on can1-
pus regularly may d rop off and pick up assignments in the women's studies
program office where the staff maintains a confidential file. Students who
do not come to cainpus, perhaps a third of those registered via cable, mail
assignments weekly. Mailing Iny responses back to them is the 1najor ex-
pense the distance-learning format presen ts to the women's studies
program.
Works Cited
Burgess, William E. The Oryx Guide to Distance Learning. Phoenix: Oryx P,
1994.
The Electronic University: A Guide to Distance Learning. Princeton. NJ: Peter-
son's Guides, 1993.
Lather, Patti. Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Post-
modern . N ew York: Routledge, 1991.
192 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN THE FEMINIST CLASSROOM
LILI M. KI M
vated about their future and took their education very seriously. A good
number of the students in my class also juggled multiple responsibilities
as working moms and held nearly full-time jobs. These particularities of
the environment in which I taught and the kinds of students who took
my course affected the experience I had as an instructor.
I strongly subscribe to the philosophy of feminist pedagogy as a politi-
cal tool. Scholars have long pointed out the patriarchal practice of uni-
versity learning, which persistently and systematically ignores women's
experiences and perspectives (Freeman and Jones 1980). Feminist peda-
gogy, then, as Kelly Coate Bignell has argued, is a conscious act of re-
structuring the power dynamics in the university "to favor won1en and
is specifically concerned with empowering female students" (1996, 316).
It is similar to Paulo Freire's "pedagogy of the oppressed, . . . a pedagogy
which must be forged with, not for, the oppressed (whether individual or
peoples) in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity" (1994, 30).
To fully practice feminist pedagogy, the teacher becomes an authority
with the students, not over them. This kind of classroom dynamic is in
itself a departure from the traditional learning experience. As bell hooks
has long argued, for education to becon1e the practice of freedom, the
first and foremost step is to deconstruct the authority of the professor
and distribute the power and responsibilities to the students as well
(1994, 8).
Another i1nportant aspect of feminist pedagogy is the use and impor-
tance of personal experience. Proponents of feminist pedagogy strongly
advocate that students in women's studies courses learn to 1nake con-
nections between their personal lives and course materials. This ap-
proach furthers the goal of consciousness-raising and social awareness
(Hu1nm 1991). This pedagogical goal and its implementation are not
without critics. Opponents argue that validating personal experiences in
the classroom only leads to "therapeutic pedagogy" and that serious in-
quiry and scholarship are lost in the drama (Patai and Koertge 1994;
Somn1ers 1994). While we cannot have the class be a personal confession
or a counseling session, ,-ve certainly cannot dismiss each individual ex-
perience as isolated and unimportant when appropriate connections are
indeed warranted and made. The goal here is not simply to have students
air their anger, opinions, and personal experiences but to have also them
critically analyze their experience in the context of the existing gender,
class, and racial hierarchies. Scholars have ter1ned this skill of bridging
our personal experience and academic scholarship "connected know-
ing," or "the ability to put the perspectives and voices of 'experts' in dia-
logue with one's own and others' voices and experiences" (Belenky et al.
1986, 101-103). Such skills, these critics 1naintain1 help students to de-
velop critical thinking and analytical skills (Hofhnann and Stake 1998,
198 RACE MATTERS
telling title, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But
Some of Us Are Brave jHull, Scott, and Smith 1982). Published almost
two decades ago, this pioneering anthology for black women's studies
provided a context from which women of color began focusing on issues
important to them within the field. It also provided us a site for measur-
ing the progress of Women's Studies by comparing the challenges the
editors and contributors faced then, to the issues wo1nen of color cur-
rently encounter within Wo1nen's Studies. In addition, I put together a
collection of essays and articles as a course packet. 1
The course ended with Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider (1984). For me,
Audre Lorde embodies the strength and power of a woman of color who
engaged in the important challenge of fighting for social justice in spe-
cial unapologetic ways that empower us even today. She publicly fought
her private battles of being a black socialist lesbian, thereby bettering not
only her personal life, but also the lives of other women of color. Each
semester, students responded to her essays very strongly, in both positive
and negative ways. Most found her writing inspirational and powerful,
some found her style intimidating and confrontational, and yet others
thought they would really like her and would have a lot to tell her if they
met. Whatever their personal feelings towards her approach and style, no
one walked away fro1n Lorde's writing without being profoundly affected
by the messages.
One of my assignments was what I called ''current event days." Stu-
dents brought in recent newspaper or magazine articles on ,-vomen of color
and discussed contemporary issues that affected the lives of women of
color. Almost always, this assignment turned out to be a very interesting
exercise in both how 1nuch of the ne,-vs concerns the lives of women of
color, and also how little attention women of color receive from the media.
The topics brought in by students ranged from interracial dating, to breast
cancer and women of color, to a lack of juicy roles for African American
women in Hollywood, to an article about a black woman tennis player
that focused, not on her athleticism, but on the kind of uniform she wore
during the match. These articles generated heated discussions, allowing
us to connect issues we read about to everyday happenings around us.
The oral history assignment was designed specifically to reach back
into our histories and find valuable resources. Students were required to
interview a woman of colori this gave 1ny students a chance to learn from
and become e1npowered by the experience of the wo1nan they inter-
viewed. Most often, my students interviewed their mothers or other fe-
male relatives. While they thought they already knew everything about
their own mothers, they came back surprised to find out how much they
did not know. The formal set up of the interview assignment allowed 1ny
students to ask their mothers more personal questions that before they
had avoided asking. These wo1nen told powerful stories of struggle and
200 RACE MATTERS
survival, but most important they exemplified the power of inner strength
and unconditional belief in themselves and in those who loved and sup-
ported them. In turn, their mothers were my students' source of inspira-
tion. Through this assign1nent, empowerment occurred on a very per-
sonal, private level which then connected to the public and political. Of
course, I did not grade the project on the content of the story their inter-
viewee told; I evaluated each paper on the level of the student's engage-
ment with the interviewee, as evidenced by the follow-up questions and
commentary, and on the analysis of the story their interviewee told.
My students themselves had incredible stories. When we read Gloria
Yamato's "Something About the Subject Makes It Hard to Name," stu-
dents had some shocking examples from their own experience of the four
different types of racism Yamato calls to our attention: 1) aware/blatant
racism, 2) aware/covert racism, 3) unaware/unintentional racism, and 4)
unaware/self-righteous racism (1998, 93). If we in the United States have
made any progress in fighting racism, it is in the fact that blatant racism
has become unfashionable or unacceptable, at least publicly. But the inci-
dents of aware/blatant racism the students shared with the class were a
reminder that the fight against racism is very far from being over.
One of my students worked as a manager in a clothing store in Buffalo,
New York. When an angry customer asked for the manager and the stu-
dent came to the counter, the customer became even more irate and said,
"I don't want to deal with a nigger" and left. Another student faced a
neighbor who sold t-shirts that read "100% cotton" on the front and,
"And you niggers picked it" on the back. My students take these situa-
tions at face value. They did not let these racist incidents degrade them,
even though they were hurtful. My student involved in the store incident
said this about the overt racism her customer displayed, "This was the
first time that any person had used that term in the tone she used with
intended hostility. Naturally, my first reaction was anger, but it was only
fleeting. I made a joke of it and would tell people that I would have been
really mad if she had called me a Spic." This is not to say that the student
dismissed the seriousness of the customer's racism; she simply chose her
battle wisely and devoted her energy to articulating the incident without
shame rather than hiding it in silence.
Yamato's article also warns us not to internalize racism, wpich is a
very important point all women of color should take care to reme1nber.
Yamato writes:
expected because I a1n Black, because I am not white. Because I an1 (you fill in
the color) you think, "life is going to be hard." The fact is life may be hard,
but the color of your skin is not the cause of the hardship. The color of your
skin ,nay be used as an excuse to mistreat you . . .. If it seems that your color
is the reason, if it seems that your ethnic heritage is the cause of the woe, it's
because you've been deliberately beaten down by agents of a greedy syste1n
until you swallowed the garbage. That is the internalization of racism. (91)
My students often told 1ne, "I know I have to work doubly hard to suc-
ceed." Though I used to commend such determination because I thought
it showed that they were driven and motivated, I realized that I was
guilty of encouraging and condoning the internalized racism that Ya1n-
ato warns us about. As women of color we are conditioned to accept
these subtle things; we do not even question why it is that "we have to
work doubly hard to succeed." Therefore, our heightened awareness of
these subtle for ms of racism helps us resist and combat all types of rac-
ism. The ability to recognize and resist racis1n in all of its ugly disguises
is precisely the kind of empowerment with which I wanted my students
to walk away.
Challenges
I encountered so1ne specific challenges while teaching the course where,
again, my particular circumstances came into play. First, I had to fight
my students' perception that as an Asian American woman I was not re-
ally a woman of color. Many of my students admitted that they ca1ne
into the class thinking that women of color really meant African Ameri-
can women, and they were surprised to see an Asian American wo1nan
instructor as well as to find readings on the syllabus which dealt with
issues concerning Native American wo1nen, Latinas, and Asian A1neri-
can women. Perhaps this explains "vhy a relatively s1nall number of Lati-
nas, Native American women, and Asian American women took the
course.
One of the unintended consequences of not having other Asian An1er-
ican women in class was that, as an Asian American woman, I was
sometimes put in the position of having to speak for 1ny race. Gradually
accepting that Asian American wo1nen were a racial minority who faced
racism and sexism sitnilar to that faced by African American women,
students expected me in so1ne ways to be the Asian A1nerican spokesper-
son. This had been a fa1niliar situation for 1ne as a student, and here I was
facing the same burden, only this time as a teacher.
I reluctantly but purposefully embraced the role of being the lone
Asian A1nerican wo1nan in the class for the sake of contributing another
202 RACE MATTERS
voice, another perspective; I served the role of the staunch educator, cor-
recting the stereotypes of Asian Americans some of my students held in
their mind. I did so in the spirit of embracing women's studies as a site
for a more democratic, less authoritative learning. I willingly replayed
the role as a representative of my race hoping that in doing so I could ac-
complish the important goal of dispelling some stereotypes about Asian
American women. Tellingly, the notion of Asian Americans as a recent,
model immigrant at best, and a permanent foreigner at worst, had a
strong foothold in my students' consciousness. Despite the history of
Asian immigrants' presence that dates back to the 1850s, Asian A1neri-
cans were still not legitimate Americans in their mind. Trying to fight
that stereotype was particularly difficult as a teacher for, in many ways,
such a view of me as a permanent foreigner undermined my legitimacy
as an instructor teaching a course on women of color and the American
experience. But again, I embraced this challenge as an opportunity for an
important lesson in collective learning and democratic classroom dy-
namics. I did not outwardly resent students' misperception of Asian
Americans and, by extension myself, and hoped that my actions would
eventually provide them with a counterexample of the stereotypes of
Asian American women as foreign, exotic, and submissive.2
Another challenge was that some students, even those who identified
themselves as self-proclaimed feminists, objected to talking about ho-
mosexuality and reading articles by and about lesbians. On the first day
of the class last semester, I had one student ask why there were so many
articles and essays by and about lesbians, including Audre Lorde's Sister
Outsider. She wanted to know what homosexuality had to do with a
course on women of color. Wasn't this after all a course about race and
gender? I tried to answer this student's objection by referring to the
points made by Cherrie Moraga in her article "La Guera," in Race, Class,
and Gender. Moraga, given her light complexion, could pass as white,
but she faced a tremendous amount of discrimination based on her ho-
mosexuality. The source of her oppression was not her minority status as
a Chicana but her sexuality as a lesbian (1998, 26-33). The interconnect-
edness of all forms of oppression was a concept that this student was
never able to fully embrace.
Given the nature of the course and the fact that class discussion inti-
mately involved our own identities, I faced the challenge of trying not to
alienate anyone, in particular the white women students. Most of the
white female students were willing to discuss racism and its impact, as
long as they were not included among those who benefited from racism
or were themselves considered racists. Invariably, even the most vocal
ones, at some point, withdrew from class participation as a result of wor-
rying about sounding or appearing racist and feeling like they had to de-
fend and speak for the entire white race. Their resentment seemed to
" I WAS [So] Busv FIGHTING RACISM" 203
I can still recall how it upset everyone in the first women's studies class I at-
tended- a class where everyone except me was white and female and mostly
from privileged class backgrounds-when I interrupted a discussion about the
origins of domination in which it was argued that when a child is coming out
of the womb the factor dee1ned most i1nportant is gender. I stated that when
the child of two black parents is coining out of the v.romb the factor that is
considered first is skin color, then gender, because race and gender will deter-
mine that child's fate. Looking at the interlocking nature of gender, race, and
class was the perspective that changed the direction of feminist thought.
(2000, xi- xii)
Indeed, for too long, white bourgeois feminists have neglected the needs
and realities of won1en of color and poor women.
The statement, "I was [so] busy fighting racism that I didn't even know
I was being oppressed as a woman," reflects both revelation and lament.
The student who made this state1nent correctly recognized the urgency
of a particular fonn of oppression in her life, but she also realized the
multiplicity of her oppression and lamented having been previously blind
to it. Trying to separate what is a result of racis1n and what is a result of
sexis1n is an impossible, as well as ineffective exercise. The focus of our
attention in the course was the interconnectedness of racis1n1 sexism,
classism, and ho1nophobia1 or what feminist scholars call "a 1natrix of
domination, which posits multiple, interlocking levels of do1nination that
stem from the societal configuration of race, class, and gender relations"
204 RACE MATTERS
(Anderson and Collins 1998, 5). So while race may be the most urgent
and pressing form of oppression for women of color, this awareness of the
racism that is built into the very fabric of our society must not come at
the expense of ignoring the interconnectedness of oppressions and the
overlapping of our multiple identities at work.
I also found the statement to be a challenge, because to me feminism,
in addition to fighting sexism, is about more than fighting racism, or even
achieving racial, gender, and class equality. Like hooks and other femi-
nists, I believe that feminism is the radical movement that will success-
fully challenge the current power structures in a transformative way.
"The fight against sexist oppression is of grave political significance-it
is not for women only. Feminist movement is vital both in its power to
liberate us from the terrible bonds of sexist oppression and in its potential
to radicalize and renew other liberation struggles" (hooks 2000, 42). She
reminds us to look beyond our own immediate fight for freedom from op-
pression toward the end goal of systematic, structural, social changes.
The third time I taught this course I asked my students to ponder the
statement, "I was [sol busy fighting racism that I didn't even know I was
being oppressed as a woman." How did they feel about such a statement? If
they were women of color, did they feel that racism was indeed the biggest,
most pressing source of oppression in their lives? I asked them to write
honestly and reflectively, drawing upon the discussions and readings from
the semester. I have received permission to share some of their responses.
Race and sex for black women are so intertwined that it is almost impossible
to pull the two apart when the situation does not state blatantly on what
grounds we are being judged. I believe that women who do not see sexism and
only see racism are those women who refuse to recognize the fact that they
are tied in together. (Angela)
"I was [sol busy fighting racism that I didn't even know I was being oppressed
as a woman" is a very true statement. Like many women of color I am taught
to recognize racism before sexism. Since racism is a more universal issue or
problem that all people face, I am trained to realize when I am being discrimi-
nated against by my skin color, but not my gender. By taking this class, I
know I will be more aware of this in the future. (Monique)
exposed to as many instances of racism that other women of color have been
subjected to. Sexism, on the other hand, is completely different. /Eve)
Until I took this class, I did not know that I was being oppressed as a won1an
just as much as I was being oppressed for my race. It scared me to a certain
extent, because I was ignorant and ignorance is not good. Through reading the
different articles and understanding the different situations that 1nany women
have overcome, I can now say that I am proud to be both African American
and a woman. Being a woman of color, I believe that my race has held 1ne
back, 1nore than being a woman .. . . Race, class, and gender all play hand in
hand in oppressing individuals. However what people n1ust realize is that
each issue must be tackled in the urgency that it affects the person . You can-
not get a hungry man to fight against racism until he has eat en. /Malika)
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this essay was delivered at the Twenty-First Annual Meet-
ing of the National Women's Studies Association at Simmons College, Boston,
Massachusetts, June 2000. 1 thank the audience for their helpful questions and
comments. I also gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the National
Women's Studies Association's Travel Scholarship, which made my attendance
possible. I wish to thank Pat Washington for inviting me to submit the essay and
for giving me abundant encouragement and support along the way, and the
anonymous NWSA Journal referees for their astute criticism and constructive
feedback that greatly improved this essay from its original form. Finally, I thank
the students in Women of Color and the American Experience in Spring 2000
who wrestled with important questions and gave me permission to quote from
their papers.
"I WAs (Sol Busy FIGHTING RACISM" 207
Notes
I. I varied the readings the second time I taught the course by assigning a
nu1nber of articles from Women Transforming Politics: An Alternative
Reader (Cohen et al. 1997).
2. The second time I taught the course, I showed an excellent video, Slaying
the Dragon (Gee 1987), which effectively critiques Hollywood's images of
stereotypical Asian and Asian A,nerican won1en.
References
Anderson, Margaret L., and Patricia Hill Collins, eds. 1998. Race, Class, and
Gender: An Anthology. New York: Wadsworth.
Belenky, Mary F., Blythe M. Clinchy, Nancy R. Goldberger, and Jill M. Tarule.
1986. Women 's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and
Mind. New York: Basic.
Bignell, Kelly Coate. 1996. "Building Feminist Praxis Out of Fe1ninist Pedagogy:
The hnportance of Students' Perspectives." Women 's Studies International
Forum 9:315 - 25.
Cohen, Cathy J., Kathleen B. Jones, and Joan C. Trento, eds . 1997. Women Tran s-
forming Politics: An Alternative Reader. New York : New York University
Press.
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1997. "Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Fe1ninism and
2 Live Crew. In Women Transforming Politics, eds. Cathy J. Cohen, Kath-
leen B. Jones, and Joan C. Trento, 549- 68. New York: New York University
Press.
- - . 1991. "Demarginalizing the In tersection of Race and Sex: A Black Femi-
nist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antira-
cist Politics." In Feminist Legal Theory, eds. K.I. Bartlett and R. Kennedy,
57- 80. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Delgado, Richard. 1995. Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge. Philadelphia:
Tem ple University Press.
Freeman, Helen, and Alison Jones. 1980. "For Women Only?" Women's Studies
International Quarterly 3 (4):429- 40.
Freire, Paulo. 1994. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Harris, Angela P. 1995. "Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory." In
Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge, ed. Richard Delgado, 253-66. Phil-
adelphia, Te1nple University Press.
Hoffman, Frances L., and Jayne E. Stake. 1998. "Feminist Pedagogy in Theory
and Practice: An Empirical Investigation." NWSA Tournal 10(1):79- 98.
hooks, bell. 2000. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Cen ter. 2nd ed. Cambridge,
MA: South End Press.
208 RACE MATTERS
ANNE DONADEY
the iceberg), aware/covert racism (the racism people think they can get
away with), unaware/unintentional racis1n (the bulk of the iceberg), and
una,-vare/self-righteous racism (when white people tell people of color
what their issues should be and how to handle them). I would add the
component of racism by omission to unaware/unintentional racism. In
the context of the feminist classroom, for example, this would mean not
putting works by women of color on the syllabus, by only tokenizing a
few such texts at the end of the semester, or by discussing only the gen-
der implications of works by writers such as Zora Neale Hurston or Toni
Morrison.
It is becoming 1nore and more urgent for instructors who bring an
analysis of multiple forms of oppression in the classroom to examine the
following crucial issues that arise in our teaching: How are people si-
lenced in the classroom? Is the feminist concept of "safe space" always
an e1npowering one? How long should teachers let a "conversation" con-
tinue once it has clearly become circular? Should the instructor silence
racist talk or atte1npt to reason with it? What are the limits of the lib-
eral concepts of free speech and pluralistic conversation? What are the
consequences of racist comments on students, especially on students of
color? Where does the instructor's responsibility lie? Do we play into
the racist's hands by responding to her arguments on her own terms?
How does the instructor enlist the help of students in the process of
dealing with racism in the classroom? How should racism be named and
exposed? What is so threatening about theorizing race and gender as in-
terlocking systems of domination that it would cause some (white) fem-
inists to reject the entire concept? These issues crystallized for me the
first time I taught a graduate course in feminist criticism at the Univer-
sity of Iowa.
The class, a broad overview of contemporary feminist criticism, aimed
to expose students to the richness of fe1ninism's multiple discourses and
to explore some of its contested terrains. The idea was to examine a vari-
ety of feminist and womanist texts that theorize the connections be-
tween forms of oppression such as homophobia, classism, colonialism,
sexism, and racism. Readings were multicultural, and topics covered in-
cluded historicizing feminisms, French feminisms, postmodernism and
feminism, race/gender/sexuality, identity politics, masculinities, repro-
ductive technologies, feminism and science, feminism and the law, inter-
national fe1ninism, and rape. The class was run as a seminar and 1nainly
consisted of a discussion of the readings after a short student presentation
on the day's readings. There were thirteen graduate students in the class,
mostly fro1n the English depart1nent. It soon beca1ne clear that two or
three students consistently refused to engage issues of race and racis1n
and tried to steer the class discussion back to a monist, gender-only focus.
212 RACE MATTERS
They clearly felt that the feminist classroom was one that could accom-
modate discussions of race only insofar as these discussions did not dis-
rupt their assumption of the primacy of gender in feminist analysis, and
they refused any redefinition of gender-based oppression as interlocked
with racial oppression. They did not completely reject a model taking
multiple oppressions into account, as they were perfectly happy to in-
clude sexuality and class into their analysis. Their refusal to engage
multiple oppressions was limited to race and, to a lesser extent, colo-
nialism. Considering the history of race relations in the United States in
general, and the unfortunate history of institutional racism in the wom-
en's movement since the nineteenth century in particular, it is not sur-
prising that race issues should remain a contested terrain in the field. I
realize that terming the reluctance to address race issues racism 1nay
seem controversial to some. Following Adrienne Rich, I contend that
white solipsism, the focus on a white middle-class experience rendered
as universal, is part of racism because it narrows feminist vision and
erases the existence and experiences of other women (1979). It also
serves to bolster white, upper-middle-class dominance by providing the-
oretical justification for women of the dominant strata of society to
view themselves only as oppressed people. While I expected that most of
the tensions that might arise in the class would most likely be around
questions of race and racism, given my previous experience teaching
Introduction to Women's Studies at Northwestern University, I was not
quite prepared for the high level of resistance I encountered. I have since
taught the graduate feminist criticism class with much better results,
due in part to the strategies I implemented (which I present in the third
section).
This chapter represents and continues my process of reflecting on this
painful experience through research and discussion with some of the
students involved as well as with antiracism activist colleagues. 1 My
comments in this chapter do not constitute a pedagogy per se. Since
many colleagues (professors and graduate students) struggle with similar
issues in their classes semester after semester, I present these reflections
and strategies hoping that this work may be as useful to others as it has
been to me. This chapter's blind spots are my sole responsibility. To ad-
dress the question of what happens when the tenets of feminist and criti-
cal pedagogy clash with antiracist work, I first interrogate the concepts
of coming to voice and creating safe spaces by discussing some of the
problematic implications of voicing resistance in the classroom. I then
propose an overview and analysis of the literature on the causes of stu-
dent resistance, and conclude by offering strategies I have used in subse-
quent versions of my graduate feminist criticism class to challenge stu-
dent resistance and negotiate tensions more effectively.
NEGOTIATING TENSIONS 213
ests are served" by racism and sexism (Rothenberg 1988, 38). As Paulo
Freire observes, at so1ne point, "participants begin to realize that if their
analysis of the situation goes any deeper they will either have to divest
themselves of their 1nyths, or reaffinn them" (1993, 138). Resistance is a
way to reaffirm the myths that justify one's dominance. Boh mer and
Briggs insist that an analysis of oppression will also need t o generate an
examination of privilege in order to be effective. It has been my experi-
ence that this is one of the hardest things t o do (1991). The normative
status bestowed on whiteness, maleness, middle-/-upper-class status, and
heterosexuality in our culture 1nakes it easier t o deny the privileges as-
sociated with these characteristics. It seems t o be easier to get in touch
with one's experience as victim of a specific form of oppression than it is
to take responsibility for the ways in which we benefit fr om the oppres-
sion of other groups or peoples. We generally do not experience our own
privilege as intensely as we do injustices done to us on the basis of group
belonging (McIntosh 1992).
Moreover, there may be a resistance to self-identifying as the norm in
classroo1ns where the norm is shown to be an ideological construct used
to perpetuate systemic inequalities (Lorde 1984). Many emotions enter
into play: guilt, anger, shame, defensiveness, and denial. Often, student
resistance takes the form of resent1nent and accusat ions of guilt build-
ing: "refusal or failure to initiate changes creates guilt and dissonance
between their actions and their self-images as just and thoughtfu l peo-
ple" (Aiken et al. 1987, 262-3). Guilt can become a paralyzing emotion
that paradoxically allows one not t o initiate social changes, as feeling
bad about a situation and wallowing in guilt beco1ne substitutes for
action. 5
These problems can be related to the continued dominance of rnonist
frameworks of analysis in the wo men's studies classroom (King 1990).
White, middle-/-upper-class fe1nale students in the graduate feminist crit-
icism classroom are not only aware of the oppression they have experi-
enced as women, they have also theorized that oppression, analyzed and
interpreted their often painful experiences from a gender-based perspec-
tive. They have so1netimes invested a lot in terms of their own personal
survival in a sense of identity as victims of rnale violence and male do1n i-
nation. When the feminist para1neters with ,-vhich students have been
provided prove to be monist (gender-only), students will tend to resist the
use of more co1nplex parameters that take race and class into account .
When the curriculum is integrated from the start, as it is with the under-
graduate Introduction to Women's Studies class taught by my colleague
Jael Silliman at the University of Iowa, students are much more willing
to engage in feminist discussions of race and class. The undergraduate
students who took my Feminist Theory and Feminist Criticis1n classes
after the introduction class tended to be m ore open to i ntersectional
218 RACE MATTERS
(1991, 11). 8 As in the case Rakow discusses, students who attempt "to
recenter the1nselves through the assertion of the dominant discourse ...
[tend] to feel themselves silenced because they learn their discourse will
not pass uncritiqued" 112). The ideological discourse that passes off the
dominant as victim is a very powerful weapon of the dominant: so-called
reverse racism/sexism and reverse discrimination are concepts that must
be exposed for what they are: ideological weapons used to enforce contin-
ued dominance. 9 As Memmi argues, "guilt is one of the most powerful
moving forces behind racist mechanisms. Racism certainly is one way
to fight ... r emorse. This is why privilege and oppression call so strongly
for racism. If there is oppression, there 1nust be a guilty party, and if the
oppressor himself will not plead guilty, which would soon be unbearable,
then the oppressed must be guilty. In short, racism is what allows the
victim to be charged with the crimes . .. of the racist" 11994, 150, my
translation). Resistance can thus be interpreted as a symptom of a refusal
to give up the privileges one has just begun to acknowledge as one's own.
The fear of losing one set of privileges when one experiences oppression
on another level may be a reason for refusing to take responsibility for
fighting all oppressions (see hooks 1994, 116). In the context of graduate
women's studies classes more specifically, I view the students' resistance
as being based on three closely related fears:
1. The fear that won1en's issues (narrowly defined through the lens of
gender) are being s ubsumed under other issues gaining prominence
!see hooks 1994, 113i Butler 1985, 236).
2. The fear that white women's experience of oppression, which had
so far been validated by fe1ninist theory and praxis, is los ing its
centrality.
3. The fear of losing the one safe space for women who experience
gender as the main category of oppression in academia.
Unexa1nined territorial feelings about feminist criticism were being
threatened in 1ny class. As Bernice Johnson Reagon 11983) eloquently ar-
gues, the concept of home is double-edged in that one's safe space can
very quickly become exclusionary and alienating to others !see also
hooks 1994, 113; Nnaemeka 1994, 302). While some white female stu-
dents ca1ne to the feminist graduate classroom expecting a safe space, a
ho1ne place, one of the students of color in the class wrote to me that she
"knew to some degree that taking a feminist theory class at U of I would
be an agonizing experience." One of the 1nost painful things for me
about the class has been the extent to which I was unable to prevent her
foreboding from coming true.
Because of the fears outlined above, some white female students in my
class became increasingly unwilling to share the power to define women's
220 RACE MATTERS
issues. They expressed more and more resistance against being challenged
to go beyond any matter that had not been part of their own experience as
white, middle-class women, especially with respect to race and racism. 10
They refused to acknowledge the power issues involved in who gets to de-
cide what counts as women's issues and which women's concerns are be-
ing represented at any given time (see Johnson-Odim 1991). Yet this is
precisely one of the main challenges feminism must rise to if it is to heed
the call of feminists of color: fighting against the oppression of all women
(Smith 1990). Otherwise, the risk is that feminism itself becomes an op-
pressive discourse for women who are the targets of other oppressions be-
side gender (King 1990; Jaimes and Halsey 1992; Rose 1992; Mohanty
1991).
Finally, several scholars point out that student resistance may be
linked to a struggle for authority in a context where the teacher is not a
1nature white male and s/he tries to implement less authoritarian peda-
gogical models (Rakow 1991; Friedman 1985). Even though in the femi-
nist classroom students would probably be initially suspicious of a male
feminist teacher (who would have to earn the students' trust by proving
he is an ally), unconscious mechanisms and expectations of women as
nurturing may still work to undermine a female teacher's position of
authority. When the teacher is not white, and especially if s/he is "teach-
ing to transgress" (hooks 1994, 1), students may feel empowered to con-
test or deny his or her authority (Ng 1993; Nnaemeka 1994). Even in a
feminist classroo1n, resistance may become an unconscious way to deny
women a position of authority more easily granted to men (Rakow 1991;
Friedman 1985). Although it is possible that some of this might have
been operating in my class, by no means do I wish to imply that I was
victimized by students since I was obviously the one in the position of
power in the classroom. I suspect that some of the white students might
have been experiencing feelings of betrayal by a white feminist teacher
questioning gender as the primary category of analysis in a feminist
criticism class.
To summarize, there are at least nine possible ways to account for stu-
dent resistance to intersectional approaches: students' personal invest-
ment in dominant paradigms; their denial of privilege; the continued
dominance of 1nonist frameworks of analysis in feminist classrooms; a
focus on one's position as morally pure victim; emotions such as defen-
siveness, guilt, anger; fear of seeing one's issues subsumed under larger
ones; fear of losing one's home turf; refusal to share the power of defini-
tion; and finally, resistance to female authority. Obioma Nnaemeka notes
that these nine possible causes are all facets of one central fear, that of
losing power. 11 The last section of this chapter proposes some strategies
that can be useful to address the problems I have been analyzing in the
first two sections.
NEGOTIATING ThNS IONS 221
Notes
l. I especially thank Obiorna Nnaemeka and Jodi Byrd for their re1narkable
insights on this issue. This essay is pan of our continuing dialogue. Thanks
also go to Jael Silliman, the members of the Women Against Racism Co1n-
mittee, and anonymous reviewers for the NWSA Journal.
224 RACE MATTERS
4. For an excellent discussion of the use of the free speech argument to justify
artistic/religious imperialistic appropriations of Native cultures, see Wendy
Rose (1992). For a discussion of how free speech in K-12 schools is applied
differentially according to gender, see Nan Stein (1995a). Stein reminds us
that "there is no First Amendment right to sexually harass" 11995a, 625), to
which I would add, or to harass others based on their race/ethnicity, class,
religion, sexual orientation, ability, age, etc. See also Matsuda et al. (1993)
and Roof (1999).
7. For a parallel analysis in the British context, see Gilroy (1994, 409-10).
10. This, incidentally, points to one of the main limitations of theorizing from
experience (see Manicom 1992).
12. For example, Tatum points out that at one stage of the model, students are
often tempted to withdraw from the class, through absenteeism or not turn-
NEGOTIATING TENSIONS 225
15. I am suggesting that instructors silence only recurring, aware racist atti-
tudes and remarks and respond to the unaware kinds with varying degrees
of strength depending on the context.
Works Cited
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Lewis, Magda. 1990. "Interrupting Patriarchy: Politics, Resistance, and Trans-
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Lorde, Audre. 1984. "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference."
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McIntosh, Peggy. (1988) 1992. "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal
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Narayan, Uma. 1988. "Working Together Across Difference: S01ne Consider-
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Nnaemeka, Obioma. 1995. " Feminism, Rebellious Women, and Cultural Bound-
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Sonnenschein, Frances M. 1988. "Countering Prejudiced Beliefs and Behaviors:
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NEG OT IATIN G TENSI ONS 229
LORI A. GOETSCH
This bibliography represents, for the most part, material published since
1986 and is intended to augment Carolyn M. Shrewsbury, "Feminist
Pedagogy: A Bibliography," Women's Studies Quarterly 15 (Fall/ Winter
1987): 116-24. It is also limited to items that are most readily available in
university libraries or that present a perspective that is unique in the
literature. As with Shre,.vsbury's bibliography, many of the items listed
demonstrate the continued interest in classroom dynamics, strategies,
and techniques. There is also still considerable attention being given to
the theoretical formulation of a feminist pedagogy and an examination
of its relationship to other theories such as liberation education and post-
rnodernism. Finally, an attempt was made to provide a balance of sources
from women's studies journals as well as the professional literature of
the disciplines, particularly education.
In addition to these citations, there are four major texts that are re-
peatedly cited in the literature and should be considered in any examina-
tion of this topic: Mary F. Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy
Rule Goldberger, Jill Mattuck Tarule, Women 's Ways of Knowing: The
Development of Self, Voice, and Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1986);
Charlotte Bunch and Sandra Pollack, Learning Our Way: Essays in Femi-
nist Education (Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1983); Margo
Culley and Catherine Portuges, eds., Gendered Subjects: The Dynamics
of Feminist Teaching (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985); and
Kathleen Weiler, Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class, and Power
(South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey, 1988).
Adler, Emily Stier. "'It Happened to Me': How Faculty Handle Student Reactions
to Class Material" and responses. Feminist Teacher 3 (Fall- Winter 1987):
22-26. Describes the experiences with students' personal reactions to sex
and gender materials and suggests strategies for addressing self-disclosure.
Includes two responses from Joanne Belknap, who relates experiences teach-
ing a course on sexual assault, and Nancy Brooks, who presents the perspec-
tive of a sexual assault counselor.
Allen, Katherine R. "Integrating a Fen1inist Perspective into Fa1nily Studies
Courses." Family Relations 37 (January 1988): 29- 35. Provides overview of
women's studies and fe1ninist pedagogy and offers strategies for curriculum
integration.
Boyle, Christine. "Teaching Law as if Women Really Mattered, or, What about
the Washrooms?" Canadian fournal of Women and the Law 2, no. 1 (1986):
96-112. Discusses the "hidden curriculum" in legal education as it relates
to women and reports on a small survey of the author's colleagues regarding
the inclusion of course materials on women and a feminist perspective on
law. Concludes with the author's perspective on fears faculty have when
contemplating a feminist pedagogical approach to teaching law.
Bricker-Jenkins, Mary, and Nancy Hooyman. "Feminist Pedagogy in Educa-
tion for Social Change." Feminist Teacher 2, no. 2 (1987): 36-42. Identifies
and discusses major themes in feminist research that make up a feminist
ideology (for example, end patriarchy, empowerment, process) and their
implications for teaching, course design, educational organization and
administration.
Brookes, Anne-Louise, and Ursula A. Kelly. "Writing Pedagogy: A Dialogue of
Hope." fournal of Education 171 (Spring 1989): 117-31. Presents a series of
letters between the two authors critiquing critical pedagogy, particularly
the work of Paulo Freire and Ira Shor, in terms of gender and silencing.
Burack, Cynthia. "Bringing Women's Studies to Political Science: The Hand-
maid in the Classroom." NWSA fou rnal 1 (Winter 1988-89): 274-83. De-
scribes the assignment of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in an
undergraduate political science program to address several pedagogical goals
and test the writer's personal and professional assumptions about pedagogy
and learning.
Caywood, Cynthia L., and Gillian R. Overing. Teaching Writing: Pedagogy,
Gender and Equity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.
Davis, Barbara Hillyer, ed. fournal of Thought 20 (Fall 1985). Special issue on
feminist education.
Foss, Sonja K. "Implementing Feminist Pedagogy in the Rhetorical Criticism
Course." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communica-
tion Association, San Francisco, California, 18-21 November 1989. ERIC,
ED 316 890. Describes unit design and identifies students' level of commit-
ment to feminism and the instructor's ambivalence about introducing a
feminist perspective as two major problems encountered.
Fraiman, Susan. "Against Gendrification Agendas for Feminist Scholarship and
Teaching in Women's Studies." Iris 23 (Spring-Summer 1990): 5-13. Dis-
cusses the inherent interdisciplinary nature of women's studies and the ten-
sions that disciplinary boundaries create in the classroom and in research.
Also calls for preserving the integrity of women's or feminist studies as op-
posed to gender studies. .
Gabelnick, Faith, and Carol Pearson. "Finding Their Voices: Two University of
Maryland Teachers Use the Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator to Help Stu-
dents Identify and Understand Diversity." Feminist Teacher 1 (Spring 1985):
11-17. Reports results of testing three hundred women's studies students in
an introductory course in order to redesign a course with large enrollment
to meet the learning needs of all students. Discusses each category or
"voice" expressed through the testing as it applies to students' learning and
classroom behaviors.
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY 235
Loring, Katherine, ed. "Feminist Pedagogy and the Learning Climate: Proceed-
ings of the Annual Great Lakes Colleges Association Women's Studies Con-
ference." Ann Arbor, Michigan, 4-6 November 1983. ERIC, ED 252 493. In-
cludes several papers on feminist pedagogy and teaching methods as well as
the text of the keynote speech by Barrie Thorne, "Rethinking the Ways We
Teach."
Maher, Frances A. "Inquiry Teaching and Feminist Pedagogy." Social Education
51 (March 1987): 186-88, 190-92. Describes these two models and compares
their approaches to teaching through examples of units from an American
history course.
- - -. "My Introduction to 'Introduction to Women's Studies': The Role of the
Teacher's Authority in the Feminist Classroom." Feminist Teacher 3 (Fall-
Winter 1987): 9-11. Describes the author's experiences applying her research
on feminist pedagogy, in particular, testing assumptions about teachers as
authorities.
- - - . "Toward a Richer Theory of Feminist Pedagogy: A Comparison of 'Lib-
eration' and 'Gender' Models for Teaching and Learning." fournal of Educa-
tion 169 (Fall 1987): 91-100. Discusses the contributions of liberation peda-
gogy and feminist theories of knowledge and learning to the development of
a feminist pedagogy and recommends a synthesis of the two in order to
achieve a fully developed feminist pedagogy.
- - - and Kathleen Dunn. "The Practice of Feminist Teaching: A Case Study of
Interactions among Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Female Cognitive Develop-
ment." Working Paper No. 144. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, Center for
Research on Women, 1984. Reports results of a case study of two introduc-
tory education courses and the influence of course content and teaching
methods on women students' self-awareness and self-concept.
- -- and Mary Kay Tetrault. "Feminist Teachers, Feminist Researchers, and
Knowledge Construction: Examples of Interact ive Teaching and Interpreta-
tion." Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association
annual meeting, San Francisco, CA, 27-31 March 1989.
Mahony, Pat. "Oppressive Pedagogy: The Importance of Process in Women's
Studies." Women's Studies International Forum 11, no. 2 (1988): 103-8.
Identifies and discusses problems that arise in the teaching of women's
studies in British universities, where a conventional hierarchical academic
model contradicts feminist pedagogy. Describes efforts to apply feminist
teaching methods to a course.
Miller, Janet L. "The Sound of Silence Breaking: Feminist Pedagogy and Curric-
ulum Theory." fournal of Curriculum Theorizing 4, no. 1 (1982):-4-11. Ex-
plores the silences of both teacher and student caused by the separation of
classroom experience from everyday life and identifies the development of
feminist and curriculum theories as attempts to challenge the silence.
Morgan, Kathryn Pauly. "The Perils and Paradoxes of Feminist Pedagogy." Re-
sources for Feminist Research 16 (September 1987): 49-52. Discusses the
contradiction between power/authority in the classroom and feminist peda-
gogy and analyzes three paradoxes concerning the feminist teacher as role
model.
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY 237
sents results of a study of eight secondary biology textbooks for their repre-
sentation of women as scientists as a means of promoting the sciences as a
field of study.
Wiss, Katy. "Conflict in the Women's Studies Classroom: Some Ideas for Cop-
ing." Woznen and Language 11 (Winter 1987): 14-16. Discusses the causes of
conflict in the classroom, reviews the feminist literature on the topic, and
offers suggestions for managing or avoiding conflict.
"Wo,nen's Studies Enters the 1990s: A Special Section on Feminism in (and out
of) the Classroom." Women 's Review of Books 7 (February 1990): 17- 32.
Contains twelve articles by feminist scholars, several of which discuss fem-
inist teaching, feminism in the classroom, and the development of fe1ninist
pedagogy.
CHAPTER S IXT EEN
about sex equity as different from the concern of Asian women contrib-
ute to the continued "marginalization" of this ethnic group? The act of
naming categories-Native American, African American, and so forth-
maintains the structure of margin and center and the resulting gender/
racial biases the articles seek to redress. These categories are also ficti-
tious in that they imply that the needs of, for example, all Latinos or
lesbians can be lumped together. Paradoxically, then, the desire to recog-
nize difference among groups simultaneously maintains boundaries of
sameness within each group.
But not identifying the various needs of different groups is equally
disturbing in that it maintains the status quo. A generalized notion of
"female student" or "ethnic student" is inadequate in addressing specific
problems facing the varying educational needs of the "new majority."
The particular issues facing these students will be ignored and/or subor-
dinated if pedagogical strategies are designed for the mythical "univer-
sal" student. At the same time, however, we should note that we have
not created a "European American" or a "middle class" category. The
articles that might fit these categories are instead filed under "general"
headings such as "overview." This is an unfortunate consequence of the
way the scholarship itself is organized. Researchers do not write articles
that explicitly address issues pertinent to "European Americans" or the
"middle class." Perhaps this will change as educators become aware of
the political overtones of making gender/race/class distinctions. Our
overriding concern in arranging this bibliography was that it be easily
accessible- and that requires, at this point, that the categories used in
the scholarship be maintained.
Although the bibliography as a whole is organized under the general
rubric of pedagogy, we have also included "pedagogy" as a subcategory.
The articles in this section specifically delineate strategies to be used in
the classroom. Some of the authors do not identify themselves as femi-
nists, but they entertain sympathetic philosophies. Further, sometimes
the issues addressed by the articles presented in this bibliography over-
lap. For example, some of the sources listed in the "student-teacher inter-
action" section contain advice about pedagogical strategies. We deter-
mined the primary focus of the articles, regardless of their titles, and
categorized them accordingly.
- - . (1983). Black women in black and white college environments: The mak-
ing of a matriarch. fournal of Social Issues 39, 41-54.
Griffin, J. T. (1986). Black women's experience as authority figures in groups.
Women's Studies Quarterly 14, 7-12.
Guy-Sheftall, B., and Bell-Scott, P. (1989). Finding a way: Black women students
and the academy. In Pearson, C. S., Shavlik, D. L., and Touchton, J. G. (eds.),
Educating the majority: Women challenge tradition in higher education.
New York: Collier Macmillan, 47-56.
Moses, Y. T. (1989). Black women in academe: Issues and strategies. Washington,
DC: Project on the Status of Women, Association of American Colleges.
Pollard, D.S. (1990). Black women, interpersonal support, and institutional change.
In Antler, J. and Bilken, S. K. (eds.), Changing education: Women as radicals
and conservators, 257-76. New York: State University of New York Press.
Russell, M. (1982). Black-eyed blues connections: Teaching black women. In Hull,
G. T., Scott, P. B., and Smith, B. (eds.), All the women are white, all the blacks
are men, but some of us are brave. New York: Feminist Press, 196-207.
Ugbah, S., and Williams, S. A. (1989). The mentor-protegee relationship: Its im-
pact on the academic and career development of blacks in predominantly
white institutions. In Elam, J. C., (ed.), Blacks in higher education: Over-
coming the odds. New York: University Press of America, 29-42.
Washington, M. H. (1985). How racial differences helped us discover our com-
rnon ground. In Culley, M., and Portuges, C. (eds.), Gendered subjects: The
dynamics of feminist education, 221-29. Boston: Routledge.
Asian Women
Chai, A. Y. (1985). Toward a holistic paradigm for Asian American women's
studies: A synthesis of feminist scholarship and women of color's feminist
politics. Women's Studies International Forum 8, 59-66.
Crittenden, K. S. (1991). Asian self-effacement or feminine modesty? Gender and
Society 5, 98- 117.
Sue, S., and Zane, N. (1 985). Academic achievement and socio-emotional adjust-
ment among Chinese university students. fournal of Counseling Psychology
32, 570-79.
Yamauchi, J. S. and Tin-Mala. (1989). Undercurrents, maelstroms, or the main-
stream? A profile of Asian Pacific American female students in higher edu-
cation. In Pearson, C. S., Shavlik, D. L., and Touchton, J. G. (eds.), Educating
the majority: Women challenge tradition in higher education. New York:
Collier Macmillan, 69-79.
Latinas
Cardoza, D. (1991). College attendance and persistence among Hispanic women:
An examination of some contributing factors. Sex Roles 24, 133-47.
Melendez, S. E., and Petrovich, J. (1989). Hispanic women students in higher edu-
cation: Meeting the challenge of diversity. In Pearson, C. S., Shavlik, D. L.,
and Touchton, J. G. (eds.), Educating the majority: Women challenge tradi-
tion in higher education. New York: Collier Macmillan, 57-68.
DYNAMICS OF THE PL U RALI STIC CLASSROOM 245
Lesbians
Chamberlain, P. (1990). Homophobia in the schools; or, What we don't know will
hurt us. In O'Malley, S. G ., Rosen, R., and Vogt, L. (eds.), Politics of educa-
tion: Essays from Radical Teacher, 302-11. N ew York: State University of
New York Press.
Crumpacker, L., and Vander Haegen, E. M. (1987). Pedagogy and prejudice: Strate-
gies for confronting ho1nophobia in the classroo1n. Women's Studies Quar-
terly 15, 65-73.
- -. (1990). Valuing diversity: Teaching about sexual preference in a radical/
conserving curriculum. In Antler, J., and Bilken, S. K. (eds.), Changing edt1-
cation .· Women as radicals and conservators. New York: State University of
New York Press, 201-15.
Gaard, G. (1991). Opening up the canon: The importance of teaching of lesbian
and gay literatures . Feminist Teacher 6, 30-33.
Gordon, L. (1983). What do we say when we hear "faggot " ? Interracial Books for
Children Bulletin 14, 25-27.
McNaron, T.A.H. (1989). Mapping a country: What lesbian students want. ln
Pearson, C. S., Shavlik, D. L., and Touchton, J. G. (eds.), Educating the ma-
jority: Women challenge tradition in higher education. New York: Collier
Mac1nillan, 102-13.
Raymond, J. G. (1989). Putting the politics back in lesbianism. Women 's Studies
International Forum 12, 149-56.
Van Kirk, C. (1990). Sarah Lucia Hoagland's Lesbian Ethics: Toward new value
and ablen1indis1n. Hypatia 5, 145- 52.
Zimmerman, B. (1990). Lesbianis1n 101. In O'Malley, S. G., Rosen, R., and Vogt
L. (eds.), Politics of education: Essays from Radical Teach er. New York: State
University of New York Press, 22-33.
Working-Class Women
Gardner, S., Dean, C., and McKaig, D. (1989). Responding to differences in the
classroom: The politics of knowledge, class, and sexuality. Sociology of Edu-
cation 62, 64- 74.
Karen, D. (1991). The politics of class, race, and gender: Access to higher educa-
tion in the United States, 1960-1986. American fournal of Education 99,
208-37.
Linkon, S., and Mullen, B. (1995) Gender, race, and place: Teaching working-class
students in Youngstown. Radical Teacher 46, 27- 32.
Ryan, J., and Sackrey, C. (1984) Strangers in paradise: Academics from the work-
ing class. Boston: South End.
Tokarczyk, M. M., and Fay, E. A. (eds.). (1993). Working class women in the acad-
emy: Laborers in the knowledge factory. Amherst: University of Massachu-
setts Press.
'
Overview
Anthony-Perez, B. (1985). Institutional racism and sexism: Refusing the legacy in
education. In Treichler, P., Kramarae, C., and Stafford, B. (eds.), For alma mater:
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Banfield, B. (1991}. Honoring cultural diversity and building on its strengths: A case
for national action. In Wolfe, L. R. (ed.}, Women, work, and school: Occupa-
tional segregation and the role of education. Boulder, CO: Westview, 77-93.
Brandt, G. (1986). The context of anti-racist education. In The realization of anti-
racist teaching, 61-109. Philadelphia: Falmer.
Cannon, L. W. (1990). Fostering positive race, class, and gender dynamics in the
classroon1. Women's Studies Quarterly 18, 126-34.
Collins, P.H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the
politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hy1nan.
Gordon, V. V. (1990). Multicultural education: Some thoughts fro1n an Afrocen-
tric perspective . Black Issues in Higher Education 6 (16 Aug.}, 52.
Hughes, E. (1990). Taking responsibility for cultural diversity. Black Issues in
Higher Education 6 (18 January), 24-27.
Palmer, T. C. (1992). Changes in the neighborhood: Integrating the acade1ny and
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Pence, E. (1982). Racism- A white issue. In Hull, G. T., Scott, P. B., and S1nith1 B.
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Reid, P. T., and Co1nas-Diaz, L. (1990). Gender and ethnicity: Perspectives on
dual status. Sex Roles 22, 397-408.
Rothenberg, P. (1988). Integrating the study of race, gender, and class: Some pre-
liminary observations. Feminist Teacher 3, 37- 42.
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S. G., Rosen, R., and Vogt L. (eds.), Politics of education: Essays from Radical
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Tatun1, B. D. (1992). Talking about race, ]earning about racism: The application
of racial identity development theory in the classroom. Harvard Educa-
tional Review 62, 1-24.
Wolverton, T. (1983). Unlearning complicity, remembering resistance: White
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Pedagogy
Theories of Teaching
Bezucha, R. J. (1985). Fen1inist pedagogy as a subversive activity. In Culley, M.,
and Portuges, C. (eds.), Gendered subjects: The dynamics of feminist educa-
tion. Boston: Routledge, 81-95.
Clinchy, B. M., Belenky, M. F., Goldberger, N ., and Taru le, J. (1985). Connected
education for women. fournal of Education 167, 28-45.
Cocks, J. (1985). Suspicious pleasures: On teaching feminist theory. In Culley,
M., and Portuges, C. (eds.), Gendered subjects: The dynarnics of feminist
education. Boston: Routledge, 171-182.
Conway, J. K. (1987). Politics, pedagogy, and gender. Daedalus 116, 137-52.
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Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the
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6 February, 18- 19.
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Shrewsbury, C. M. (1987). What is fe1ninist pedagogy? Women's Studies Quar-
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Statham, A., Richardson, L., and Cook, J. (1991). Gender and university teaching:
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Pedagogical Strategies
Banks, J. (1991). A curriculum for e1npowennent, action, and change. In Sleeter,
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250 BIBLIOG RAPHIES
Student-Teacher Interaction
Gender/racial issues may affect the ways in which students and teachers interact
with each other in the classroom. The following works discuss the dyna1n-
ics of that interaction.
Student Participation
Karp, D. A., and Yoels, W. C. (1976). The college classroom: Some observations on
the meanings of student participation. Sociology and Social Research 60,
421-39.
Shapiro, J. P. (1990). Nonfeminist and feminist students at risk. Women'~ Studies
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Tompkins, J. (1990). Pedagogy of t he dist ressed. College English 52, 653-60.
Caughie, P., and Pearce, R. (1992). Resisting "the dominance of the professor":
Gendered teaching, gendered subjects. NWSA Journal 4, 187-99.
Culley, M. (1985). Anger and authority in the introductory women's studies
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dynamics of feminist education. Boston: Routledge, 209-17.
Grauerholz, E. (1989). Sexual harassment of women professors by students: Ex-
ploring the dynamics of authority and gender in a university setting. Sex
Roles 21, 789-801.
Richardson, L., Cook, ]., and Statha1n, A. (1983). Down the up staircase: Male
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Richardson, L., and Taylor, V. (eds.), Feminist frontiers (pp. 280- 87). New
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Statham, A., Richardson, L., and Cook, J. A. (1991). Authority manage1nent in
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Mentoring
Fisher, B. (1988). Wandering in the wilderness: The search for women role mod-
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Evaluation
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254 BIBLIOGRAPHIES
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Language
These works discuss the means by which common linguistic practices place fe-
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Language Acculturation
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DYNAMI CS OF THE PLURALI ST IC CLASSROOM 255
Linguistic Imposition
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Gar vey.
I
Contributors
freedom from harassment, 216, 224n4 lives, 163-64; free speech issues,
free speech in the classroom, 215-16, 215-16; racism and, 162; religious
224n4 right, 80-81; relocating responsibility
Freire, Paulo, 3, 98, 197, 210, 217 for attitudes, 164
homosexuality: classroom practices, 87;
gay-affirming classrooms, 162 defense of, 89; educator role, 130;
gender: authority related, 8; dominance equal rights, 166; Oregon, 80-81;
and, 68-71; as organizing principle, 16; prejudices, 129; student experiences,
racial discrimination compared, 204- 5; 161-62; women of color, 202
response styles, 146; sexuality and, 86; housework, politics of, 123
social construction of, 64, 66-68;
voices of caring and fairness, 147 identity: categories, 84;
Gender and Communication course, interconnectedness, 166; multiple,
138-44 marginalized, 160; politics and use of
gender differences: cultural panels, 12, 85, 167
constructions of, 33; Virginia Woolf ideological reversal of reality, 218
on, 28- 29, 33 ideology of teaching, 2
gender socialization, 145 incest, 120, 131, 136n9
gender studies: male and female in-class team projects, 180
experiences, 61; team teaching, 72-73 inclusive classrooms, power in, 48
grading, 99 inclusive curriculum, 59
graduate seminar on contemporary independent projects, 187
feminist criticism, 211- 12 Independent Study by Correspondence
graduate students, race issues, 209 course, 188
group discussion: consciousness-raising, individualism, ideology of, 218
11; on social constructs, 88. See also institutional power structures, 5;
small groups feminism as "subversive," 41
group reports, 155 inst ruction, defined, 1
growing-up narratives, 160 interaction, role of, 221-22
guest speakers, 182-83, 186 interactivity issues, distance learning,
gynocentric models, 34-35 184- 88
interdisciplinary literature, 111
Handmaid's Tale, The (Atwood}, 234 intersectional analyses: causes for
heterosexism, 91; as culturally student resistance to, 216-20;
debilitating, 166; heterosexual consciousness-raising course, 126;
privilege, 240 growing use, 16-17; lives of women of
heterosexuality: classroom practices, 91; color, 195; monist analyses compared,
construction of, 84; deconstructing, 209; overview, 13-15; race and gender,
161; distortion of experiences, 165; 205-6; sexuality and gender course,
"normalcy" of, 71-72, 164-65; 59; in women's studies, 60
pressures, 160 Introduction to Feminist Stuc}ies: Issues
heterosexual panels, 164-65, 167 and Methods course, 117-18
hierarchy, invisibility of, 64. See also Introduction to Women's Studies course,
nonhierarchical relationships 212 ,
higher education settings: bibliography,
243; demographics, 240; nature of, 41; journaling, 184, 187
poststructuralist tenets, 43, 44
home, concept of, 219 knowledge: connected, 101-4, 197; (de}
homogeneity, assumption of, 214 constructing, 104-5; feminist
homophobia: coming out letters, 129- 31; pedagogy, 94, 97, 182, 184; feminist
confrontations, 163; as culturally poststructuralism, 43;
debilitating, 166; distorting lesbian interdisciplinary, 94, 99-101, 104, 111;
INDEX 265
personal experience, 63, 65, 70, 84-85; 1uale resistance, 118, 123
political nature of, l, 118; power and, male students: consciousness-raising,
90, 198; production of, 4, 87, 97; 123; defining agendas, 139; linguistic
scientific, 94, 95- 97, 100, 105, 106; imposition bibliography, 255; vocal
social (action) context, 106, 109, 156, nature of, 139
198; transformative, 109; !un)enclosed, masculinity, 65, 67, 71; of science, 95
97-101 math anxiety, 104-5
matrix of domination, 2- 3
lang, k.d., 88 men: as gendered beings, 65; gendered
language issues bibliography, 264-56 con sciousness of, 64. See also main
learning, role for teachers, 54 entries beginning male
lecture format: distance learning, 180, mentoring, bibliography, 253
181- 84; ongoing value, 13 m isogyny, as organizing principle, 1
legal education, 234 modernist narratives, 31- 32
lesbian(s): bibliography, 245; of color, 1nonist fra meworks, 209, 211, 213,
160, 202; defensive protectionism, 217- 18, 220, 223
166; fear of rejection, 131; as 1nora l theory, 138
frightening, 129; impression mulattoes, 204-5
manage1nent, 161; incest survivor,
131; journals on gays and, 169- 70nl6; narration, politics of, 37
lesbianis1n as total hun1an experience, narrative authority, 8, 27; in classroo1n, 34
163, 167; and parenting, 164; narrative for ms: contingency of, 33;
professors' identity clai1ns, 85; sha1ne expectations of, 33; 1notives and
and, 86; use of term, 86; in Virginia desires, 32; priority and diversity, 31;
Woolf, 32, 33 in Virginia Woolf, 29-31
lesbian panels: contents of, 160- 61; narrative methods, 34
host ility to, 162-63; panelists, 169n7; Native A1nericans, 224n6; bibliography,
as pedagogical tool, 159; sense of 245-46
community, 167; student reactions, neocolonial cultural appropriation, 209
159; summarized, 12 new 1najority, wo1nen as, 240, 242
liberal education, goal of, 147 nonhierarchical relationships, 5, 40, 62,
liberalism critiques, 195 74, 166, 172, 210
liberation/ liberatory pedagogy, 3; nontraditional students, distance
bibliography, 236, 237; curriculum learning, 182
reform, 59; difficulty of applying, 62; nonverbal behavior, 69
essentialism in, 73; femin ist pedagogy non-Western cultural pract ices, 209. See
and, 3, 210 also cross-cultural approach
linguistic issues bibliography, 254- 56 National Wo1nen's Studies Association,
listening: ability to, 122; responses 209
analyzed, 140 National Wom en 's Studies Association
literature on feminist pedagogy, 9, 41 fournal, Tl1 e, 6-17
F'RINlEO IN U.S.A
11~11111 m111111111
30777642R00157
Made in the USA
Lexington, KY
Feminist pedagogy is defined as a set of episten1ological assumptions, teaching strat-
egies, approaches to content, classroom practices, and teacher-student relationships
grounded in feminist theory. This collection of essays traces the evolution of fen1inist
pedagogy over the past twenty years, exploring both its theoretical and its practical
dimensions.
"A comprehensive account of feminist pedagogical theory and practice over the past
two decades. Teachers of all stripes will find rich ideas to bring to their classrooms:·
- Mary Kay Tetreault, coauthor of The Feminist Classroom and Privilege and Diversity
in the Academy
"Of considerable value to all who, regardless of academic discipline, seek to improve
their teaching:'-Brenda Daly, past editor, NWSA Journal
"A valuable fra1nework for examining and reflecting on principles and practices of
feminist teaching . . . an excellent resource for teaching fenunist pedagogy at both
undergraduate and graduate levels."-Jill Bystydzienski, Ohio State University
"These essays constitute the best possible introduction to the broad field of feminist
pedagogy. Ranging from theoretical explorations, to practical classroon1 applications,
to challenges offered by diversities of race, ethnicity and sexuality, they offer a com-
prehensive exploration of the feminist classroom today."-Frances A. Maher, coauthor
of The Feminist Classroom and Privilege and Diversity in the Academy
Robbin D. Crabtree is dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of
co1nmunication at Fairfield University. David Alan Sapp is an associate professor of
English and coordinator of the professional writing progran1 at Fairfield University.
Adela C. Licona is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the Univer-
sity of Arizona.