Teaching Women's Studies: The effects of 'race' and gender

This article aims to explore the relationship between gender and 'race' when teaching a course on 'race', class and gender to women's studies students at a university. It will explore how the racial background and gender of the lecturer may affect the relationship she has with the students and how they see her role as a teacher of 'race' and gender. It will examine how teaching can be and is related to our personal subjective experiences such as our gender, 'race', class, sexuality and age. Whilst most students welcomed the opportunity to discuss issues around 'race' and racism, for some (mostly Black and Asian students) this was often seen as a painful experience based on past experiences. For others (mostly white women) the opportunity to discuss and hear about the experiences of Black and Asian women was something they valued. The article goes on to argue that teaching students about sensitive subjects such as 'race' can be affected not only by the personal experiences of the lecturer, but also by their racial identity and their gender. Indeed, such identities can also affect how students feel about such subjects and how they, in turn, experience their learning.     

打破"姐妹共同体"——美国华裔女性写作与西方女性主义的分野

20世纪的女权主义以强烈的性别色彩和主体意识为妇女谋求解放,但是其单一的白人中产阶级女性立场却导致了女性主义思想的分化。与西方经典女性主义强调性别作为女性主体性的唯一要素不同,有色族裔妇女认为,不仅性别,而且种族、文化、阶级等诸多因素都参与了女性主体建构。美国华裔女性写作研究正是以其多元视角来丰富我们关于女性的认知方式,对西方和中国的女性主义理论和文学批评都有所补益。     

Pushing boundaries: An ethnographic study of life in and beyond a feminist classroom

This paper reports on part of an 18-month ethnographic study of students' participation in a residential college. It chronicles sophomores' rites of passage through a seminar entitled, ''Women and Theatre: the Politics of Representation.'' The five narratives vividly present a process whereby an innovative and feminist pedagogy is negotiated and implemented by faculty and students alike. Using a strategy of participant observation coupled with in-depth unstructured interviews and document review, the author examined group members' beliefs and practices and ways in which they conceptualized, lived, and induced their notions of feminism inside and beyond the classroom. Thompson Tetreault's (1989) scholarship focusing on integrating content about women and gender into college curriculum is the primary theoretical lens used to analyze the narratives.     

The ‘individualized’ (woman) in the academy: Ulrich Beck,gender and power

This article considers the tensions and struggles that exist between men and women and between women and women in the academic workplace. The research reported here is a small‐scale case study of 22 academic women from two generations who were interviewed about their career experiences. The theoretical framework is materialist feminism and draws on Ulrich Beck’s model of the ‘individualized individual’ to evaluate its usefulness to researchers for understanding the attitudes and actions of social actors in contemporary society. The article, firstly, examines the ways in which power differentials emerged for the younger female academics through a combination of their age and gender. It then discusses intra‐gender tensions between women in the academy. It is argued that for Beck’s model of an ‘individualized individual’ to be useful in understanding the position of women in the second modernity then a much more complex and nuanced interpretation of power and power struggles is needed than the one he provides. A further key point raised by the article is that feminists need to be more prepared to recognize and engage with power struggles and tensions that exist between women (and feminists) in the academy.     

中国女神神格特征与“双性同体”女性主义原型解读

"双性同体"女性主义强调理想的性别关系是双性因素的和谐共存,中国女神的神格特征和女神权力构建下的和谐理想的社会模式,为女性主义提供了理想的原型模式。本文以中国神话故事中的女神及大母神的神格特点作为切入点,探讨了"双性同体"女性主义的神话源头和理论原型。     

男女平等：基于性与性别的本体论分析

男女不平等成为女权主义极度关注的焦点,无论是女权主义者还是社会学家,都对造成男女不平等的原因进行了多角度的分析和探讨。文章着重从＂性＂和＂性别＂的角度,从＂性＂和＂性别＂的先在性、自然性、生理性以及自然/文明二分的根源等方面,对男女的不平等进行本体论的分析。     

Seductress or schoolmarm: On the improbability of the great female teacher

This paper explores the question of the relation of gender and pedagogy by inquiring into the importance of gendered bodies in the construction of the great teacher as a cultural phenomenon. I ask whether men's teaching — male diction as a mobilizing of desire becomesmalediction (seduction) when it is produced out of the pedagogical performances of women. In examining this question, I do not adhere to the predictable tradition of critical feminist scholarship, given the extent to which, paradoxically, this tradition can make examination of the issue more difficult. I do allude to the newer tradition of psychoanalytic feminism, but, in the main, I draw on literary criticism as a more fertile theoretical terrain because of its potential to disrupt theory and to disturb the disciplinary boundaries which prevent feminists from “saying it otherwise.” Questions raised include: Must the image of a great female teacher be a contradiction in terms? Has it been otherwise? Could it again be so? What conditions would be necessary to achieve this?     

Notions of Gender in the Construction of English

This paper examines the importance of ideas about gender in the construction of English. The paper begins by noting that English has traditionally been viewed as a women's subject, and looks at the reasons for this and at attempts to make the subject seem more masculine. Drawing on interviews with lecturers in two separate university departments of English literature, the paper goes on to argue that academics, by laying claims to objectivity, neutralise issues of gender. Despite the fact that English is studied mainly by women but taught mainly by men, gender is regarded as unimportant. Yet men's greater success in the subject is explained by reference to a discourse which regards men as more competitive, and women as weaker, more emotional students. The paper concludes by arguing that feminists need to look not only at the importance of gender relations in set texts, but at the importance of gender in the hierarchical relations within their own departments.     

Subjectivity and Schooling in a Longitudinal Study of Secondary Students

This article addresses the question of how to interpret the relation between the production of subjectivity and the effects of different forms of schooling. Two kinds of problem are explored. The first is the immediate empirical and historical one of understanding how gender and class subjectivity takes shape and is embodied by Australian secondary-school students. This is investigated through close readings of interviews with two young people who are participants in a qualitative, longitudinal study of Australian secondary-school students—the '12 to 18 Project'. The article thus examines the developmental and longitudinal aspect of identity formation, and addresses the impact of feminism on gender change. The second problem is how to theorise the subjectivity schooling relation, and this is explored through an analysis of the interactions between individual biographies and the aspirations and discursive practices of different schools. After considering some contemporary approaches to subjectivity, the discussion proposes a return to Bourdieu's notions of habitus and social field and, through an analysis of the two case studies, illustrates how habitus is formed over time.     

Changing perceptions about feminists and (still not) claiming a feminist identity

We examine student perceptions about feminists and feminism, and the willingness to claim a feminist identity and engage in collective activism, as stated at the beginning and end of a Women’s Studies course. Course participation simultaneously fostered more positive views towards feminists and feminism and entrenched the unwillingness to claim a feminist identity and engage in activism. These contradictory outcomes stemmed from the critical capacity to recognise that structural inequality is reproduced through disciplinary relationships. Thus, unwillingness was entangled with feelings of fear and vulnerability in relation to the national context whereby neoliberalism guides the governance of the self, and where gender equality has presumed to be achieved. The article highlights that developing the willingness to identify and act is intimately shaped and constrained by the socio-political context and personal relationships. We consider the implications of this insight in relation to pedagogical assumptions about developing feminist knowledge in the classroom.     

马克思主义女性主义及其中国本土化推进

女性主义者将女性解放运动追求的性别平等与社会主义所致力的阶级解放运动紧密结合,形成了马克思主义女性主义。它为中国女性学提供了理论基础与实践经验。中国女性学的生存和发展必须借鉴和吸收西方马克思主义女性主义的合理思想,使其与中国本土女性学相结合,不仅使西方女性主义学说得到进一步发展,也丰富中国女性学学科理论。     

Gender & Education Association: a case study in feminist education?

This article focuses on feminist activist academics who were instrumental in creating the UK Gender & Education Association at the turn of the twenty-first century. Drawing on my own intellectual biography (David, M. E. 2003. Personal and Political: Feminisms, Sociology and Family Lives Stoke-on-Trent. Trentham Books.) linked to the collective biography and life history of feminism in academia over the last 50 years, Feminism, Gender & Universities: Politics, Passion and Pedagogies (David, M. E. 2014. Feminism, Gender & Universities: Politics, Passion & Pedagogies. Farnham: Wheatsheaf.), I consider how we, as feminist educators, developed our pedagogies and professional approaches to gender and education. In so doing, I also look at three cohorts or generations of feminist academics, from the university pioneers of second-wave feminists like myself, through to those who might be considered third wave feminists. In this it is clear that whilst feminist values of women's liberation and/or gender equality shine through, there are clear differences of emphasis. This is in relation to personal, political and professional values, and approaches to education through teaching or the social sciences. Indeed, neither feminism nor gender was in the lexicon of higher education or public policy when we were starting out, and by the third cohort gender equality had become incorporated into forms of neo-liberalism. In reviewing the developments of feminisms in higher education, I also look towards what might be considered a feminist future in global higher education, given learning from previous waves to new waves of feminists such as fourth wave and beyond. Here I briefly consider the work of our EU Daphne funded research project (2013–2015) into challenging gender-related violence (GRV) through education and training for professionals working with children and young people.     

A Question of Management Style: Women school governors, 1800-1862

ABSTRACT The article examines the way women managed schools prior to the rise of technocratic management practice and theory and explores the consequences for women of the introduction of 'rational' methods of bureaucratic management. The article begins by looking at women's access to management positions in education at the start of the nineteenth century. It then considers the structural and societal barriers constraining their work before focusing on the women governors' authority style. The work of women school governors is related to the wider question of gender and power and in particular to the historical construction of bureaucratic, technocratic management in discourses of 'reason', which is seen as a form of male power within the project of modernity. The women's work is placed in a Foucauldian framework in which women governors are simultaneously constructed as powerful and powerless due to their straddling of the discursive space of both 'public' and 'private'.     

Ideals and Realities: Articulating Feminist Perspectives in Physical Education

Using on information gathered from five female feminist physical education teachers in Brisbane, Australia, this paper examines the relationship between theoretical debates in feminism and feminist practice in secondary schools. Specifically, this paper is concerned with the ongoing debate in feminism over the notion of equality. It is problematic that calls for equality for women are currently understood as calls for sameness to men, leaving men and their life experience as the only standard of analysis. In this paper, how this theoretical struggle between feminists is dealt with in sport and physical education is explored. The teachers articulated various feminist perspectives, but placed their feminism on the physical education agenda piecemeal. Moreover, they failed to challenge the notion of an equality for women based on their sameness to men. Given the duress under which these women articulate their feminism, notions of sameness may be all that is achievable in the current physical education curriculum.     

Gender Issues in Parental Involvement in Student Choices of Higher Education

This article explores gender, social class and ethnic issues in parental involvement in students' choices of higher education. It draws upon interviews with students and their parents, who were a small group of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study of students' higher education choice processes in the UK. Gender was highly significant in several respects, illustrating changes in higher education over the last 20 years, whereby more women than men now enter higher education. Most of the interviewees were female. They were mothers and daughters who were thinking about higher education. The article explores first how gender is inflected in choice processes--from whether students choose to involve their parents in the study, to their parents' characteristics, to the forms of involvement revealed. Different facets of involvement are considered--interest, influence and support, investment and intrusion. Secondly, the article provides illustrations of girls' collaborative approaches to the choice processes, in which some of their mothers also engage. This is contrasted with boys' perspectives and those of fathers who were interviewed. This illustrates how gender is woven through social networks across the generations. Parental involvement varied in terms of gender, educational and social backgrounds, or notions of 'institutional' and 'familial habitus'. Finally, the authors reflect upon why gender is salient in how young people and their parents think about their involvement in choosing universities and relate this to changes in higher education policies and practices.     

论西方女性主义的教师专业化批判与重建

西方女性主义学者对“教师专业化”话语中的社会性别内涵进行了深刻剖析与批判,揭示出其中隐含的性别权力关系、前提假设与现实之间的矛盾,以及由此带给女教师职业身份认同的危机和教师教育的困境,并且在批判的基础上提出以女性主义教育学重新塑造女教师的身份认同。     

Sexism in the Seminar: Strategies for gender sensitivity in management education

In our roles as tutors we recognise a reluctance for students, particularly men, to become involved in discussion around 'gender' with any serious level of engagement. In order to address this, we have begun developing ideas that prompt discussion in seminars on gender issues with a view to raising awareness and creating a greater sensitivity. In this paper we share with readers ideas and materials that may be used to prompt such discussion. We are particularly interested in encouraging students to address perceived sexism for themselves, rather than relying on us as tutors to deal with such gender insensitivity, thus complementing an experiential learning philosophy that underpins our management education units. Locating our understanding of 'gender' in post-structuralism, we look critically at the binary divide between the socially-constructed nature of femininity and masculinity, and question how further polarisation might be reduced. Further, we wish to encourage discussion as to how we might design and develop courses that appeal to women and men, believing that gender management is of equal importance for men and women.     

Connecting girls and science: A feminist teacher research study of a high school prenatal testing unit

In this article, I explore how a dozen high-school sophomore girls expressed their relationship to and understanding of prenatal testing, and its possible place in their lives and in the lives of others, in the context of a short unit on prenatal testing during a semester-long course in human genetics. The data come from an assignment designed to help students bring their understanding of prenatal testing into the realm of personal choice, as well as practice applying the science of chromosomal inheritance. Difference feminism is used to develop themes evident in these girls' talk about prenatal testing. The instructional choices made were based on difference feminism, which implies that girls would be interested in science that connects to human bodies, children, and traditional women's responsibilities. This claim is elaborated on and applied by this study, in which I concentrate on the question: How can difference feminism help us better to hear and comprehend high school girls' relationships with reproductive technology, their own bodies, and their own lives? I propose that focusing on girls' lives and knowledge is a way to consider alternatives in curricular content, in addition to helping us learn how to help more girls connect with science. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 877–896, 1998.     

The Promise of Freedom and the Regulation of Gender-feminist pedagogy in the 1970s

This article argues that we need to understand feminist interventions- in education and other social domains- as both emancipatory and disciplining. While it is acknowledged that feminist reforms have made many positive and desirable changes in education, this article addresses the impact of these reforms from another perspective. It analyses the normative ambitions and the utopian hopes of feminist education and suggests that the Foucauldian concepts of 'technologies of the self' and 'governmentality' offer new and fruitful ways for theorising the relation between (feminist) strategies of social, educational and personal reform. These arguments are explored in dialogue with a historical case study of 1970s feminist pedagogical reforms in Australia. The article interprets pedagogical strategies based on sex-role socialisation models as developing techniques for regulating and remaking the self and as productive of feminist truths about gender identity and difference. These pedagogies articulated feminist ambitions to reform the sex role and to produce non-sexist, self-monitoring and androgynous pupils. Such attempts to remake gender illustrate some of the ways in which feminism, while a critical social movement which has achieved genuinely emancipatory outcomes, is also necessarily a governmental and normative practice. Finally, this article underlines the imperative for properly historical and self-reflexive accounts of familiar and favoured narratives about the promise of feminism.