Academic attainment and feminism?

this seems sadly relevant here

also, I didn't really start thinking about feminism until I'd finished uni - I was studying in an area which seems pretty evenly split between men and women, until you get to Post-Doc level, when suddenly the women start dropping like flies (mainly due to wanting to have a family, and thus some stability and regular hours).

I'm on my second post doc position now, and have a small child, and from reading posts on here, and some blogs (and the Politics of Breastfeeding, which INCENSED me!), I'm leaning more and more towards the feminist view of things. (Especially since starting to work part time, so I can balance my need to work and my desire to spend time with DS - attitudes from male colleagues suck. I'm getting used to fighting my corner all the bloody time, in a way they don't seem to do - any ideas I have seem to be belittled until they are forgotten about, and then suddenly come back a few weeks later as one of the full time men's ideas, whereupon everyone sets to work frantically. I have learnt to guard my projects ferociously!)

not sure if that answers the question, but for me, the higher up the academic ladder I'm getting, the more I'm identifying as a feminist.

Suwoo, I have to admit I struggle with Judith Butler, I used to be in a feminst reading group where most of them adored her. I wondered if it was because I'm not from an English lit background and many of the group were, but I find her hard, and I'm used to reading a lot of complex academic stuff.

I was brought up as a feminist by my mother, although I have not used that term to describe myself until the last few years. My mother did not go to university until I was a young child, but as an intelligent woman taught me to think critically from a young age.

I don't think it is necessary to have a degree in order to think critically, but it is hard to do so unless you have a good outside influence from somewhere.

I now have a degree and post- graduate qualifications.

I can see how it would be, but not for me. I'm currently working towards a first degree (I'm 27), it was becoming a mother that kicked me into feminism.

I can see myself becoming more and more interested in feminism as my degree goes on though, I'm studying a traditionally male-dominated subject!

Interesting thread. I've been a feminist for as long as I can remember, but a lot of my thinking was undirected. That's fine on the whole because the basic fact of inequality hardly needs to be verified in a text book: we can all see it where ever we look and collective action even on this most basic of premises could move mountains. But most people haven?t even accepted that basic fact. Having said that, I really relate to what you?ve said suwoo: I felt the scales fall from my eyes in a feminist theory class at university and the world looked like a different place at once. So, no I don't think one needs to go to university, but it can make a huge difference, not least because a good degree course teaches people to think analytically and also to argue a case well. That's important I think when we are constantly being told that we are 'not living in the real world', making things up, anti-sex prudes and so on...

I am an academic and I see things that make my teeth itch: the patriarchy is alive and well. But I also see positive signs in the women and men I teach. I entered a new phase of political feminism after having the dc and moving up the academic ladder a bit. I work a lot now on practical equality issues. This is rewarding but frustrating and of course. Women lead these equality campaigns for students and staff and that means of course that they have les time than men to do their research so they suffer in terms of career progression. But if we don't try to raise consciousness, who will? In this way, I think the academic world is like most others: damned if you do nothing about sexism, damned if you don't.

I was a feminist before I was an academic, but the two are closely related for me. Most of my feminist friends are also my colleagues. It's where I meet feminsts and discuss issues.

Maybe my experience of academia is different from most on this thread as I work in explicitly feminist research areas, and usually with people who are very definitely feminist - NOT to be a feminist in my research area is seen as odd. There is the odd man around, but they tend to be very pro-feminist.

Overall the academic system and hierarchies are very sexist, I have many grumbles about that, but still I find there is lots of space for feminism and I love that.

Also I think you need quite a high level of literacy to be able to read a lot of feminist texts. Some are very heavy going. I wish their were more publishes that aimed at a less-well educated readership. The terminology and jargon can be intimidating and you shouldn't need a degree or a dictionary beside you to be able to access it.

Do publishers think there is no such demand for this?

slug that is crap. Good on you for coming through it.

I am part of a feminist network and almost everyone in it has been to uni, espcially the under 30s.

I wasn't a feminist until I went to uni. I studied it as part of one of my courses and then when a lot of bad stuff happened to me I realised that feminism explained it. If I had never been formally taught some of the concepts I dont think I would ever have got into it the way I have. But, I also probably wouldn't have got so passionate if I had only ever been taught it and had never experienced first hand some of the things femininsts get so angry about (violence, discrimination in employment, unequal pay, limited career choices, domestic inequality, discrimination against single mothers etc).

I think that most feminists, unless they have been brought up to be feminists, will fall into one of these 2 categories.

"I tend to make the distinction though between an individual being well educated (ie. having been taught to think analytically and question things) and think that this is probably more likely to make them a feminist/more politically engaged then they would be otherwise and academia (as in lecturers and people who work in that kind of environment) which can be very stuffy and conservative"

100% agree with this, bucaneve. My parents brought me up to question what I was told, and not to follow authority blindly or believe that someone else always knows better. I'm sure being analytical helped me academically, and it also is pretty essential to being a feminist (especially when faced with the obligatory "oh stop worrying about nothing you silly woman" type comments).

Hmm, I think I've always self identified as a feminist, but then I have the luxury of coming from what is apparantly officially the best place in the world to be a girl (NZ).

As you do, I sort of quietened down in my old age, only to rediscover by inner strident feminist when doing an MSc in a very male dominated area. My classmates made every excuse under the sun for my high grades and were vocally outraged (or at least some of them were) when I walked off with all the academic prizes. I heard every excuse under the sun from favouritism, to the lecturer fancied me to I slept my way to the good grades, to "political corectness".... (I could go on). At no point did they consider the obvious answer i.e. that I worked harder than them and that I'm a damn sight brighter than the lot of them.

I now work in academia (though I'm not an academic) and still I have to deal with (usually) men who can't take anything I say seriously until it comes out of a man's mouth.

*their

Interesting question. I don't think there is a correlation necessarily. There are plenty of feminists who haven't arrived at that position through an academic route but because of what there own experiences have taught them.

I think, however, that if you take an academic route into a male dominated world then you might inevitably become more aware of how differently men and women are treated. Doesn't follow that it would make you more feminist, though, you might just become more like the men who you see getting on so well because of how they conduct themselves.

Probably, a topic for another thread but Dittany why do you think academic feminists are anti-feminist? You mention JB in your post but I'm not following ....

Me too, berryjuice. I spent a long time just assuming that everyone normal felt the same way I did about women and men being equal, and objected to the remnants of sexism - university really made me realize that this wasn't so!

In my head I tend to make the distinction though between an individual being well educated (ie. having been taught to think analytically and question things) and think that this is probably more likely to make them a feminist/more politically engaged then they would be otherwise and academia (as in lecturers and people who work in that kind of environment) which can be very stuffy and conservative

Nailak I think I get what you mean, I think university is a time where lots of people a) want to rebel from their parents and b) want to find a group to identify with so I can totally get that if you had quite liberal parents or were the only Muslim/Sikh whatever family in your small town you might suddenly get a big interest in religion at uni - I think it's a completely normal stage to go through and possibly quite liberating getting to try out a new side of your self that you'd never tried before

And I also agree with blackcurrants although I have always identified as a feminist and seen the movement as continuing to be necessary, I naively didn't feel like it really applied to me as I was obviously being treated as an equally . Since becoming a mother it has become more clear that I'm not an equal in our society and that women are all (even the single carreer girls) relegated to a sub-class even today.

It's just more difficult to see it when you feel a part of it, IYKWIM?

I agree that academia itself is very, very misogynistic and that one doesn't't need to be well educated to be a good feminist. Feminism is a political movement and is about right and wrong and one doesn't need a degree to be able to differentiate between the two.

However...

Discussions on this and other forums can sometimes feel very academic and I can see that it may give the impression that it is necessary to be 'educated' to take part.

I have a professional degree.

Stupid phone I meant the attire of the faith

sorry nailak - "donning the attired that faith in univ"?

I think I've been a feminist all my life tbh, and if anything my time as a student was when I ignored feminism the most as I was very involved in other things. I have a degree but would never be "an academic" as I couldn't wait to leave uni.

Also I'm not sure you'll get a very representative answer on here as MNers v likely to have degrees I remember reading.

I think you will find that in London, don't know about other places a lot of women become religiously active within certain faiths and start donning the attired that faith in univ. I suppose the fact they feel it is a liberation is irrelevant to this thread.

I self-identified as a feminist at 14, long before I did lots of degrees. I have done three so far, though, and am finishing a fourth (s-l-o-w-ly) so maybe the critical thinking idea posited by HandDived might be a winner?

I think academia is v. v. sexist (my area dominated by women, but guess who the big earning professors at the top are? Ohyes) and that might provoke more feminism. What's made me more "strident" in my feminism (to quite a male friend/acquaintance - which made me ) recently is getting pregnant and having a kid. In my 20s I could do whatever I liked, and be treated like a man. Suddenly wanting to do something that only women do made me realise that there's a corner of society for 'women things' and it's a place where the money, rules, and sexual politics haven't changed since the dark ages. Realising how much having kids would hurt my career, and boost my husband's career - that has made me a louder, more determined feminist than any degree!

I did my degree in a female-dominated profession

make of that what you will

I have always had feminist leanings, but didn't start to organise or voice them until I had been studying at the University of Life for rather a long time, it's been an experience/confidence thing for me as opposed to a strictly academic one