Can a man teach feminism?

If you don't remember what people said, the thread is still available for you to go back and read it.

I'll give you a hint: I made a specific comment earlier about what I think about men taking women's studies courses.

I also made a specific comment radical and liberal feminisms, and about the sort of background I think a lecturer in women's studies should have.

Other people have made specific comments about the relationship between theory and practice, which apply to your question about Marxism.

I'm confident that if you want to engage with these specific comments you can find them and come up with some interesting replies.

Lass I've already addressed the points you're making - it was earlier in the thread. So have others. Would you care to offer a response rather than simply repeating your questions? If there's something you need more clarification on, it's ok to ask

I don't think you did address my points. It is a 20 page thread but I asked well on it if a man should be allowed to study feminism as an academic subject. I don't recall you or any one answering that. Is that too dull or dreary to think about? If you think they can't teach it then presumably there is no point in teaching them either.

I also don't recall anyone addressing the point that what you want in these inspiring and impassioned lecturers will of course be the right sort of radical feminist- which of course you may well not get.

I don't recall you or any one else addressing my point about Marxism either.

So would you care to answer these first 2 specific points? I am repeating them because they have not been answered.

Oldstyle yes. Everything you said. As a student my most invigorating, even epiphanic learning moments were from lecturers and tutors deeply and meaningfully engaged with their subject. Scholars who were passionate about their areas of study and able to convey that passion to students.

And Tallulah's point about the appropriation of theory by the academy is a good one. There was a day when universities were hotbeds of disruptive ideas. Students and scholars seeing education as more than just a promulgation of facts, but a way of gaining deeper insights into their own lives and societies and the tools to change those societies.

The idea that a university is simply a vehicle for vocational education is a trick by conservative governments to bleed universities of resources and force them to "respond to the market".

This means producing programs which will appeal to a majority of students willing to pay for a ticket to a job at the other end. It's why the commerce and law lecture halls are packed to the rafters.

Given the marginalisation of female academics and their small numbers, maybe men can teach feminism in the dreary, replication of known facts methods, which Lass and others seem so keen on. It might be teaching feminism in some fashion, but it's not scholarship as I think of it.

I did a p/t Women's Studies masters decades ago when they were quite a new thing. The majority of lecturers were women, a small number of these were out lesbians, there were two men (one covering women's literature, one looking at the law).
This isn't a representative sample of course but it was interesting how the most exhilarating, in-depth, challenging and 'alive' elements of the course were those taught by the most out-there and radical members of staff. The least compelling were the elements taught by the men. The latter were perfectly competent lecturers but they lacked the glorious combination of academic expertise and lived experience we got from the women.
It was formative in many ways and influenced my subsequent HE teaching approach.

Talluah Yes exactly.

I mean what I'm trying to say is that universities should either engage with the actual process of advancing women's liberation through development of ideas and enactment of them or they should stop claiming to have any authority wrt feminism and the teaching of it. Teaching a bullshit, irrelevant, historical version is like teaching academic surgery. And getting men to do it just proves they are taking the piss.

Hey, I'm a man.

I'm wearing my 'This is what a feminist looks like' T-shirt.

This means i understand you women, see?

What do you mean, this t-shirt was probably made by a woman in a sweat shop that got paid 3p?

She's lucky to be working and should be thrilled that I am buying her products, at outrageoously hiked prices imported by blokes that are taking the £19.96 difference.

Doesn't she know who I am?

No, I don't understand the point you are making, there is no irony here Janet.

There's a widespread problem across academia in general (not all academia is like this I dare say but I'm aware of a number of fields which are) which is to do with the dissociation of theory from practice and in particular the privileging of theory over practice in terms of resource allocation and whose ideas get developed. This damages theory because it becomes irrelevant and practice because it doesn't benefit from the resources and brainpower that ought to be advancing it.

This is a derail and I'm not talking about politics or feminism in particular here so I'll leave it there. But I also think that the appropriation and neutering of potentially disruptive ideas by the academic establishment can be seen as an aspect of oppression.

Lass I've already addressed the points you're making - it was earlier in the thread. So have others. Would you care to offer a response rather than simply repeating your questions? If there's something you need more clarification on, it's ok to ask.

If that's the case why do most women not consider themselves feminists?
Because the effort by corporate interests to monetize the concept of feminism and market it as a lifestyle was very successful. Because the media that is sponsored by those corporate interests spent millions of column inches telling women that feminism should be about equality for all men
and that men are what feminists look like
and that women are opting out of Feminism and into femininity
and then came the commercial feminists selling sex positive feminism
and teaching women to suck dick and learn to like anal penetration.

Feminism is not the only political movement capitalist corporate interests have damaged by using them as a marketing tool.

If that was all I knew about feminism I would not want anything to do with it, nor would I call myself a feminist, and I would find a different women's movement to work for.
But that is not all I know about Feminism because I am old and I saw them do it, what they did and how they did it, and I have angry about it and pushing back on it for a very long time.

Marxism is not only theory it has a practical application. Socialism needs to be lived not just theorised about

Marxism has failed badly. Are you suggesting Marxism should only be taught with the end view that it will then be put into practice? Because if so that is an absurd proposition.

If that's the case why do most women not consider themselves feminists?

Because they don't understand it! Probably because a bloke mansplained it to them school, and bored the fucking shit out of them, endlessly pontificating about bollocks, like on here.

Can a man study feminism as an academic subject at university ?

Or is that another point which is too dull and dreary to ask?

Lichtie I doubt your questions will be answered either.

Feminism is meaningful when it's about women's lived experience, the limitations we face, the ways that we subvert these, the alternative lives we can imagine

Again you are failing to distinguish between teaching the history and theory of feminism and how, should you want, it would apply in your life.

Can the theory of Marxism only be taught by a Marxist to baby aspiring Marxists? Because that is what you are saying.

Thebewilderness... If that's the case why do most women not consider themselves feminists?

Offering up Hobson's Choice isn't really standing you in good stead.

So how do you explain feminists not being bound by their socialisation.
Most women unpack their conditioning for purposes of survival.
Are you really this ignorant of women's lives or just being goady?

You don't know the content of the course or the style of presentation but just because it's man you assume he's pontificating.
If it was presented by an academic woman who didn't believe in feminist theory or any of your views or who had not shared your experiences ... Would that be preferable?

Lichtie
It was a direct quote. Responding to it by saying nobody said the direct quote that you quoted makes no sense.

It just gets so dull and dreary, no fire, no life and certainly no point.

No this is the point. This is exactly the point. Feminism is meaningful when it's about women's lived experience, the limitations we face, the ways that we subvert these, the alternative lives we can imagine.

When it's all about some bloke pontificating on about Judith Butler it is an exercise in futility.

Most academics teach but they are not teachers. Big difference.

"Women are not socialized to be Feminists in most cultures. We are socialized to be misogynists."

Nobody said they were socialised to be feminists? The opposite was said. So how do you explain feminists not being bound by their socialisation.

Moose The OP referred to a man teaching feminism at Bristol University. And actually most academics in universities do indeed teach. Usually their teaching is related to their research.

"I think this thread shows just what happens when men try to teach such subjects they clearly don't understand.

It just gets so dull and dreary, no fire, no life and certainly no point."

Lovely to be able to pull the get out of jail card when you don't have any actual points to make. Fwiw, pretty sure Lass is not a bloke and she is arguing along the same lines as I am.

I am somewhat what puzzled by the confusion of academics and teachers.

An academic at a university who studies, publishes papers and happens to lecturer is NOT a teacher. In this instance someone running, designing and then publishing on feminism does probably need to be a woman.

A teacher of A level politics or sociology does not.

University academics are not teachers.

If a women can get over her socialisation to be a feminist, why can a man's socialisation be assumed?

Women are not socialized to be Feminists in most cultures. We are socialized to be misogynists.

I am somewhat puzzled by people arguing that teacher's bias has no influence on their students and so any competent teacher can teach any subject they have knowledge of. It isn't as though we don't know what that attitude has led to in the schools, so why would anyone who has been paying attention defend it?