Academic attainment and feminism?

[suwoo]

I have wanted to start this thread all day but have been scared that it is stupid or I will be flamed. I want to ask if people feel there is a correlation between academic attainment and feminist principles. Is that a valid question?
I had no idea that I was a feminist. I knew I had these thoughts and principles but didn't know what they were or the significance of them until we did feminist literary theory this semester- it was like an epiphany and my whole world made sense

Had I not gone to uni at the grand old age of 35, maybe I would never had these revelations.

What do you think? Those of you that identify as a feminist, what level of education do you have?

(But Jane Austen's juvenlia is pretty terrific! 'I have no plans to marry, especially as I am not in want of money at the moment...' fab stuff.)

(That's from Lady Susan. Not a completely accurate quote, though, I've not read it for years.)

I'm not missing the point, actually, I am adding an Irrelevant Footnote. And as I understand it, Sieglinde is pointing up some significant areas in which Dworkin didn't got the historical stuff wrong. Saying 'ah but that doesn't matter' is missing her point.

(I am also wanting to have a discussion about Sara Maitland's and Angela Carter's recuperations of fairy tales, because I find that profoundly interesting, but suspect that here is not the place not least because Carter is very interested in de Sade.)

Er...actually there is the whole witch burning bad research too, which IMO is a bit significant given that the Dreadful Witchburnings Of Wimmin In Days Past was one of the things we went on about a lot back in the days when I went on a lot about this sort of thing.

[it is Marquis de Sade or Sade, never "de Sade"]

I'm not focusing on it particularly, Dittany. I'm just registering that it exists and that it is hugely problematic. I don't think it helps women scholars to underperform in ways that would lead to returned work at undergraduate level.

'Dworkin noticed that men as a class hate women, use hideous violence against us and oppress us. But lets ignore that because she doesn't know the minutiae of European folk tales.'

I agree that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But why not read someone who can do both?

I wouldn't teach Foucault and can't remember ever seeing him on a syllabus as an undergraduate ...

dittany - for my subject area, I'd get them to read Jocelyn Wogan-Browne's stuff about hagiography (which talks a bit about fairy-tale archetypes but obviously it's the wrong period/country for Grimm). She's great, especially on women's bodies.

proles - that's interesting. I'm getting the impression I had the least theory-based undergrad degree possible!

No, she's not - I didn't explain very well maybe, but the point I'm getting at is that the ground has been broken. If I'm teach lit., why wouldn't I use someone who's drawn older work and also added to it? It's no insult to Dworkin to say that someone could correct parts of her work.

I am trying to work out how to teach more radical feminist theory though - I asked how you'd do it upthread but it got a bit buried.