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?

No, sieg said on the previous page that it's not appropriate to university level. I think it is, especially for students (often women) who have not been given much confidence to disagree.

I was thinking, actually, something that might be good to do would be to set passages of feminist theory as practical criticism-style unseens and see what students thought - I can't see myself being in a position to do it any time soon but it could be a nice way to get rid of the knee-jerk responses to their names/gender, couldn't it?

I think the problem LRD lies not in setting this as a task but in dittany's implication that this is the main task in hand. I can't think that beginning with the assumption that Freud is there for feminists to knock over is likely to promote serious reading of him. What if we begin with something like 'Evaluate the feminist critique/s of Freud in A, B and C'? My sense is that popular culture gives students all too much freedom to disagree facilely with Freud and Marx.

I've been teaching feminist theory for over twenty years, btw.

I understand. I was a bit concerned as it's the sort of task I've found very useful for my students and was wondering if I'd got it wrong. I have only just started teaching, hence all the questions.

OK, Dittany, we have actually got the fact that you disagree with Sieglinde. And me. And Fennel. And lots of the rest of us. And that as far as you are concerned we are the mere mouthpieces and toys of the patriarchy and are 'tainted' with post-modernism too. Because any disagreement with you and/or Dworkin is an immediate ticket to the outer darkness (which is getting really quite crowded now, but at least the company's quite good. I shall bring cake).

But we aren't going simply to roll over and say 'you got me, guv'. I know that's what Good Women do, they accept the Received Wisdom, but we are just a bit uppity.

Could you maybe stand up for women too, dittany? Or is that someone else's job while you continue talking about how very important words on a page are?

I have been following this discussion with much interest.

Sieglinde, you say that you have been teaching feminist theory for 20 years and yet you are very dismissive of Dworkin and Millett.

I have often heard academia being criticised for its distorted representation of feminism - now I really see what that means.

How awful .

Oh, I'm looking forward to the cake in the outer darkness. Thanks for that, motherinferior.

dittany, I am not 'the backlash' and you are not the forefront. We are both individuals. And how exactly did I 'roll over for male supremacy'? You know this exactly how? And how am I 'hiding' Butler? (A remarkably bizarre claim - where am I hiding her?). I suppose anyone who disagrees with you is 'the backlash'. What fun it must be to be among your students!

I don't teach every single feminist writer. I can't. The students only have two terms. I don't pretend the ones I don't teach don't exist. But just tell me why I should teach a bunch of theorists with no theory and nothing going for them but very loud voices and simplistic notions, in preference to feminists who have grappled seriously and intelligently with difficult and complex questions? Why would that be a feminist choice?

Simple. On this thread, your posts are mainly directed towards defending the words of certain authors, even when those words don't really seem to be under attack. But you don't seem interested in real women at all. You provide very few real-life solutions, and quite a lot of people have asked for them.

I don't doubt words on the page are important tools for feminists, but I think your priorities are skewed. They're not more important than people.

(In case it's not obvious, that was to dittany, not sieg.)

It's not laughable. I do not forget that the words I teach have real-world impact, and the students I teach have real lives.

You appear to have forgotten this point. You, on this thread at least, seem more interested in defending words, and attacking other words (because you wrongly believe them to be 'postmodern' and therefore Evil), than you are in real women.

See my post above.

I do not forget that the words I teach have real-world impact, and the students I teach have real lives.

You appear to have forgotten this point. You, on this thread at least, seem more interested in defending words, and attacking other words (because you wrongly believe them to be 'postmodern' and therefore Evil), than you are in real women.

I am enjoying reading feminist theory.

I did not take you to task for arguing postmodernism is anti-feminist.

I took you to task for (wrongly) assuming I was a post-modernist and for (wrongly) believing that 'narrative' is a post-modern term in literary theory, when it in fact has several different literary theoretical applications.

I also observed that postmodernism is not in my experience so dominant in academia as you suggest, but this is of course only my experience.

Sieglinde are you including Millett, MacKinnon and Dworkin in this?

"a bunch of theorists with no theory and nothing going for them but very loud voices and simplistic notions"

I'm a bit shocked if you are - especially considering your misrepresentation of Dworkin earlier.

'Sexual Politics' is classic radical feminist theory - it was a hugely influential book.

Oh well, I thought I had missed out at Uni because I chose to study Eng Lit instead of Women's Studies. Perhaps I didn't miss so much after all.