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?

Aurora, do you mean women like Julian of Norwich? I could be totally out, sorry if I am. I don't know much about any period much earlier than Early Modern.

Well, I don't think telling people to believe what I believe is right. I think that the texts will do that for me, if I teach them appropriately. I don't think it would be considered appropriate for me to try to influence students' beliefs in other areas - for example, I don't pass on my religious or political views to them, either - so I don't think that 'telling' them to be feminists is right (especially given that I teach a very mixed ethnic group and for many of them their views are related to their cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs).

Yes I wonder why you wouldn't want to at least influence just a little of their thinking. Feminism is political, if you are a feminist would you not want to educate other women. It may actually do them more good than having the degree at the end of the day.

Victor I was thinking of nineteenth century writers, as that's my field, but yes, Julian of Norwich is certainly an example.
dittany I'm suggesting these women made the best of the circumstances in which they found themselves :-) We can't go back in time and alter their circumstances, and women writers have still produced amazing work - we could argue that it would have been better if they were not influenced by the weight of a patriarchal literary tradition, but that doesn't help assess the value of their work, and it doesn't change anything.

Dittany, is that really how academia feels to you? Genuine question. Personally, I look at course materials now and see women's writing, women's thoughts, all over the place; I see women outnumbering men in the staff ranks (less so at the higher levels, true, but we are getting there); I see issues of gender and sex being raised at every turn. It makes me feel hopeful.

And I'd love to influence my students - I hope I do. But they are sat in that classroom as autonomous adults. I spread a range of materials in front of them and it's up to them what they choose - or not - to embrace.

I just wanted to say also that in view of Auroras comment that many women are just looking for a rich husband, why do they even need a degree, surely a grounding in feminist theory and womens rights might be more useful when negotiating housework, domestic violence, male rights to have sex, infedelity, rights to the economic spoils of their DHs work etc,

queenbathsheba I do want to influence their thinking! I make it clear that these aren't just historical issues, and show how it is relevant today; I just don't think one can force the issue. But if I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't teach it.

I'm kind of wishing I hadn't started this now as I really have to get on with marking! But dittany I'm not saying patriarchal religion was as liberating to women as, say, modern liberal feminism is; I'm just saying it has to be taken into account. BTW I give them details of organisations such as the Fawcett Society, and try to encourage them to see feminism as something very much alive and significant today.
queenbathsheba I do wonder sometimes why people do degrees. I also wonder why they take this course if they are not interested in feminism (given that it's an optional course!)

But those women used the forms, and the structures and strictures in which they found themselves, and made something with them. Religion - of which I am no great advocate - offered them the opportunity to read, and think, and write. And to act, outside the domestic sphere. You can't just say 'but it oppressed them' and ignore what they did with it.

It offered them women-only spaces, too.

Read some of those 1970s/early 1980s feminist novelists like Michele Roberts and Sara Maitland (actually, read the whole Tales I Tell My Mother collective, just because they're really good). There is interesting stuff there about working with and within and outside religious structures.

dittany I take your point, though I don't really agree with you. I take it you are not in the literary side of things - because to completely discount people's beliefs when examining their writing is completely unhelpful; context is very important, and faith can't be overlooked. Both in terms of teaching students, and looking at literature, ignoring people's personal beliefs is both unhelpful and disrespectful.
I'm going to do some work now, bye

SwallowedAfly, how shocking. Although male power is justified in all cultures and dressed up as "traditions" and made symbolic. In the west we appear less uncivilised but the truth is we condone such things by passing it off as civil liberties and rights to traditions and beliefs.

I am definitely feminist and have a D Phil from Oxford, and am an Oxford don. But before Oxford I thought it was malarkey. The place is just soooo male-dominated to this day that you HAVE to be feminist in self-defence.

She's said it

modern liberal feminism my point is made, proof if ever any was needed that feminism is liberalism to todays generation, will be for ever more because this is what is taught in universities

I think that too, motherinferior. Btw, coming late to the party here, but I don't see why anyone would really want to argue that Julian of Norwich wasn't oppressed by patriarchial religion - that's why she had to re-write it.

I used to work with nuns, many were amazing women but they all got very excited in quite a strange girly sort of way when the priest was coming to tea. It was quite strange.