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?

I've checked, and it seems I've done Greer a slight disservice: she says that 'Most homosexuality results from the inability of the person to adapt to his given sex role, and ought not to be treated as genetic and pathological, but the prejudiced language of abnormality offers the homosexual no way of expressing this rejection, and so must consider himself a freak'.

It's still pretty iffy, so I quoted it in full because I accused her of something rather than to derail.

Dittany, I know Millet is taught, but not by me. Similarly, I can convey male supremacy and patriarchy in literature using literary critics that I think are more suitable that Dworkin. Elaine Showalter, for example, or Gilbert and Gubar.

I think in relation to Millett, it might be because her literary criticism is considered to be rather reductive/polemical/unsophisticated, although I have used her work in the past to provoke debate or to inform students about the history of feminist literary criticism.

With Dworkin, I think it is different because her work is more weighted in favour of politics, philosophy and cultural studies rather than literature. I have taught some of her writing, on De Sade before. A couple of the students said it that in all honesty, the pornographic descriptions turned them on. Quite difficult to know where to go from there ....

Although, I would recommend both to students whose research demands it.

Sparky, if you are reading you are getting an education and in some ways that is more valuable than saying I have had an education.

Is Greer saying that the homosexual rejects his/her given sex role and because we only have limited language that also discriminates we are compelled to label this as abnormal. If we start from the point that hetrosexual relationships are normal then the opposite would be seen as abnormal.

It isn't very clear but surely that could make it interesting because your students could discuss what they understand her statement to mean.

I can see that being a good way into discussing sexuality in literature - less so gender, though. Tricky.

Can I slightly hijack and ask if anyone has successfully taught lit. using the radical feminist theory as as secondary text? If so, can you give any tips?

Did you say bone-headed? Interesting metaphor.

Not passive at all, Dittany. I judge feminist literary criticism, such as that written by Gilbert and Gubar, to be more suitable for the particular courses that I deliver to undergraduates. We can't cover everything - it is always a compromise. I believe that texts such as The Madwomen in the Attic bring core feminist issues of patriarchy, of violent oppression of women by men, and of the legal, medical, and socio-economic structures that arise as a result, to the attention of undergraduates, while having the advantage of being centred on women authors that almost every undergraduate will come across in the course of their studies.

Let's not forget that seminars and lectures are a fraction of the studying a student does - the vast majority of that is self-directed. A university is, after all, a place of independent research above all else. Dworkin, Millett, Brownmiller, Adrienne Rich, Carol Smith-Rosenberg, Gayle Rubin, Monique Wittig. All of these have been mentioned by me in the last year to students. I know my colleagues do likewise. It's out there for students to find: any student searching for patriarchy or sexual oppression, or the power balance of heteosexual relationships isn't going to have to look too hard to find any one of these names.

With regards to Greer, I get that 'freak' may well be an imposed label, but I have real issues with describing being gay or lesbian with not 'fitting' a gender role. You can be a man and gay; you can be a woman and a lesbian. Being a lesbian doesn't make you some wierd cross-gendered hybrid. And saying that it's not 'genetic' (though not treating like a pathology is a good point) comes dangerously close to calling non-straight desire a behaviour that can somehow be unlearned.

I didn't suggest counselling, Dittany, that's not my place, but we did use the time to discuss why women would identify with the sadist or masochist and the question of how desire and fantasy might be culturally determined.

I think Dworkin is much more interesting as a theorist than Millett and imagine her work might come up again in relation to other things I teach and certainly if I were to teach a course on feminist theory.

Yes, Millett's work was revolutionary but there are other feminist critics who are more relevant in terms of what I teach. As VG says, there is a limited amount of time and space and a need to focus on those critics who work best with the material in question.

Who on earth considers Kate Millett's writings 'unsophisticated' ?

She revolutionised feminist thinking.

As did Dworkin.

There is no excuse for not teaching these women in feminism/women studies, other than the fact that they are very incisive and thereby rock the boat and make things uncomfortable.

Shame on patriarchal academia....

Beach, to be fair, there's a difference between feminism or women's studies, and English Lit. Might there be an excuse for not teaching criticism written in the 70s? Though you'd wish someone had written something equally good in 2010 or so, wouldn't you?!

I studied English Lit and I got sick of being 'taught' books written by men and analysing from a male perspective.

I discovered Kate Millett, by myself, by accident on coming across 'Sexual Politics' in second hand bookshop. That one book alone, taught me more about the world, than all the other books on my course put together.

There is no excuse for academia being so grovellingly patriarchal.

I don't think you're giving feminists a hard time. But it appears from this thead that the most likely place to find feminism is in the context of literary studies. So we're not paid to teach feminist ideology; we're paid to teach literary studies and literature. I don't teach Arthur Miller or DH Lawrence - in fact, I don't think either of them are taught anywhere in my department (the sum total of my exposure to either as a student was one hour spent on a Lawrence short story). So Millett has no direct use to me. Likewise the Marquis de Sade, or Dracula (if I taught Gothic Studies I could well use Dwokin but she simply isn't representative of the contemporary critical movement surrounding the Gothic. So I would mention that she'd be interesting to look at, suggest her book in the course pack, etc).

Maybe politics departments, social science faculties, etc, can do better than literary studies. I don't know.

You've consistently ignored the parts where I point out that identifying the violent oppression of women by men is amply covered, in my experience. Yes, maybe not by Dworkin and Millett directly but I make sure that themes which they identified and brought to the fore of debate are covered. I believe that a life affirming experience can be gained from this. I have two hours to cover 'feminism'. Literary Studies is less patriarchal than fifty years ago. Women's thoughts, women's writings overwhelm literary studies: a positive gain brought about by feminism.

Sure, I teach Butler (well, she gets mentioned directly in a lecture and we consider a paraphrased chapter in an introduction to literary theory) - because she addresses non-heterosexual desire, drag, cross-dressing and gender roles. Plenty of literature plays with these themes and rightly, they have gained representation on literary courses; as such, so has the accompanying critical movement. It may not be life-affirming for all, but it bloody well is, and can be, affirming for those whose sexuality or gender perception doesn't 'fit' with norms. I make no apology for covering those issues.

For lots of reasons, Dittany, because of its concern with different forms of disempowerment, because of the way she reads connects the production of pornography to poverty, sexual abuse, abjection, the language she adopts for translating the visual into the verbal in those very direct and descriptive passages, the ways in which she calls into question cultural values, aeshetic judgements, the focus on an ethics of representation. But outside of the books, I was struck by an interview with her in which she was talking, I think about rage and despair and what her research and activism cost her as a woman. She was treated abysmally.