Can a man teach feminism?

[lucydogz]

Reading the Guardian colour supp today, an article about gal dem quotes 2 young black women saying they were shocked, when taking a class on Feminism at Bristol university, that it was taken by white man.
Firstly, I see no relevance in his race. But why shouldn't a man teach Feminism?

Talluah Yes exactly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At least be honest. You are more interested not in an academic subject but in students being converted to the cause. And I repeat if that is what you want, I agree a man could not do it nearly as well. But like Lass I maintain that is not what university should be about.

At least be honest. You are more interested not in an academic subject but in students being converted to the cause

Lol.

Mansplaining what we want again. It's like you guys cannot help yourselves.

I think the transformation of feminism (and Marxist / socialist thought) into toys for white male middle-class university students to play with is an appropriation and a fetishisation of oppression which I find rather tasteless as well as oppressive.

I'm not suggesting we indoctrinate students. I'm suggesting that feminism properly belongs to women's rights activists.

Everything you have said screams "I don't care about academic rigor I want social activism". And yet me pointing that out is "mansplaining" even though Lass has been doing the same thing.

Couldn't make it up.

My own field is narrow enough that if I specify it it would likely be outing, and I do not wish to do that.

But when, in the past, I was asked to teach more general courses, I was occasionally approached by women I was teaching and asked for pointers - books, names, articles etc. - to specific feminist issues. I felt uneasy complying, as a man. (No men ever asked the same, btw.) That was only partly due to ignorance on my part.

I felt it somehow inappropropriate that a man should be teaching even such a small part of feminism, in a generally academic setting, to women who wanted to investigate more-or-less theoretical feminist topics for themselves.

So I wonder(ed) about my own feelings of unease, especially given a commitment to the essential neutrality of academic enquiry, a commitment I hold strongly still.

So, why? It seems to me that in an ideal world, sure enough, a man could teach feminism. But we are not in that ideal world; women are still oppressed by men (not the only non-ideal aspect of our world, but the relevant one.) And that is (of course!) what lies at the bottom of my (I suspect justified) unease.

As an historical, theoretical matter, oppression of women and the necessity for and structure of feminism might well be appropriately taught by a man. But this oppression, and this necessity and structure, is not ( yet, we can but hope) only a historical, theoretical matter. It is real, and involves the lives of teachers as well as taught. And, more, of its nature this involvement cannot but differ by sex.

So it seems to me. My answer, then, to OP's question: Not yet, but we can hope for the future.

(Supposing no women available to do the teaching? Unlikely, perhaps, but in such a case we might add, ... or faute de mieux . )

I see the specific and simple question of whether a man should be allowed to take feminism as an academic subject at a university, which can be answered in one word "yes" or "no", is still impossible to answer.

I see the specific and simple question of whether a man should be allowed to take feminism as an academic subject at a university, which can be answered in one word "yes" or "no", is still impossible to answer.

Who would prevent them and why would anyone want to? This thread is about men teaching, not about men being permitted to learn about feminism in a classroom environment.
Mary Daly chose not to teach men because they were disruptive to the learning environment. A common problem throughout the educational system. She lost her job over it. So I ask again. Who would dare say no to men taking whatever class they choose?

Everything you have said screams "I don't care about academic rigor

Can you explain to me how a man teaching e.g. Judith Butler is more academically rigorous than a feminist lecturer who is, say, conducting qualitative research within a relevant community in order to understand the challenges faced by that community under patriarchy in the present moment and whose teaching is informed by her research?

Who would prevent them and why would anyone want to? This thread is about men teaching, not about men being permitted to learn about feminism in a classroom environment

I didn't ask who would prevent them. I asked should men be allowed to take this subject- a theoretical question. This thread is theoretical- men should not be allowed to teach- given that that there is at least one man teaching feminisim.

The majority view is they should not be allowed to teach it. Therefore should they be permitted to take a subject which they should never be permitted to teach? I'm puzzled why you think that question is irrelevant or a derailment.

I didn't ask who would prevent them. I asked should men be allowed to take this subject

By asking one 'should they be allowed' you are inferring that someone would prevent it.

I'm puzzled

No shit, Sherlock.

I suppose in theory, I could teach contemporary Chinese culture, given the right materials and some time to read around the subject. If a load of young Chinese students turned up to my lectures, excited about discussing their current culture I’d imagine they’d be disappointed to meet a lecturer who has never even been to china, but is aware of the theories so cracks on regardless. I’d imagine some stuff would be out of date or wrong or from the viewpoint of people who don’t live in China or in Chinese culture and it may well be that the students then start questioning themselves - can their own experience be valid when someone who presents in a position of learned authority says otherwise? It can be very hard to disagree with a lecturer, especially when you’re young and have just left a school system which relies on doing what you’re told.

So yes in theory if you are a good teacher, you can teach pretty much anything. But if you have no personal experience of your topic it can create a barrier to learning between you and your students, especially if they have personal experience of the topic. Furthermore, I’d say a man telling women how feminism is, even if it is just dusty theories from years gone by and has absolutely no contemporary application, is indicative of the patriarchy. If he has no choice as it’s slapped on his timetable then the university itself shows its disregard for feminism as an academic subject and as a part of contemporaneous culture by not getting in an expert.

goldenwonderwall like earlier in the thread, comparing it to other subjects doesn't really work. What this thread has told us is that other than the group of radical feminists on here, the experience of feminism, being a feminist, what is means, varies hugely from woman to woman (and man to man). I can relate to the women of the 18th and 19th c fighting against oppression and wanting liberation, because women couldn't follow professions, were prejudiced by law of entailment, couldn't vote, had very prescriptive roles and expectations. But that is a very different world from today. There have been changes apace in the last century. In the last few decades there have been changes.

2 radical feminists on this thread have said that the definition of feminism has been changed, that the original definition was different, that the definition in the dictionaries has been changed, and I have asked for their sources, and sources have not yet been provided. If there are sources, these could as easily be provided by a man as a woman. And that is the point, for those of us interested in what has changed when, different theories, where they came from, when, why, whether a man or woman teaches is irrelevant. The radical feminists disagree with much of what would be taught on a mainstream course in any event (I made that point in an earlier sorry to repeat) and all other women will have varying points of view and narratives, and many would find it exceptionally frustrating to be taught by someone with very rigid/passionate views in any particular direction unless it matched their own.

All academics have their areas of interest- why would you expect feminist academics to be any different? I’ve been taught stuff in general by people with phds in specific areas as will have anyone who has been to university. No one is an expert in everything.

A man cannot understand what it is to live as a woman anymore than I can understand what it is to grow up in contemporary Chinese culture. I think it shows a lack of understanding to assume you can read some books and then ‘know’ something as well as someone who has read the books and lived it or as well as someone who hasn’t read the books and lived it. Lived experience adds much to the educational experience and in sociology type subjects it is vital as supposedly we seek to understand the people that live and interact in the world.

If you don’t like some people’s definition of feminism then that’s your problem really. Definitions change all the time, even of things we think are immutable.

By asking one 'should they be allowed' you are inferring that someone would prevent it

No I am not inferring that all. That is your interpretation. My question was theoretical. Do you have a difficulty with the concept of a theoretical question?

The vast majority of you think men should not be allowed to teach this subject. Yet men are teaching it.

In the theoretical , ideal world you (general you) are proposing where men would not be allowed to teach this course would they be allowed to take it as a student?

If you don’t like some people’s definition of feminism then that’s your problem really. Definitions change all the time, even of things we think are immutable It is the other way round, the definition at the moment is a "belief in equality" and I don't have a problem with that at all. I do have a problem with being told I am deluded and selling out to mansplaining because really it should be "liberation from men". I think you should go back and read the full thread.

All academics have their areas of interest- why would you expect feminist academics to be any different? I wouldn't. But if I was being taught by someone who said that the majority of the mainstream course was "wrong" and that anyone who was interested was selling out to mansplaining, then yes I would find that somewhat frustrating.

A man cannot understand what it is to live as a woman that isn't what feminism is about, though, when taught academically, is it? And we are all individuals, "women" do not have one unified experience of being a "woman", which is the point I was making.

I was unaware anywhere actually still taught feminism as a subject. There are no undergrad women's studies courses left, I believe, they are all whatever the fuck Gender Studies pretends to be now.

I would not accept being taught a Women's Studies course by a man, but I would accept a module on Feminism as part of another course being taught by a man. I have grave doubts it would actually be about Feminism anyway, especially at Bristol, given that it is likely to be all pro-men, pro-pimp and pro-porn and so nothing that even relates to feminism at all.

Well everyone’s experience of everything is phenomenological isn’t it? So any theory about how people are and how they live, must at some point make some kind of generalisation, either observed or reported. How can anyone say anything about anything other than their lived experience? Equally, how can you deny that lived experience impacts and interacts with other stuff that you know and experience and theoretical?

I believe bewilderness explained upthread regarding different definitions of feminism so I have no need to go back and reread.

I’ve studied science and social science and it is different and you can approach it in different ways. It doesn’t mean one way is correct and one way is not. It does feminist academics a great disservice to assume they are incapable of being impartial or will try and browbeat students to their way of thinking because they think a certain way and you’ve interpreted some anonymous posts on forum as stating that will actually happen or is the goal of radical feminists.

"It does feminist academics a great disservice to assume they are incapable of being impartial or will try and browbeat students to their way of thinking because they think a certain way"

Yet some are happy to assume male academics will do exactly that?

goldenwonderwall if you think someone has answered my questions I'd love to get the date and time of it so I can go back and have a look. It is that kind of objective factual info which I'd expect to find on a course rather than course about how women live or experience the world today, so we are probably talking about different things. It does feminist academics a great disservice to assume... I I think you are right and I didn't assume that, and I am sure that not all feminist academics would think that only women can teach feminism, too.

I don't think feminism belongs anywhere near academic institutions. Feminism being "taught" as a "subject" by a man sounds like anti-feminism to me.

Feminism is a consciousness raising political movement fighting male supremacism. What sort of a wanker would a man have to be to think that it would be anything other than anti-feminist for him to not only condone the defanging of feminism by academia but to stand up in front of a room of women and teach them about their oppression at the hands of his sex class??!!

A bloke could probably teach a class on feminist literature or something but even then you would think any female students would have a hard time trying to take a man quoting Dworkin or Daly at them seriously. (Except of course neither Dworkin nor Daly are taught because, well, academia defangs feminism.)