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?

No amount of experience he has counts for the experience a female lecturer in feminism will have as a WOMAN!

Maybe by taking the “wage” from a woman, said woman is free to look at openings in stem courses? So it’s all actually very feminist after all...

For those of you saying that a woman has lost out on an annual wage, that is only true if the number of lecturers in the department/college is not reflective of the percentage of male to female in society.

I'd take a guess that it isn't, but a man teaching feminism as a stand alone issue, to me, is not an issue. I think it's great that some men advocate equality and women's rights. We need all the support we can get.

because maybe the man has experience/qualifications in other areas that are also necessary for teaching in that department? Like has written novels or is American or has a specialism in a subject that is covered in the degree programs offered (just thinking about my degree experience

I so agree, being an American male much mean they have much more experience in feminism than every woman in England. Not.

I can see why they were hired, my disagreement is that they should not be teaching feminism. The fact that it is tagged onto other degrees, just shows that the department doesn't think it important enough - more evidence of patriarchy. Innit.

Maybe by taking the “wage” from a woman, said woman is free to look at openings in stem courses? So it’s all actually very feminist after all...

I should have known you would pop up and tell us how we are all doing feminism wrong.

Of course a man can teach feminism as an academic subject!

Non-native speakers can teach a language.
Midwives or teachers can do their jobs without having children themselves.
Female doctors can treat male patients and vice versa.
Teachers of RE can teach about a multitude of religions.

The important thing here is expertise, not whether you are a man or a woman!

The important thing here is expertise, not whether you are a man or a woman!

What expertise has a man got in the teaching of feminism?

Happy for him to do it so I don't have to...

thecountry not in feminism no, but you'd struggle to teach a module on comics if you lack that knowledge even if you'd be better at teaching feminism because you're a woman.

Again, people working in university departments don't just teach one subject, they have to teach within the department. So a man isn't spending all day teaching feminism, but he might have to cover it once or twice with the seminar group he teaches.

I don’t think the aim of the course is to make you a feminist.
If your argumentation was sound, then who would teach or take a course on anti semitism?

By taking a wage from a woman, they are already demonstrating they support patriarchy and thus cannot teach feminism.
How do we know he has 'taken a wage from a woman'. What if he was the only one to apply? This is ridiculous statement to make. So men shouldn't take jobs at all??

My university was not the best and I didn't really "choose" it I fucked up my a levels for various reasons not relevant to this discussion. So got a place last minute through clearing. I was on a course taught under less than ideal circumstances and that is obvious.

The fact remains that as I had no choice and I was presented with a man teaching me the feminism course I made the best of it. If I had been taught the course by a woman who didn't agree with many aspects of modern feminism would that have been better? It is perfectly possible, there are politics lecturers teaching courses outside their specialism / experience/ comfort zone all the time... My feminism lecturer was an expert on Foucault. He wasn't gay or French either.

It can be helpful to learn from outside perspectives - I have faith in my ability to recognise and account for bias, unconscious and obvious. If the ideal is not available you make the best of what you have. Challenge and question and make up your own mind. I don't agree with all feminist academics I have read but obviously they speak from experience my feminism course tutor couldn't replicate - most of our tutorials were open debates based on the reading with minimal input from the tutor and presentations from the mostly female group.

It is easy to deconstruct and critique and to dismiss but I am not going to dismiss my education because it wasn't ideal enough. I will ensure that my daughter's - if they go to university - will look at the faculty of the institutions they want to go to - look at the staff and question everything - and preferably not fuck up their A levels to ensure a choice of university's is open to them!!

That's a fair point.

Sorry - that was to Loops!

sturdy I'm sorry, you feel that there should be degrees in feminism? Or that it shouldn't be mentioned in other subjects unless the entire course is centred around it?

That seems....counter-productive to getting your message across to new young people.

If its just reading from a script, any lecturer can teach in physics. Or advanced maths

How on earth was that post aggressive and hostile

I’m not sure I’d know what a feminism doing it right would look like! But if it helps feminism does look like a lot like an idealogy that’s very much at war with itself, and doesn’t tolerate diversity of opinion all that well. Hope that helps! For what it’s worth us MRAs aren’t any better!

For what it’s worth us MRAs aren’t any better.

😂 That's the understatement of the century right there!

thecountry I do think that if the entire module or course is about feminism, or feminist critiques of something, then it should be women teaching. The only way to do that though is to have departments for those courses that hire their own staff, because current uni departments teach a lot of stuff, especially in the humanities (I'm guessing maths department just teaches maths but as a humanities grad I don't actually know).

A humanities department must manage courses for 3-5 year degrees in really varied subjects (American Literature, Film Studies, American History, Creative Writing are all degrees from one department at my uni) within each year of each course were different optional modules, and each of those modules may have had a week or more where sex/gender inequality was discussed in relation to the content for that week. That's a lot of feminism to discuss but also a lot of other content that could benefit from other specialisms.

I'll admit, I just finished uni, so I don't actually know if all universities are like this or if university has always been like this, maybe it used to be more specialised in which case I can see the argument. I might agree that it would be better to only have women discussing feminism, but I just don't see how it would work within the contstraints of current organisation.

So to have a man, who contributes to our oppression and benefits from our oppression, stand up and lecture students - including many females - about a movement brought about BECAUSE of him and his fellow men feels very wrong.

I understand this position and your feeling of wrongness, but I don’t want to base my opinion just on feelings. And feminism isn’t needed due to any individual man or even just men - it is a result of patriarchal society, which isn’t just upheld by men, as frequently demonstrated on here! I think an individual man should be as capable as an individual woman of understanding an issue and facilitating learning about that issue.

SturdyPyjamas oh dear, I’m disinclined to ‘just pretend’ a specific hypothetical situation on this, I don’t see how it’d be a useful contribution sorry, there’s too many undefined variables.

There’s philosophical differences between posters here I think - does a person require lived experience of being a woman (in a patriarchal society, presumably) in order to understand feminism? We’re not going to agree on issues that stem from a fundamental difference of opinion on the answer to that, are we.

If you’re saying that men shouldn’t teach feminism you’re basically arguing there shouldn’t be as many women teaching in stem, as if we want a rough 50/50 split across all academic disciplines if a certain number of women have to be lumbered with teaching feminism then there won’t be as many to go into other fields! Thus you’re actually propping up this patriarchy you hate so very much.

Unless someone is willing to come out and admit that you want an entirely female dominated higher education sphere where there are more female academics than male! Which would make feminism a female supremacist movement would it not? So which is it? Are you all handmaidens to the patriarchy or female supremacists?

Perhaps we could turn the question around - to those who believe that only a woman can understand feminism - can you explain in more detail why you believe that is?

Why does it require experience of being a woman (in a patriarchal society) to understand women’s oppression?

Are individual women therefore better or worse at understanding feminism based on their personal experience of oppression then? (Actually, to answer my own question there and pre-empt a little, clearly individual women’s experiences may lead them to more easily see the oppression of women or understand the need for feminism, but not, I believe, make them more or less capable of understanding feminism itself).

Obviously you have had some bad experiences with men from what your attitude is like. Wake up, we all have!

Oh this is my VERY favourite bit

TEMRA your argument makes no logical sense whatsoever. Also it’s possible to be neither a handmaiden nor a female supremacist (both labels that I’ve never heard anyone claim for themselves, only been foisted upon women by those who who disagree with them).

Why does it require experience of being a woman (in a patriarchal society) to understand women’s oppression?

Why would it take a gardener to teach gardening?

Why would it take an engineer to teach engineering?

Why do you have to be experienced and qualified in any field, to be able to teach it?

I mean, are you saying that in order to prove that a man can teach feminism, we can just let anyone teach anything? Because experience and qualifications are completely unnecessary?