Page 25 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 25
n. perger, m. mencin, v. tašner. ■ teaching feminism ...
student population, whose attitudes to gender and feminism are blurred
and distorted by countless social processes of negative stereotyping and
stigmatising feminisms as movements and feminists as agents (for exam-
ple, see Charter, 2015; Dyer & Hurd, 2018; Houvouras & Carter, 2008,
on students’ reluctance to identify as feminists despite generally support-
ing gender equality). It is this double-bind institutional setting – influ-
enced by the wider antifeminist backlash, including the construct of “gen-
der ideology” and of “gender as an ideology” (for a detailed discussion, see
Kuhar & Patternote, 2017) that has turned feminisms into “the unspeak-
able F-word” (Moi, 2006, p. 1739) and at the same time seeks to make gen-
der studies irrelevant by constructing them as supposedly ideological, po-
litical10 and subjective,11 that feminist topics, principles and practices take
place. Yet, it is also this setting in which feminist principles and practic-
es persist and resist.
Murray (2018, p. 180), while working on S. Ahmed’s concept of fem-
inist killjoys, of feminists “killing joy” by not being willing to partici-
pate in the reproduction of masculine domination (2017), distinguishes
three types of “killjoy tactics” or feminist responses to being constitut-
ed as a “challenging presence” in academia: managing, challenging, and
refusal/exit (Murray, 2018). The first refers to the collective work of sup-
port and solidarity among killjoys as well as self-silencing when the “in-
stitutional wall” is deemed too high or the institutional bricks too thick
(Ahmed, 2014, p. 146), and is especially important when rethinking fem-
inist practices of resistance in intersection with precarious positions: with
a precarious position, there usually comes a precarious toolbox of femi-
nist manoeuvres. The second type of response contains directly challenges
to the institutional barriers and their patriarchal, unequal and sexist set-
tings which, as Murray (ibid., p. 182) emphasises, should also be addressed
alongside an agent’s position within academia: “those with more securi-
ty and higher up the academic ladder have a greater power to shape the
academic culture”. The same holds true for the third one – refusal and
exit from academia due to unbearable patriarchal burdens – which, as S.
Ahmed who herself resigned from her post at Goldsmith due to the in-
stitution’s incapability to address sexual harassment claims warns, is far
10 To the reproach of science being political, we reply using Bourdieu’s words: “I myself fell vic-
tim to that moralism of neutrality, of the non-involvement of the scientist /…/ As if one could
talk of the social world without being involved in politics!” (Lahire, 1999, p. 15; Lane, 2006, p. 1).
11 Recent consequences of those antifeminist backlashes, resulting in science being banned or
simply erased from academia, are the removal of Gender Studies from the list of accredited
Master Programmes in Hungary in 2018 (see the European Communication Research and
Education Association’s public statement, 2018), and the proposed ban on the teaching of
gender studies in schools and universities in Romania in June 2020 (Tidey, 2020).
23
student population, whose attitudes to gender and feminism are blurred
and distorted by countless social processes of negative stereotyping and
stigmatising feminisms as movements and feminists as agents (for exam-
ple, see Charter, 2015; Dyer & Hurd, 2018; Houvouras & Carter, 2008,
on students’ reluctance to identify as feminists despite generally support-
ing gender equality). It is this double-bind institutional setting – influ-
enced by the wider antifeminist backlash, including the construct of “gen-
der ideology” and of “gender as an ideology” (for a detailed discussion, see
Kuhar & Patternote, 2017) that has turned feminisms into “the unspeak-
able F-word” (Moi, 2006, p. 1739) and at the same time seeks to make gen-
der studies irrelevant by constructing them as supposedly ideological, po-
litical10 and subjective,11 that feminist topics, principles and practices take
place. Yet, it is also this setting in which feminist principles and practic-
es persist and resist.
Murray (2018, p. 180), while working on S. Ahmed’s concept of fem-
inist killjoys, of feminists “killing joy” by not being willing to partici-
pate in the reproduction of masculine domination (2017), distinguishes
three types of “killjoy tactics” or feminist responses to being constitut-
ed as a “challenging presence” in academia: managing, challenging, and
refusal/exit (Murray, 2018). The first refers to the collective work of sup-
port and solidarity among killjoys as well as self-silencing when the “in-
stitutional wall” is deemed too high or the institutional bricks too thick
(Ahmed, 2014, p. 146), and is especially important when rethinking fem-
inist practices of resistance in intersection with precarious positions: with
a precarious position, there usually comes a precarious toolbox of femi-
nist manoeuvres. The second type of response contains directly challenges
to the institutional barriers and their patriarchal, unequal and sexist set-
tings which, as Murray (ibid., p. 182) emphasises, should also be addressed
alongside an agent’s position within academia: “those with more securi-
ty and higher up the academic ladder have a greater power to shape the
academic culture”. The same holds true for the third one – refusal and
exit from academia due to unbearable patriarchal burdens – which, as S.
Ahmed who herself resigned from her post at Goldsmith due to the in-
stitution’s incapability to address sexual harassment claims warns, is far
10 To the reproach of science being political, we reply using Bourdieu’s words: “I myself fell vic-
tim to that moralism of neutrality, of the non-involvement of the scientist /…/ As if one could
talk of the social world without being involved in politics!” (Lahire, 1999, p. 15; Lane, 2006, p. 1).
11 Recent consequences of those antifeminist backlashes, resulting in science being banned or
simply erased from academia, are the removal of Gender Studies from the list of accredited
Master Programmes in Hungary in 2018 (see the European Communication Research and
Education Association’s public statement, 2018), and the proposed ban on the teaching of
gender studies in schools and universities in Romania in June 2020 (Tidey, 2020).
23
