Page 39 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 39
b. kašić ■ feminism as epistemic disobedience ...
as a “safe place” (“oasis”, “shelter”, “comfortable women’s club”) in which
the notion of security is translated into a “different kind of space”, also
understood as an “alternative” space as well as an epistemologically new
space.
Here I cite an example from an interview with one of the students:
Women’s Studies epitomised a “safe”, different intellectual, emotion-
al, conceptual, cognitive space. A different way of knowing. A space in
which one could “extend” in an unconventional or conventional direc-
tion without fear or disparagement. Suddenly, what I was feeling was
legitimate, and not (only) that what could be gauged. /.../ It was unusu-
ally important to know, to discover that what I perceived as me could be
completely epistemologically legitimate (excerpt from an interview with
a Women’s Studies student, generation 2006/2007).
As may be seen from the above excerpt, the space for feminist teach-
ing means a safe place for articulating the self, which is a prerequisite for
learning feminism and for the mutual exchange of ideas and thoughts.
For bell hooks, the politics of location is inseparable from the politics of
knowledge and the politics of resistance, and both derive their meanings
from theorising about the experience of transformation and the art of cre-
ating new knowledge, which is essentially a “plan for radical critical prac-
tice” (hooks, 1996, p. 51).
In her essay “Rethinking the Time of Feminism”, Drucilla Cornell
states: “Feminism is radical because it demands that we re-think the ‘ori-
gins’ and the ‘limit’ of philosophical discourse, even as we are challenged
to do so philosophically” (Cornell et al., 1995, p. 149).
Here, I would like to elaborate more on the potential held by disobe-
dience while remaining in the terrain of feminist epistemology. Bearing
in mind all of its above philosophical foundations, I felt somewhat uneasy
with the notion of epistemology firstly due to its discursive pretension to
embrace totality or wholeness in terms of knowing, marked as “universal”.
The inability of recognising examples of misogyny in science or humani-
ties, or the sexism that thus institutionalises the inferiority of women in
discourse through epistemic operability, refers to the historical refusal to
unfold the knowledge formatted within hegemonic universal epistemol-
ogy. The more I dealt with feminist epistemology, the more I found its
subversive potential for creating some of my arguments around justify-
ing feminist claims for recognition and re-appropriation of the notions
and concepts which have been stolen from women. Questioning concepts
such as gender/sex differences, discrimination, misogyny, cognitive biases
and sexism, domination and colonisation, the relations of sexual identity
37
as a “safe place” (“oasis”, “shelter”, “comfortable women’s club”) in which
the notion of security is translated into a “different kind of space”, also
understood as an “alternative” space as well as an epistemologically new
space.
Here I cite an example from an interview with one of the students:
Women’s Studies epitomised a “safe”, different intellectual, emotion-
al, conceptual, cognitive space. A different way of knowing. A space in
which one could “extend” in an unconventional or conventional direc-
tion without fear or disparagement. Suddenly, what I was feeling was
legitimate, and not (only) that what could be gauged. /.../ It was unusu-
ally important to know, to discover that what I perceived as me could be
completely epistemologically legitimate (excerpt from an interview with
a Women’s Studies student, generation 2006/2007).
As may be seen from the above excerpt, the space for feminist teach-
ing means a safe place for articulating the self, which is a prerequisite for
learning feminism and for the mutual exchange of ideas and thoughts.
For bell hooks, the politics of location is inseparable from the politics of
knowledge and the politics of resistance, and both derive their meanings
from theorising about the experience of transformation and the art of cre-
ating new knowledge, which is essentially a “plan for radical critical prac-
tice” (hooks, 1996, p. 51).
In her essay “Rethinking the Time of Feminism”, Drucilla Cornell
states: “Feminism is radical because it demands that we re-think the ‘ori-
gins’ and the ‘limit’ of philosophical discourse, even as we are challenged
to do so philosophically” (Cornell et al., 1995, p. 149).
Here, I would like to elaborate more on the potential held by disobe-
dience while remaining in the terrain of feminist epistemology. Bearing
in mind all of its above philosophical foundations, I felt somewhat uneasy
with the notion of epistemology firstly due to its discursive pretension to
embrace totality or wholeness in terms of knowing, marked as “universal”.
The inability of recognising examples of misogyny in science or humani-
ties, or the sexism that thus institutionalises the inferiority of women in
discourse through epistemic operability, refers to the historical refusal to
unfold the knowledge formatted within hegemonic universal epistemol-
ogy. The more I dealt with feminist epistemology, the more I found its
subversive potential for creating some of my arguments around justify-
ing feminist claims for recognition and re-appropriation of the notions
and concepts which have been stolen from women. Questioning concepts
such as gender/sex differences, discrimination, misogyny, cognitive biases
and sexism, domination and colonisation, the relations of sexual identity
37
