Page 42 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 42
šolsko polje, letnik xxxi, številka 5–6
some things. Words ceased to be ordinary information and became my
own experience (excerpt from an interview with a student, 2017/2018
generation).
/…/ I noticed that after the Women’s Studies programme I revised my
basic views on society, on myself and my own choices, and on how I dared
to say out loud some things I would never have dared to say before, that
I was able to demand something, ask for something /…/ it was definitely
a turning point in my education, if not in life itself /…/ (excerpt from an
interview with a student generation, 2009/2010).
An important moment for a student’s turning towards transforma-
tion, which on a personal level is often referred to as an act of articulation
through voice, an act of self-awareness, self-knowledge or new knowledge,
is part of the process in which knowledge of the self is contextualised,
and in which woman is constituted as the subject of knowledge. Feminist
positioning refers to two simultaneous inquiries: to articulation (Butler,
1997) through providing and creating stimulating, thoughtful, and pro-
vocative women’s voices on diverse subjects from a woman’s/gender per-
spective, and to “coming to voice”, and both matter. Addressing voice as
the place in one’s own self where words have authority and by being rec-
ognisable – gain the recognition, “coming to voice” (Crary, 2001) refers
to this very transformative momentum of shifting, a momentum of re-
sistance where those who are marginalised become the agency of shift-
ing events in favour of social change. While voicing, in a strictly Butlerian
sense (Butler, 1997, p. 8), is an act of enactment, it can also be seen as an
act of “ontological” solidarity with and among those who belong to sim-
ilar subjugated or marginalised groups and communities. The process of
self-reflection and articulation of knowledge through voicing and mutual
listening defines the dynamic of educational practices themselves.
For me as a feminist who has been teaching feminist theories for
more than two decades within both an alternative women’s studies in-
stitution and within the university, critical pedagogy is an implicit ave-
nue leading into feminist fields, almost its self-assumed presumption in
the same manner as feminism is the self-critical process of re-reading and
re-questioning theoretical areas, social reality and one’s own position.
More precisely, if the “/…/ challenge to scholars and social activists to push
the boundaries of knowledge to go to new epistemological spaces”, as clear-
ly stated by Joe L. Kincheloe in his book Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy
(Kincheloe 2008, p. 24), seems like a new demanding appeal nowadays,
for feminists it has always been a way of thinking, breathing, feeling, ex-
isting, and disobeying hegemonic patterns of knowledge. Instead of an
40
some things. Words ceased to be ordinary information and became my
own experience (excerpt from an interview with a student, 2017/2018
generation).
/…/ I noticed that after the Women’s Studies programme I revised my
basic views on society, on myself and my own choices, and on how I dared
to say out loud some things I would never have dared to say before, that
I was able to demand something, ask for something /…/ it was definitely
a turning point in my education, if not in life itself /…/ (excerpt from an
interview with a student generation, 2009/2010).
An important moment for a student’s turning towards transforma-
tion, which on a personal level is often referred to as an act of articulation
through voice, an act of self-awareness, self-knowledge or new knowledge,
is part of the process in which knowledge of the self is contextualised,
and in which woman is constituted as the subject of knowledge. Feminist
positioning refers to two simultaneous inquiries: to articulation (Butler,
1997) through providing and creating stimulating, thoughtful, and pro-
vocative women’s voices on diverse subjects from a woman’s/gender per-
spective, and to “coming to voice”, and both matter. Addressing voice as
the place in one’s own self where words have authority and by being rec-
ognisable – gain the recognition, “coming to voice” (Crary, 2001) refers
to this very transformative momentum of shifting, a momentum of re-
sistance where those who are marginalised become the agency of shift-
ing events in favour of social change. While voicing, in a strictly Butlerian
sense (Butler, 1997, p. 8), is an act of enactment, it can also be seen as an
act of “ontological” solidarity with and among those who belong to sim-
ilar subjugated or marginalised groups and communities. The process of
self-reflection and articulation of knowledge through voicing and mutual
listening defines the dynamic of educational practices themselves.
For me as a feminist who has been teaching feminist theories for
more than two decades within both an alternative women’s studies in-
stitution and within the university, critical pedagogy is an implicit ave-
nue leading into feminist fields, almost its self-assumed presumption in
the same manner as feminism is the self-critical process of re-reading and
re-questioning theoretical areas, social reality and one’s own position.
More precisely, if the “/…/ challenge to scholars and social activists to push
the boundaries of knowledge to go to new epistemological spaces”, as clear-
ly stated by Joe L. Kincheloe in his book Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy
(Kincheloe 2008, p. 24), seems like a new demanding appeal nowadays,
for feminists it has always been a way of thinking, breathing, feeling, ex-
isting, and disobeying hegemonic patterns of knowledge. Instead of an
40
