Comments on: Feminism in Schools: Teaching Feminism When You’re Not a Feminist

By: Fifth Carnival Of Feminist Parenting « Mothers For Women’s Lib

Fifth Carnival Of Feminist Parenting « Mothers For Women’s Lib — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:00:18 +0000

[...] one more from JMegan – Feminism in Schools: Teaching Feminism When You’re Not a Feminist posted at Small [...]

By: OuyangDan

OuyangDan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:15:18 +0000

Awesome take! Yes!

And I agree. The most powerful and meaningful thing you can do is to work to give every person in every classroom a chance. Sometimes I think this means that we might have to be aware of the dynamics and the make up of that classroom, and possibly actively pursue that balance, but in the end if we have tipped things more toward that balance, we have succeeded.

Also, I wonder if the reason that girls go to college in higher numbers has anything to do with social expectations? Do families emphasize education more to girls, and trades or “manly hand work” to boys? They did sometimes where I grew up. Or what about athletics? How many boys get pushed into sports. I would be interested to see where the boys who aren’t going to college are going.

By: The Fifth Carnival of Feminists « Zero at the Bone

The Fifth Carnival of Feminists « Zero at the Bone — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:41:50 +0000

[...] part of her Feminism in Schools series, Ashley of Small Strokes writes Feminism in Schools: Teaching Feminism When You’re Not a Feminist. She discusses both course content and some factors that are less often thought of [...]

By: Feminism, Teaching, and Teaching Feminism | Small Strokes

Feminism, Teaching, and Teaching Feminism | Small Strokes — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:02:08 +0000

[...] Teaching Feminism When You’re Not a Feminist post, so I thought it only right to ask if I could cross-post it here! Enjoy! [...]

By: Ashley

Ashley — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:57:56 +0000

Thanks for all the awesome comments! I want to respond to Sarah in particular. Sarah, are you saying that giving every student an equal chance isn’t meaningful enough? I think that is the most powerful, meaningful thing you can do as a teacher. Whether it is by race, gender, class, or anything else, discrimination against students can happen, and not being aware of it and working to fix it is potentially the most damaging thing we can do to our students.

By: Feminism, Teaching, and Teaching Feminism « Student Activism

Feminism, Teaching, and Teaching Feminism « Student Activism — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:06:47 +0000

[...] a blogpost this morning (via @HappyFeminist’s Twitter feed) that asked what struck me as an interesting question, and I’d like to take a swing at answering [...]

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:46:01 +0000

I agree that it’s always necessary for teachers to treat their students fairly and give everyone a voice, of course, but what do you do if that’s not the problem? Quite aside from issues of “having a voice,” girls do much better in school on average than boys do, and they attend college in higher numbers, such that people have begun to speak about a “crisis of education” for boys. So what if giving girls a chance to have a good education, as a minimum standard for equality, is no longer the problem? I don’t have an answer, but I think feminist proposals for education have to advocate something more radical in order to be meaningful.

By: HappyFeminist

HappyFeminist — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:03:42 +0000

“Giving girls a sense of ownership over their education helps them as well as the male students understand the basic concepts of feminism and implement them in their every day lives. That is, after all, what we want, right?”

“Although I absolutely agree that the concept and historical aspect of feminism is important for our youth to understand, I don’t know that it is necessary to explicitly teach feminism in order for the same effect to happen. ”

I love these two sections! They show how much you’ve thought of the issue and I really appreciate it.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:56:04 +0000

It also seems like a lot of the in-the-classroom (and not necessarily curriculum) efforts come on account of the teacher simply being fair to all her students. What a concept!

By: DancingGrapes

DancingGrapes — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:23:23 +0000

Also – if you don’t feel comfortable enough with the information to teach it, there are always guest speakers. Don’t know a lot about dating violence? Contact the local crisis center. Uncomfortable with safer sex? Get in touch with Planned Parenthood. It takes a community so find the community and invite them in!