Tensions and possibilities of feminist authority in post-compulsory education

Abstract

In this paper we address the positions of feminist academics in educational establishments, taking higher education as a particular arena for the exploration of more general questions. The academy is reframed as a site of (largely implicit, but sometimes explicit) contest around gender and feminism, with feminist initiatives eliciting a corresponding antifeminism which is expressed in complex and sometimes surprising ways. Organisations are read as gendered spaces which provide a backdrop or structure for professional experience. We explore how the responsibilities required by academics can provide opportunities for feminists to challenge and question the dominant culture/discourse. We draw on examples from three professional activities in which our positions as women enter in salient ways. First, the experience of teaching and facilitating learning to psychology undergraduates and women’s studies students. Second, the experience of supervision at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Third, the position of mentor, advisor, and counsellor which is an integral part of supporting students. Using examples from our own teaching and supervisory practices, we examine the tensions and interplay between constructions of gender and feminism, developing appropriate boundary relationships and the fostering of educational development, including resistance – the students’ resistance to us, our resistance as feminists in the academy and the interplay between the two. Rather than prescribing coping strategies, we explore some implications of being positioned as feminists in terms of organisational participation, our subjectivities and the students we aim to support.