ANU Masterclass opportunity: Men and masculinities: Theoretical and historiographical reflections. (apply by
Miscellaneous
When men participate as students in Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) classrooms, they undergo feminist change. They adopt more progressive understandings of gender, show greater support for feminism, and increase their involvement in antisexist activism. Male students in WGS classrooms benefit to the same degree as female students, showing similar levels of change, although they start with poorer attitudes and thus the gap between them and their female peers persists. At the same time, male students’ presence highlights critical challenges to feminist pedagogy: gendered patterns of interaction, resistance to feminist teaching, and limitations on women’s critical reflections on personal experience. When men teach WGS, typically they are ‘‘graded up’’—evaluated by students as less biased and more competent than female professors. Male professors face distinct dilemmas in teaching about gender inequality from a position of privilege. Yet, like male students, they can adopt traitorous and antipatriarchal social locations and standpoints, developing pedagogies for and by the privileged.
I was recently puzzling over why I was having such difficulty doing a particular piece of writing. Everything I tried felt a little off key, a little false, and I couldn't understand it. It slowly dawned on me that the explanation was that I couldn't write authentically about the topic at hand without setting it in a different and broader context -- that is, without talking at least briefly about my feelings about masculinity.
What image pops up when you hear the term ''feminist''? Some might imagine unshaven legs and armpits, short hair and a shorter temper. Others might envisage a middle-class humanities academic - perfect prey for ''chardonnay socialist'' gibes. If you imagined both of these, well done. I have hairy pins, I'm bald, I have a background in the liberal arts - and I'm a feminist.