In this article, the author shares an experience during which she was not able to successfully construct a feminist space within her practice. She encountered a particular group of undergraduate students who did not like her feminist classroom, a classroom where all voices can be heard, and where knowledge is co-constructed through respectful…

This article discusses an innovative program, Smart-Girl, developed in collaboration among feminist scholars, educators, and business women concerned with intervening in and improving the lives of adolescent girls in their community. This program is unique not only in its success, but also in the social and emotional impact it has had on the high…

In this article, the author describes her experience, hired seven years ago by a CUNY school, The College of Staten Island (CSI). She expresses that although incredibly challenging, that first year taught her an invaluable lesson. It was through these embodied experiences that she now understands the teacher's body, her body, creates a…

In this article, the author discusses action literacy, and suggests that identifying literacy as political, ideological, and connected to power structures and abuses of power is not enough for a proponent of active literacy and critical pedagogy. Action literacy is a literacy of positionality that highlights the importance of movement and flux. It…

In this essay, the authors argue that linking second language learners with communities that need their language skills can result in an empowering experience for students and for the communities with which they work. They describe a college-level service-learning project that was designed to help IMPACT Chicago, a women's self-defense…

Teacher authority is wielded in such a way that it is no longer "the" authority. Authority is used to open a space for students to find their own authority through speaking and writing--through voice. This process, so central to the feminist classroom, leads to the goals of feminist pedagogy as articulated by Robbin Crabtree and David Alan Sapp:…

At the core of many people's homophobia is their understanding of the position God had toward homosexuals. Fundamental to their homophobia is their use of religious rhetoric that justifies it. According to many conservative Christians who label homosexuality as sinful, homophobia is "praised by the Lord." Such use of religion naturalizes and…

Several theoretical and pragmatic questions arise when one attempts to employ feminist pedagogy in the classroom (or to study it), such as how to strike a balance between classroom order and instructor de-centering and how to productively address student resistance. In this article, the author describes how she took on her final project for a…

Teaching students to think critically while integrating their personal experiences with feminist scholarship has become a very important objective in the Introduction to Women's Studies course. Women's studies introductory courses are designed to introduce students to feminist inquiry, using gender as the center of analysis while examining its…

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a unique technological institute comprised of eight colleges, including the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. At the institute, deaf students and deaf culture intermingle (not always seamlessly) with students from other nations, states, and cities. Like most other universities, its students are…

The images of fat professors encountered in popular culture are few in number and negative in depiction. In this article, the author discusses on how will the professorial body affect the way in which students perceive the professor's teaching abilities. The author concludes that bias against fat professors, professors of color, and other…

In this article, the author demonstrates the very real possibility of using technology to help open up the classroom space so that students feel empowered. For her, such possibilities are at the center of feminist praxis, especially on urban campuses and at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Building a feminist pedagogy on an…

The stakes are high for feminist teachers. Susan A. Basow, Nancy T. Silberg, Kathryn Duncan, Michael Stasio, and others have reported disturbing findings regarding the discrepancy between student evaluations of male professors and female professors. Professors who have identified themselves as feminists or committed to practicing feminist…

In this article, the authors ask: What is the difference between an assumed image of empowerment and a "real" image of empowerment? How can feminist educators help students to tell the difference? What do the discourses of current third-wave feminism and postfeminism teach women about representation, empowerment, and their place in the realm of…

The following essay is a discussion of the author's work of becoming a male feminist teacher in the face of conservative views of feminism as well as skepticism from female (and male) students. He examines how authority (of knowledge) and authenticity (of experience) inform and impact the feminist practice of a male writing teacher. He…