Beyond Essentialisms: Team Teaching Gender & Sexuality

Abstract

This paper contributes to the dialogue about pedagogical and curriculum reform in higher education, and in Women's Studies in particular, by challenging essentialist assumptions concerning should teach what to whom. We describe an innovative team teaching pedagogy coupled with an inclusive curriculum that demonstrates to students the relational construction and fluidity characteristic of systems of genders and sexualities. Our pedagogy and curriculum accomplish two objectives. First, we challenge essentialist assumptions about who should teach what, or politics of experience assumptions excluding men from teaching about women's issues or gender. Second, through both course content and teachingpractice, we challenge the essentialist assumptions underlying dominant American gender and sexual ideologies.