Communities of Resistance: A Case Study of Two Feminist English Classes in Japan

Abstract

■ I first came into contact with other women who were combining their study of an L2 with their interest in feminism in Tokyo in 1982–1985. As a young White American woman active in a group of Japanese and foreign feminists in Tokyo, I was asked to teach English classes for participants in two different Japanese feminist groups. I also started my own Japanese women’s literature study group with other foreign women. I have lived again in Japan since 1992 and have heard about or been involved with over a dozen different such study groups or classes over the years, including those in regions outside Tokyo. Although such classes seem to spring up spontaneously and independently of each other, gradually I have come to see the efforts of the women involved in these classes as forming a pattern or approach to language learning that is distinct in certain respects from other models, something that could contribute to the ongoing evolution of a feminist second language pedagogy (Fujimura-Fanselow 1991, 1996; Schenke, 1996; Vandrick, 1994, 1995). I became interested in examining in what ways this approach is distinct and what its appeal is to the women instructors and learners involved so that I and others can learn from and apply it more widely.