Professing Feminism: Feminist Academics and the Women's Movement

Abstract

This article examines feminist academics' work in its social and political context, with the purpose of understanding the conditions which facilitate or impede the incorporation of a feminist perspective into college or university teaching. The discussion analyzes four basic contradictions which pervade feminist academic work: the contradictions (1) between feminist academics and their students, (2) between feminist academics and their disciplines, (3) between feminist academics and the institutional setting of their work, and (4) between feminist academics and feminists working in the larger women's community. The analysis of these contradictions focuses on the role of structured competition in shaping and constraining the ways in which feminist academics can do their work. The article ends with some brief suggestions concerning areas of needed action.