The feminist classroom in a Neoliberal University

Abstract

This chapter explores the meaning of feminist classrooms as safe spaces in the context of rising fascism and ultra-nationalist political parties across the globe. Focussing on the United Kingdom, I examine how safe spaces and care are mobilised by students to make sense of hostile contexts in which marginalised students and racially othered staff are further ostracised in neoliberal universities. I argue against simplified conceptualisations of collaboration and care in the feminist classroom, emphasising the distinction between feminist ethics and the broader resistance to power that is subverted by university hierarchies. I underscore how discourses on care and safety reproduce racialised and gendered expectations on staff in neoliberal universities without reciprocity, which is implicit in praxis of care. I argue for brave spaces as a useful way to understand the dual task of education and challenging power in feminist classrooms, whilst placing responsibility for interactions that centre personhood at the heart of the classroom. I argue that framing classrooms as brave spaces within the current political climate offers an opportunity to turn what are often difficult and sometimes tenuous conversations about the coherence between feminist ethos within the neoliberal university into transformative conversations about the nature and demands of the feminist classrooms.