"Feminist" Teaching/Teaching "Feminism"

by Ellen C. Carillo


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 pedagogy, these findings show, consistently score especially low marks particularly—but not exclusively— from their male students. The fact that these course evaluations are used in decisions regarding salary, tenure, and promotion may help explain why many junior faculty and even some veterans, who have practiced feminist pedagogy in the past, are reevaluating their teaching methods. "The increasingly 'client-serving' environment of the contemporary university," in Robbin D. Crabtree and David Alan Sapp's terms, or "the customer is always right" attitude, in Nancy Sommers's words, has compelled many teachers to "pander to students' tastes and sensibilities rather than adopting theoretically grounded, innovative, and progressive pedagogies that encourage critical, social and selfreflection" (Crabtree and Sapp 134). Not only is one's job at stake, but the presence of women in academia—and especially those who practice feminist pedagogy—is at stake if female professors continue to receive lower evaluations than their male counterparts. In this article, I will examine a set of student evaluations in which I received low marks from some students who were skeptical about my teaching practices. I will situate these comments as indicative of the gap between what students and teaching academics constitute as teaching. These evaluations raise many complex issues, as well, surrounding the use of feminist teaching practices outside of women's studies, thus enabling me to explore the challenges therein so that we may begin to ensure a future for feminist pedagogy.