Critiquing the Rhetoric of "Safety" in Feminist Pedagogy: Women of Color Offering an Account of Ourselves

by Kyoko Kishimoto and Mumbi Mwangi

"It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors."
—Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed 42

With its emphasis on empowering students' voices and valuing experiential knowledge, and on collaborating and creating community, feminist pedagogy has long been understood as integral to the field of women's studies. Feminist theories and practices inform how we teach within a feminist classroom. Very little research has been done, however, to illuminate the challenges of embodying feminist pedagogical practices that address the locationality and subjective positions of women faculty of color. According to Christine Stanley, "[t]here is very little empirical research on the teaching experiences of faculty of color in predominantly white colleges and universities…[and] …most salient themes identified …relate to student attitudes and behaviors inside and outside the classroom" (19). In this paper, we critique the rhetoric of safety in feminist pedagogy. We use our own lived experiences and perceptions of safety, or lack of it, to disrupt and interrogate ways in which the hegemonic power of the dominant discourse in academic culture in general, and feminist pedagogy in particular, is embedded in constructing, naming, and defining feminist teaching and classroom environments.