For this task, we were asked to read through three texts. Below are the links to my notes on each:
(Please be aware that the order I read them in does not correlate to the order that we have chosen to present them in as a group.)
- Before I realised they were all women... I expected it to be more about materials: Art, Gender and Tacit subjectivity, Hannah Hames (2016)
- Beauty and the Beast: Can Life Drawing Support Female Students in Challenging Gendered Media, Clare Stanhope (2013)
- Feminist Art Curriculum, Elizabeth Garber (2019)
We then are tasked with presenting the information in order to signpost the reading for other students on the course that may have a starting-point for their own assignments.
I will here write my script for what I would like to say in this presentation. What I say on the day may differ as I won't read from my notes. But it may serve as useful guide for anyone that will read these notes.
Introduction:
[Good afternoon, welcome to our presentation on Feminist Pedagogies. As per the task, we have all read through, analysed and broken down the key lessons into four points for each of the three texts. We are reviewing them from the perspective of student teachers, so we will expand on each of these twelve points to describe how they apply to the classroom.
As we will discuss, the fight for the equal rights of women is ongoing and while we have made some cultural progress, it is essential to be aware of inequalities and to promote equitable practices.]
Feminist Art Curriculum (E Garbner):
[We will start today with 'Feminist Art Curriculum', by Elizabeth Garber.
The article discusses how the ideas of feminism within the art curriculum have changed over time.
Garber in her text, references Patrick Slattery who identifies a list of actions that teachers should take to enact a gender-sensitive curriculum. This was written for a wider educational field, but Garber explains that each of these six points can be suitably applied to art and design.
This list includes:
- Educating oneself about biological sexes and gender identities.
- Educating others about sex and gender through films and literature, (or artists!) that expose learners to the diversity of identity.
- Acceptance of students and staff, whatever their gender or sex
- Intervening in bullying practices.]
2 – Persistent Issues in the Art & Design Curriculum
Sexist content and practices persist in how the arts are taught. Approaching the classroom with understandings of feminist dialogues can help teachers to notice and dispel sexist practices.
3 - Lack of Representation
Women are massively underrepresented in curricula. As teachers, in the construction of these curricula we can combat this sexism by actively including more female artists.
4 – The gendered discussion between Fine Art and Craft practices
Marginalisation of sexes can be communicated through appreciation of practices and approaches, such as textiles, fabrics, clay-making etc. We can challenge this by showing artists that engage in these practices with the same appreciation.
Meghna's Script:
'Arts and crafts have inherently been gendered within the curriculum. Boys were taught in a more ‘industrial workshop’ setting using power tools and ‘hard’ materials, whilst girls were taught things like sewing, knitting and embroidery, using soft, delicate materials.This gendering of materials and processes is something we as teachers need to actively combat by exposing our students to artists of all genders that practise a range of crafts, therefore breaking down the expectations and stereotypes behind them.'
Beauty and the Beast: Can Life Drawing Support Female Students in Challenging Gendered Media (Clare Stanhope)
1 - Portrayal of Women in the Media.
Applying this to create a feminist pedagogy, we should recognise and present a range of women with different body types, ages and cultures, presenting women in contexts removed from sexualisation.
2 – Paradox of insecurity and representation
Students are trapped between wanting to fight gender stereotypes and wanting to fulfil them. Critical conversations with students can help to formulate opinions and reflections.
Megnha's Script:
'As I will touch upon in article 3, we must be careful not to push students to participate in dialogues they may not wish to engage in. Life drawing may not be the most comfortable for everyone, but could be empowering to some, so it’s about identifying that balance. For example, some students may be passionate about actively and openly fighting gender stereotypes, but may feel social pressures not to. It is on us to help them navigate the environment of being a young person in today’s world who wants to share their voice through art, and a big part of this is for us to encourage discussions about what they really want to say and how art can be an expression of that.'
[ Before I explain this point. I just wanted to take a minute and describe something that honestly has always seemed quite imposing to me. So I'd like to present to you the ultra boiled down summary I have found for the waves of feminism.
The first wave of feminism was the protest to shift the identity of women from property to person.
The second wave challenged the role of women in society.
The third wave is the era of reclamation, identity and sexuality.
I wanted to take a minute to describe this, possibly for my fellow hombres in the room that might not also have this understanding, but the reclamation of sexuality is an important step in the renegotiation of women's rights. And while that in itself is a really positive thing, this text describes the effect of a culture of sexuality on the body images of children of today. This text argues that girls especially do not see representations of their gender in any way except sexualisation.
Therefore the lesson that can be found from this text that applies to the classroom is that by presenting women of all ages, cultures and body types can help to expose children to a broader understanding of femininity.]
4 – Steps to renegotiate identities
As a group we discussed how life drawing might not do much to counter a lifetime of exposure to sexualised representations. But this only highlights the importance of lessons that challenge this. Also, importance of art as content creation.
Before I realised they were all women... I expected it to be more about materials: Art, Gender and Tacit subjectivity (Hannah Hames)
1 – Pigeon-holing artists into dialogues
We should recognise that the constitution of students do not confine them into dialogues that they may not wish to engage in. Removing these assumptions, promotes equality within the classroom.
[Now as a whole, all of us found this text to be problematic. But the children presented in this study honestly gives me a lot of hope about future generations, despite any disagreement by the 'researcher' of this study. I will let Mary describe the core of my frustrations in just a second, but before that I just want to reflect on the success of removing the context of gendered language from an artist that did not want to be held within that dialogue. As Meghna has just described pigeon holing artists is reductionist, but something very simple that we can do as educators, and that curators can do also is to remove gendered language from artists that do not wish to engage in discussions of gender.]
3 – The role of the teacher as framing texts
This paper discusses intertextuality, but neglects the most important text, the understanding of the teacher that they bring into the classroom.
Megnha's Script:
'The third text we read was an article titled "before I realised they were all women.. I expected it to be more about materials: Art, gender and tacit subjectivity’ by Hannah Hames. It recounts a research study done by the author where student teachers were asked to read 2 contrasting texts with language positioning themselves differently about gender, and subsequently analysing their ability to engage effectively with ‘women’s art’. The most obvious inference from this research study was that our own experiences and encounters with gender inevitably lead us to form stereotyped assumptions. The student teachers read a text with gender neutral language about 5 female artists/curators and automatically assumed that the term ‘artist’ was referring to male artists, and didn’t check the name of the artists (the only clue) to see that they were women. They also made an assumption that female artists would make issue-based work as opposed to male artists who create more ‘media, technique and material’ based work. Although this study is not the definitive result of everyone’s reaction towards gender, we have a responsibility as art teachers to view students as autonomous beings rather than a body meant to fulfil a role because of who they are, and especially not to exert our own biases upon the type of artist they want to be.'
4 – Problematising absence of gendered language
This research problematises both the use and absence of gendered language without providing criteria for what would be the most aware use of language.
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