from The Struggle for Pedagogies
01/20/2012
From the Struggle for Pedagogies by Jennifer Gore:
"- Women are silenced, objectified and made passive through the course content and the pedagogical style of most college classrooms. (Maher, 1985b , p. 31)"
"- The silencing, humiliating and devaluing of girls and women is the outcome of patriarchal pedagogy regardless of how progressive or authoritarian that pedagogy might be. It is built into the educational establishment itself, operating as institutional sexism even where it is not built into the deliberate assumptions and intentions of teachers in patriarchy. (Morgan, n.d., p. 23)"
Gore's quotations here remind me of how when I was working on my dissertation, I was repeatedly silenced through the ignoring of my attempts to respond to misinterpretations of my work. I was even told not to respond in a very authoritarian manner. And I was told that my dissertation director "would not and could not honor" a chapter that I had put a great deal of labor and thought into and which he misinterpreted. So, absolutely, women are silenced by patriarchal pedagogy, and I have experienced it firsthand.