A Feminist Web Pedagogy

Distance education courses traditionally draw “reentry women and men, working-class students, and members of underrepresented ethnic groups who might not otherwise be in college at all” (Hopkins 97), and, probably in part as a reflection of the higher numbers of women students enrolled in universities overall, women also often comprise a majority of distance education students (Koch A60).  Traditional distance education courses, however, offered by televised broadcast, present a number of problems for women’s studies faculty.  For example, Ellen Cronan Rose notes in “‘This Class Meets in Cyberspace’:  Women’s Studies via Distance Education” that difficulties arise when students learn together from “primary and remote sites” (58).  Indeed, the very language involved in that phrasing suggests clearly the inequity “remote” students may feel in their learning, excluded from the immediate access that the “primary” student have.  With an asynchronous online course, however, students have equal access to each other and to faculty, needing only a computer, Internet access by ethernet or modem, and enough computer literacy to use the Internet and email.  Indeed, I would argue based on my experience teaching composition with computers—and I would wager that most of you reading Kairos would agree—that students have more access in this format even than in traditional classrooms; in an online class, students can email their class members, access their assignments, and do their research twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  Students tend to write more frequently and to engage more directly in the construction of their classroom.  Even those initially hesitant speaking out in class and about computer-intensive courses find them valuable as they become accustomed.

These benefits can apply to any course using the many forms of computer technology, but are a distinct advantage to courses attempting to create an dynamic learning environment, particularly women’s studies courses.  As Rose notes, the major criticism that women’s studies faculty have of distance education is that it often is difficult to use traditional technologies to create “the kind of participatory, collaborative learning that is the hallmark of the feminist classroom” (53).  The kind of web-based internet access courses being currently created in the academy lend themselves very successfully to this kind of learning, however, by making use of such technologies as forums, message boards, and electronic mailing lists.  The environment of the Internet as well is one that lends itself to the notion of learning as constructed by our culture and our interactions with others, rather the learner as merely receiver of knowledge.  And as Cheyenne M. Bonnell notes, “Women tend to learn better in classes where they are asked to participate more actively” (qtd. in Blumenstyk A36).

So what are the elements of a feminist pedagogy, and how can we use different technological formats support that?  A feminist pedagogy, whether one is teaching composition or women’s studies, attempts to decenter authority.  As Dale Bauer notes in “The Other ‘F’ Word in the Classroom,” we achieve as feminist rhetoricians in the classroom “a mastery that is not oppressive, . . . an authoritative voice that is not the only authority” (395).  Furthermore, we remain as “learners in the classroom as well as sources of authority and expertise” (NWSA 14).  Such a pedagogy is collaborative, interactive and participatory; it strives to foster the individual voice in the classroom.  The basic structures and assignments of a women’s studies classroom are designed to foster such a model.  “To replicate in the academic setting the powerful transformative effect of the consciousness-raising techniques of the early women’s movement, most introductory courses include class discussion, written journals and the sharing of personal experiences in an analytical context.” (National Women’s Studies Association 9).  And “[b]ecause feminism seeks to replace hierarchical forms of authority with shared leadership, skills for democratic decision making are essential.  Cooperation rather than competition distinguishes feminist process.” (Schneidewind 18).  My own program at USC emphasizes both the interdisciplinary emphases of women’s studies and the activist tradition from which it grew.  A feminist pedagogy, to use a classic feminist and computer metaphor, attempts to weave students and faculty together into a web.

While the internet can be an ideal venue for exploring that pedagogy, a number of scholars have noted that our acceptance of technology as a delivery means for distance education cannot be uncritical.  While technology holds tremendous possibilities for empowering women through greater educational opportunity, it can also create barriers.  Cheyenne M. Bonnell notes that a “busy single mother still has to find the time to watch the televised classes and do the coursework, or she has to find the money to buy a computer. . . . What’s more, she says, electronic discussions are not necessarily more inviting to women than live ones.  ‘There are ways that women can be shut down on line.  It’s all according to what questions you ask’” (qtd. in Blumenstyk A36).  In 1994, Billie J. Wahlstrom argued in Literacy and Computers:  The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology that the “development of network systems and of software is highly influenced by cultural factors, including the privileging of socially assigned male ways of thinking."  I have certainly found this to be the case in my teaching with Blackboard, which duplicates online very precisely the structure of the traditional classroom.  Wahlstrom continues:  "As we rely heavily on technology that we have not subjected to feminist analysis, we let our acceptance of it color our definitions of literacy” (181).  And as Gail E. Hawisher and Patricia Sullivan quote a participant in a study of academic women and their online lives, “Do we expect the computer to be like the Maytag, making everything better for all of us, making each and every one of us Queen for a Day?  I think I’d like that but don’t imagine I’ll get it” (172).

No, teaching women’s studies online doesn’t erase the gendered assumptions that may go into the creation of the technology; just the fact that the course is a graded endeavor in an academic institution creates a whole set of assumptions that must be confronted and challenged for a feminist rhetorician.  But when a student has no other access to women’s studies, it’s important that faculty find ways to bring it to them.  I find myself now in a position I once stated firmly that I would never occupy—teaching distance education.  But perhaps my students will have enough access to a computer—every one of my students last fall reported that they felt the did, in fact.  And perhaps they won’t fear the internet as a location for learning.  In my own teaching, I'll continue to work to replicate the classroom dynamics that are essential to my definition of myself as a teacher.  I've already seen a shift in the attitudes at USC that reflect an administrative understanding that 20 instead of 200 students in a distance education course is a reasonable number, depending on the goals of the course.  As all these elements continue to come together, my students and I will continue to be fully engaged in the web of feminist pedagogy.