Reflections on teaching.

Insights into feminism

by Brenda D. Frink on 01/17/11 at 9:54 am

In 1980, four years after she arrived on campus as an assistant

professor, Estelle B. Freedman co-founded Stanford University’s
Program in Feminist Studies. Thirty years later, the program boasts
faculty from twenty-seven different academic disciplines and its
courses draw students from around the campus.

At “Beyond the Stalled Revolution,” a panel event sponsored by the

Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Freedman
reflected on her years of experience as a classroom teacher,
particularly her experience teaching the popular course, “Introduction
to Feminist Studies.” By examining the issues that have engaged her
students over the decades, Freedman traced the history of the
feminist movement and issued recommendations for the future.

Freedman, who is now the Edgar E. Robinson Professor in U.S. History, began teaching Stanford courses about women
and gender in the late 1970s. Her students engaged enthusiastically with women’s issues, in the context of the feminist
movements of the time. Students arrived with a high level of political motivation, and the challenge was to channel that
enthusiasm to complex analysis, rather than to simply “add and stir” women, as a category, to the study of humanities
and social sciences.
For example, it was not enough to simply identify “great women”
who had contributed to history, literature, and more. Rather,
Freedman encouraged her students to analyze the intersecting
hierarchies that permitted some women and men, but not
others, to gain positions of power and influence.

In the Reagan Era, the political environment changed, both

inside and outside the classroom. More incoming students
expressed discomfort with the word “feminism”–even as they
largely embraced the feminist movement’s central tenets.

Freedman observed “a seeming paradox of young women who felt entitled to economic and social equality with men yet
expressed an escalating fear of feminism.” Some scholars have correlated this escalating fear of feminism with a “stall” in
the gender revolution.

Many of Freedman’s students expressed faith in American ideals of equality and did not see the need for a feminist
movement. Other students perceived the feminist movement as being solely for lesbian women or solely for the white,
middle-class.
Indeed, over the years a major goal of Freedman’s has been to ensure that in addition to thinking in terms of gender,
her students consider other social categories such as race, class, and sexuality.

As an example, Freedman pointed to critics of a liberal

feminism that once focused narrowly on encouraging
educated housewives to leave their homes and enter the
workforce. This strategy may improve the lives of middle-class
women but does not address the concerns of their working-
class peers. In fact, the professionalization of middle-class
women (often white) has largely relied on inexpensive
domestic labor provided by working-class women (often non-
white), as housecleaners and childcare providers.

“Hence the question,” asked Freedman, “does women’s liberation liberate the maid?”

By thinking of ways to simultaneously address race, class, and gender issues, Freedman challenges her students to
develop complex solutions to social problems. “I’m often surprised by the number of students who report that the most
important thing they learned in Feminist Studies is that race makes a difference. I’m delighted they learned that,
surprised it has taken this long.”

Beginning in the 1990s, Freedman has seen a new group of students in her classes: the sons and daughters of second-
wave feminists. Simultaneously, national and international political developments—such as the United Nations
Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the international exposes of sex trafficking of women, and the same-sex
marriage campaign—have made many students sympathetic to movements for gender and sexual equality, even if they
do not personally claim the label “feminist.” Professor Londa Schiebinger presenting Gendered
Innovations in Berlin
Despite the changes in student concerns over the course of Freedman’s teaching career, there have been some
constants. One is the issue of physical vulnerability—although services and awareness have increased, women as well as
gay men and transgendered students continue to feel vulnerable to physical and sexual assault. Freedman is currently
responding to the issue of sexual violence by writing a book about the political response to rape in American history.

Another is the need to place the study of gender within contexts of other social issues. In
the lives of women around the world, the hierarchies of race, class, and nationality are as
salient as the hierarchy of gender. Freedman’s books No Turning Back: The History of
Feminism and the Future of Women and The Essential Feminist Reader, both of which are
used in courses in the United States, analyze gender from complex, global perspectives.

At the “Beyond the Stalled Revolution” panel, Freedman and other scholars met to
consider the recent history and the future direction of the feminist movement. Asked to
issue her recommendations for the future, Freedman closed her remarks with a caution,
one that echoed a major message of her courses:

“Addressing only the status of women will not suffice…. Feminism will fail if we strive
merely to make women the equals of men in their capacities to exploit and to be exploited.
Rather, we need to explore how our insights about women can help us to create a more
egalitarian world.”

This article is the third in a five-part series on the “Beyond the Stalled Revolution” panel.
Upcoming issues of Gender News will feature additional scholars who spoke at the
event. More information about Estelle B. Freedman’s courses and research can be found
at ebf.stanford.edu.

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