Teaching gender studies: a case for an unsubmissive creativity embodied in diverse feminist pedagogies and in one particular mind

ŠMÍDOVÁ, Iva. Teaching gender studies: a case for an unsubmissive creativity embodied in diverse feminist pedagogies and in one particular mind. In Creative Bodies—Creative Minds. 2024.

Basic information

• Original name: Teaching gender studies: a case for an unsubmissive creativity embodied in diverse feminist pedagogies and in one particular mind
• Authors: ŠMÍDOVÁ, Iva.
• Edition: Creative Bodies—Creative Minds, 2024.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Country of publisher: Austria
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: web konference
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• Keywords (in Czech): feministická pedagogika, gender, výuka genderových sttudií
• Keywords in English: feminist pedagogy; gender; teaching gender studies
• Tags: feminist pedagogy, gender, teaching gender studies
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

Teaching gender studies involves sensitivity to inequalities, respect and critical assessment of the state of the art in the discipline. Sustaining gender courses or even programs in the university curricula requires creativity, flexibility, and endurance. Balancing between the formal structures of normalised university course curricula on the one hand, and the unsubmissive character of gender oppression as well as feminist thought, methodologies and pedagogy on the other present a vivid field for reflection. I remember unyielding experiments in every course offered bringing the lived experience to the students and incorporating their standpoints and encounters with the studied subjects. The proposed presentation for Creative Bodies—Creative Minds conference is based on decades of personal lived adaptations, flexibility and creativity used in my own teaching of gender studies courses at a social studies department in a liquid environment of changing tertiary education in the Czech Republic. The lived experience of massification, neo-liberalism, pro- and anti- gender moods, own career phases and lived enthusiasm, scepticism, reflexivity and feminist collective empowerment mingle there. Ad hoc examples from thematic courses (Men and Masculinities, Life-course: from Cradle to Grave; Medical Sociology) and gender relevant topics in general sociology courses taught by the author will be shared documenting the joy and necessity of creativity embodied in diverse teaching practices – inspiring and transforming minds into and for feminist thought of all actors involved.