A Discourse Not Intended for Her: Learning and Teaching Within Patriarchy

Abstract

The overwhelming experience of women in a society dominated by men is that of being silenced. Feminist writers have shown that women are often silenced everywhere they turn,including in the classroom. Magda Lewis and Roger I. Simon, one as female student and the other as male teacher, describe and analyze the process of silencing as it occurred in their graduate seminar designed to explore the relationship between language and power.

The Ethics of Inclusion: Gender as a Critical Component of Counselor Training

“…Instructors of gender issues courses, whether women, men, or mixed-sex teaching teams, must be particularly sensitive to the dynamics of power relationships in the classroom, in terms of instructor-instructor, instructor-student and student-student interactions (Hoffman, 1985;Lewis & Simon, 1986;Schlib, 1985). In mixed-sex classes, female students often have difficulty gaining access to their voices and often feel silenced by the replication of male authority within the classroom (Belenky et al, 1986;Culley, 1985;Lewis & Simon, 1986;Rich, 1985;Six Spoke Collective, 1991). Male students may also feel that they are being unfairly blamed and reproached for the problems experienced by women, particularly in discussions about violence (Matlin, 1989).…”

“…A pedagogical posture that deemphasizes hierarchy, competition, and control and which, instead, encourages cooperation and collaboration, as well as tolerance of difference, may be particularly important in helping all students to gain access to their voices in the classroom. It would also provide an atmosphere conducive to self-exploration and learning (Cannon, 1990;Lewis & Simon, 1986).…”

“…Considerable controversy still exists regarding the validity and usefulness of much of the research on sex differences (Hare-Mustin & Marecek, 1990; also see Kitztnger, 1994) Also, there is no consensus on the most effective way to infuse gender issues into the curriculum (Higginbotham, 1990;James, 1991;Lewis & Simon, 1986;Maher, 1985;Worell, 1992). Nevertheless, the perspective taken in this article is that a truly inclusive and responsible curriculum must attend to gender as a central and mandatory component of counselor training.…”

Thoughtful incoherence: First encounters with the phenomenological-hermeneutical domain

“…Yet the fear of silence runs deep in our culture, and social interpretations of silence are highly charged: children are treated as both silent and hearing-impaired long after they can speak and understand speech, for instance. Women are routinely relegated to silence, especially in learning situations (Lewis and Simon, 1991), where their experience is frequently ignored or appropriated by others who make erroneous assumptions about what they think. Persons who are labelled as "other" -the mentally ill for example, and those who are neurologically impaired (see Sacks, 1985)-are effectively muted by being treated as mute.…”

Exploring power and authority issues in a collaborative research project

“…More than ever, too, I am aware of my groping attempts to decenter myself, to not write or act as invisible and neutral narrator, not only within the construction of the book but also within our mutual constructions of our collaborative work (Lewis & Simon, 1986;Maher & Tetreault, 1988;Miller & Martens, 1990;Patai, 1988). Most importantly, I think I close the book's cover because I am unable to address issues of power and authority in isolation.…”