Communities of Exclusion: Women in the Learning Environment
There will be no mass-based feminist movement as long as feminist ideas are understood only by a well-educated few
As bell hooks says, education as “the practice of freedom” will be a reality for women only when we develop an educational methodology that addresses the needs of all women (hooks 2014, 116). In this article I examine classroom culture through a western, feminist lens and detail a potential solution involving problem-based learning.
I would like to preface I recognize any notion of ‘shared oppressions’ as complex; women have multiple identities at different times and in different groups. This article is not representative of all women’s learning experiences, rather a way to look at spaces as they communicate existing attitudes and beliefs of a patriarchal culture.
Historical Background — Feminist Spaces
Public space is widely understood as socially constructed and in which ‘actors perform’ their gendered categories. Although, they continue to be theorized from the premise of the universal male norm (Rosewarne, 2005). The public learning space becomes an assumed site of masculinity because of the link between political structures and their historical…
