Feminist Teacher
Abstracts for 14.2

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“Ms. Smith Goes to Washington: Feminist Internships in the Nation’s Capital”

By Nichole Bennett

Internships are an effective way to complement knowledge gained in the academic classroom with hands-on activist experience in a social change organization.  For the feminist student, the network of women’s organizations in our nation’s capital provides a wealth of internship opportunities and the chance to advance the substantive work of the women’s movement at the national level.  As a tool for instructors and for their students seeking internships in Washington, DC, this article provides information on the types of feminist internships available in the nation’s capital, the “how-to’s” of obtaining and maximizing an internship experience, and the resources available to students for sustaining political activism beyond their work in Washington, DC.

“The King’s English: A Campus Fable”

By Sherryl Kleinman and Matt Ezzell

In the late 1990s, the first author spoke to a university-wide faculty committee to convince them to change “freshman” to “first-year student” in all university documents. The resistance she encountered mirrored the comments students have made in her sociology classes when she discusses problems with male so-called generics (e.g., “freshman,” “chairman,” “you guys”). The committee decided not to decide, and sent on the proposal to the provost, who failed to make the change. “The King’s English: A Campus Fable” is a fictionalized, humorous account of the first author’s experiences at that meeting. It examines unconscious sexism in English, rhetorics of resistance, and strategies for responding to that resistance. Students can discuss the work in class or act it out. Selected references, to be read by students along with the piece, are listed at the end.      

“Feminist Theory/Practice Pedagogies in a Shifting Political Climate”

By Karen W. Tice

The national political climate has significantly reshaped the activist landscape within which many women’s studies students must work. Further, many communities do not offer an extensive range of women’s social change organizations and, as a result, many students work within highly professionalized and traditional social service settings. This article will suggest a variety of concrete pedagogical strategies and readings to help students build a critical understanding of women’s activism globally, especially for those students who work within mainstream organizations.

“The Development of Political Consciousness and Agency: The Role of Activism and Race/Ethnicity in an Introductory Women’s Studies Course”

By Melissa R. Peet and Beth Glover Reed

Reed and Peet discuss the rewards and difficulties of including an experiential component in their introductory women’s studies class. In addition to problems posed by large class sizes, their students hold different commitments women’s studies with some who care primarily for fulfilling the university’s race/ethnicity requirements. Students are encouraged, but not required to participate   in the “action project.” In their article, Reed and Peet analyze some outcomes for those who chose the action project and those who opted instead to write a research paper. Peet and Reed’s research suggests that the choice of an action project had the greatest transformative impact on white women students. The authors conclude that the feminist action project should be fully integrated into the course structure rather than remain an optional assignment.

“The Making of an Activist-Scholar, Or My Year as a Congressional Fellow”

By Kimala Price

Price’s essay describes her experience as a fellow at Women’s Research and Education Institute (WREI), a national public policy institute that researches and promotes issues that affect women.  Price describes how the internship helped to clarify her own aspirations to be both an activist and scholar and to grapple with the question: “How to practice politics and policy-making from a feminist perspective in a climate that is skeptical of and hostile to feminism?” She notes that internships have become the entry-level positions of many organizations in Washington and serve as the springboard for political careers.  She acknowledges that, unfortunately, those who have access to these internships must have other means of support, such as parents or substantial savings, in order to take advantage of them.