More Than Meets the Eye: The under Side of the Corporate Culture of Higher Education and Possibilities for a New Feminist Critique (1)

Introduction Feminist scholars and social activists have, over past decade, noted world wide antifeminist backlash aimed at clawing back gains toward equity and social participation that women had made over thirty years since second wave of feminist movement. Hidden by globalization discourse, general trend toward fundamentalist ideologies in many parts of world--the east as well as west--have particular implications for feminist scholarship, criticism, and ultimately participation of women in framing and contributing to policy and decision making. Over past decade there have been some salient critiques of turn to globalization and privatization as it affects post secondary institutions, and teaching and scholarship they support. However, these critiques have, by and large, failed to note hidden anti critical component of these processes and of implications for feminist researchers and scholars within academy. As so often happens with critical theory, even those advanced by well informed and socially conscious social critics, feminist framework falls out of discussion. After contextualizing problematic, this paper offers a feminist analysis of three specific examples that otherwise appear to be politically neutral incidents in academy, and thereby points to a possible direction for a new feminist criticism. The Challenge of Maintaining a Feminist Standpoint In a radio interview (CBC, 2004) in March, Judy Rebick (2) suggested that, in west, feminist movement is in disarray. Young women don't think that feminist movement represents them, she said and consequently, she went on to say, the women's movement is aging. (3) For those of us who consider ourselves to be part of feminist movement, Rebick's observations were not startling. Indeed, I found it telling that topic was featured on Canada's national public radio network. I believe Rebick is not alone in questioning apparent absence of voices in our everyday social and cultural life from a once vibrant and hopeful movement. There are reasons why, collectively, many of us, both inside and outside academy, have come to reflect on place and impact of feminism in year 2004. (4) As a feminist teacher, I know that teaching feminist theories in academy requires that students become familiar with certain kinds of concepts, that they engage certain kinds of discussions, and that they produce certain kinds of knowledges having to do with critical awareness of our social, political and economic situation. Increasingly I find myself searching for right feminist texts that might serve my students well. Every term, I prepare a good enough pattern of readings and an experimental juxtaposition of discussions. Yet I am increasingly aware that texts that brought such richness and complexity to my generation's understanding of issues with which feminism concerned itself, seem not to fit generation of my students. (5) Sometimes it feels like I am in a time machine. I am aware that, each year that I face a new class of students, I am a year older than I was year before, while my students remain same age. Year after year I get older. They stay same age. More than fifteen years later, I am teaching daughters and sons of my contemporaries. I know that I am not alone in finding it more and more difficult to identify those texts by which to raise conversations that would speak to realities of my students' lives. The image of a weaver works well as a metaphor for contingencies of feminist politics and practices where usefulness of woven product is matched by importance of process of juxtaposing texture, and pattern, and colour. At end of each term, like a weaver, I examine product aware that it is not quite what is needed. …

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