Professing Feminism, by Patai and Koertge

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  I agree with Richley Crapo and others who have argued that Women's Studies
must take the charges made by Patai and Koertge seriously, treating those
charges as hypotheses that should be investigated systematically.  I find it
harder to agree that Professing Feminism is, itself, a work of serious
scholarship.  It seems to me that the book is an odd hybrid, combining
claims to scholarly status with the language and rhetorical devices of
polemic.  I expect interdisciplinary work in women's studies to combine the
strengths of the different kinds of research done in different disciplines.
Thus, I would expect Patai and Koertge's work to combine the attention to
representativeness, careful measurement of variables and care about
generalizing that is characteristic of the social sciences with the close
reading of textual evidence that is characteristic of literary studies.  But
this book gets low marks on both counts (thereby inadvertantly providing
support for one of Patai and Koertge's claims -- that interdisciplinary
scholarship in women's studies doesn't meet the minimum standards of quality
of the individual disciplines).  As many others have already pointed out,
Patai and Koertge generalize wildly on the basis of interviews with a
small, non-random sample, without making any serious attempt to assess the
bias in their sample or to consider counter-evidence; it would not be
difficult to get another non-random sample of 30 from WMST-L to use as the
basis of a very different set of conclusions.  In addition, I often found
myself uncomfortable with the way Patai and Koertge used the evidence they
did give; there were several places in the book where they used quotes from
their interviews or from WMST-L to support a certain point, but when I read
the quote closely, it seemed to be evidence against the point the authors
were using the quote to make.  (I'm sorry; I don't have the book in front of
me, so I can't give specific citations.)
   I will admit that I found this book infuriating.  But my fury is not
because the book critiques women's studies; I welcome responsible critique.
But Professing Feminism is not that.  The best refutation of Patai and
Koertge's book would be for Women's Studies scholars to investigate their
charges using the high standards of scholarship that I think Women's
Studies represents, but that Professing Feminism did not attain.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jean L. Potuchek
Women's Studies
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg, PA 17325
jpotuche  @  gettysburg.edu

 
Though I found "Professing Feminism" to be an interesting and troubling
read, I like some earlier posters, found that it did not reflect my
experience with Women's Studies.  I was especially taken aback by the
authors' description of males being unwelcome/silenced in WS courses--in
the graduate WS course I took at the U. of Michigan last year, it seemed to
many women that the professor actually _favored_ the three men in the
class--she called on them more often, learned their names immediately, etc.
In fact, I'd say those guys dominated class discussion.  When I noticed
this, I figured I was just being paranoid; it wasn't until I spoke to seven
or eight classmates at an end-of-term party that I realized it was a
popular opinion.  This leaves me with the same question posed by other
posters:  was my experience anomolus, or did Patai and Kortege rely on
anecdotal evidence to represent Women's Studies?  BTW, I did find their
observations on the lesbian/heterosexual caste system to ring
true--"heterosexual feminist" was treated as an oxymoron in this class.
Again, though, I don't know if that's true of WS as a whole.
 
Kristi Coulter
kristic  @  k.imap.itd.umich.edu

 
Two recents posts have been made regarding Patai & Koertge's book,
PROFESSING FEMINISM, parts of which are presented below.
 
Unsigned writes:
 
>.....I do not think it appropriate to ignore the question they have
>raised.  We should have more empirical data that speaks to the question
>of whether there are structural difficulties that create problems we
>might be otherwise blind to. .......
 
and Dr. Jane Elza adds:
 
> .....professing feminism does not describe my experience with wmst. in
>fact, i suspect that the examples came from universities with larger
>problems of diversity/backlash. ..... It might be useful for someone on
>this list to do a survey, using Pati's criteria, to see what we in the
>boonies, far removed from the chi chi political correctness controversey,
>actually have.
 
I am currently working on a book titled WOMEN IN SCIENCE: MEETING
CHALLENGES AND TRANSCENDING BOUNDARIES.  It is an edited volume containing
essays written by undergraduate and graduate students in so-called "hard"
science career tracks, essays by women who have left those programs, and
essays by senior level scientists and program directors.  All contributions
are by women.  I am not making a plug for the book because it is not yet
even published, but instead want to present some interesting insight relative
to the comments above.
 
During the course of working on this project, I have interviewed a large
number of women in science.  I have also read a large volume of essays,
because I made a general call for contributions from undergraduate and
graduate students.  The group of women was not selected on the basis of
whether they had taken a course in Women's Studies, nor were they selected
based on them having a feminist background.  The sole criteria were that
they be female and either be currently enrolled in a "hard" science program,
or left such a program.
 
As I reviewed the submitted essays and talked with women in hard science
programs, a pattern emerged that is consistent with a point made by Patai
& Koertge in PROFESSING FEMINISM -- namely that feminism is not very kind
to women that choose careers in the "hard" sciences.  Some degree of
credibility is attained if one is a scientist but denounces and/or criticize
the way scientific knowledge is structured and the institution of science as
a whole.  However, even these women tend to be marginalized.  This is by no
means a formal sociological study, nor is it a statistical sample.  However,
it does represent a group of women independently ascertained, a majority of
which report negative experiences with women's studies and feminism.
 
I recognize that this is a complex issue.  It is well documented that hard
science fields are predominantly a white male domain and have been riddled
with sexism, racism, exploitation, etc.  Furthermore, a lot of good work
has been done by feminist scholars in the area of critically examining the
manner in which scientific knowledge is structured, as well as the "last
word" position that science holds in culture.  Thus, when a woman who has
presumably freely chosen a hard science career track is encountered by
someone concerned about the issues raised within feminist scholarship
regarding science, a dilemma is created that is not unlike the one faced by
lesbian and heterosexual feminists in the 70's.  The heterosexual feminist
was often viewed as less genuine or suspect, because she was "sleeping with
the enemy."  In a similar manner, it is often difficult for feminists,
particularly college students reading about these issues in Women's Studies
courses for the first time, to comprehend how women can make a choice to enter
into a field that seems so blatantly anti-female.  As Noretta Koertge points
out in an article published in the Chronicle for Higher Education (Sept.
1994), the general view held in feminist circles is that science must be
"cleaned up", dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up, before it can be a
suitable career for a woman to pursue.
 
Do scientists that are women have a contribution to make to a feminist
discourse within and in areas other than science?  Can we value women in
feminist circles who are scientists but are not criticizing or working to
change science?  Is it possible to view a woman as a human being, a sister,
without mapping onto her the label, "instrument of patriarchal oppression",
because she is a scientist?  These are salient questions and is one example
of how I think that PROFESSING FEMINISM can be a valuable tool.  One of the
major themes that I derived from the book is that the theory encountered in
women's studies courses impacts upon the lives of people in both positive
and negative ways.  The negative side has been comparatively unexplored.
Of course, some aspects of the negative side are beyond our control.  For
example, a student may become dogmatic and make things very uncomfortable for
the rest of the class.  We have no way of predicting that a student may become
overzealous or what aspect of the curriculum might trigger such a response
in a given student.  However, it does not necessary follow that all of the
negative impact is beyond our control, nor does it follow that if a
majority of individuals have positive experiences, we can simply ignore
those who have negative ones.  Adopting such a philosophy would place
women's studies in an analogous "let them eat cake" position to the one held
by the white male power structure at the inception of the second wave.
 
Iana Pattatucci
"Luciana%bchem.dnet  @  dxi.nih.gov"

 
 Professing Feminism
 
"Though I found "Professing Feminism" to be an interesting and troubling
read, I like some earlier posters, found that it did not reflect my
experience with Women's Studies.  I was especially taken aback by the
authors' description of males being unwelcome/silenced in WS courses--in
the graduate WS course I took at the U. of Michigan last year, it seemed to
many women that the professor actually _favored_ the three men in the
class--she called on them more often, learned their names immediately, etc.
In fact, I'd say those guys dominated class discussion.  When I noticed
this, I figured I was just being paranoid; it wasn't until I spoke to seven
or eight classmates at an end-of-term party that I realized it was a
popular opinion."
 
This post struck me as the first one I've seen on _Professing Feminism_ which
enables us to engage the critique at a level beyond polemic.  In my experience
what Kristi describes here is probably familiar enough to all of us who have
either taken or taught women's studies courses. I'm not sure the dynamic is
entirely in our control here and it is probably worth discussing in more
detail because it's a problem that's not going to go away anything soon.
 
We have no control over who signs up for our courses. That's a fact of
university life.  There is a strong likelihood that a women's studies course
and even a gender studies course will be predominately female.  There may be
only a handful of men.  The very imbalance of numbers immediately genders
situations which may in other context not be about gender at all.  Anyone who
is in a social situation in which they are the only X is going to feel
unwelcome.  A black woman in a group of white men will feel uncomfortable and
perhaps unwelcome.  A single Marxist in a group of corporate executives will
feel unwelcome.  It doesn't matter what the peoplein the group do to make the
individual feel welcome, s/he will feel as if there is a group ranged against
him/her.  That's isolation.  And the teacher may quite possibly compensate by
shifting attention to those individuals.  I'm sure the situation happens with
black students in predominately white women's studies classes.
 
It's a no win situation and that's how
I've experienced it. If anyof the very few males in my classes slack off, don't
participate, don't do the work, then I end up thinking about the issue as a
gender issue when it isn't, the student is simply not doing the work.
 
But and here's my question, isn't this more a function of how communal norms
work rather than a problem specific to women's studies?
 
I know I'm not articulating this well and that's why I'm being long-winded.
But I've often been intrigued by the idea of "choral support" in settings like
this.  Perhaps some Bakhtin would be helpful here (M.M. Bakhtin was a
Russian cultural theorist who wrote on the dialogic.  Whenever we articulate a
position we always do so with a particular audience in mind.  We do so as part
of a dialogue and we anticipate what our respondent will say.  That is our
speech is always shaped by another's speech as dialogue.  It's a lot easier to
articulate a position when you feel as if the respondent will respond
supportively (not necessarily in agreement, but supportively).  If you expect a
hostile response you shape your words differently (or in my case become simply
inarticulate).  I wonder if this dynamic isn't playing itself out in these
cases.  But I also wonder whether that isn't a dynamic that happens in lots of
classes in which an individual or group of individuals are isolated for some
reason.  I sure as hell don't know what to do about it.
 
Sorry for the long-windedness.
 
Cheers
Laurie
 
 
                                     ,,,
                                    (o o)
+-------------------------------oOOo-(_)-oOOo--------------------------------+
|        Laurie Finke, Women's and Gender Studies, Kenyon College            |
|                  Gambier, OH 43022       phone: 614-427-5276               |
|        home: 614-427-3428, P.O. Box 731     mail: FinkeL  @  Kenyon.Edu        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
                                   ()   ()

 
        I wanted to contribute my experience to the discussion. I direct
a small Women's Studies program (in my spare time) at an urban public
university--courses are taught basically out of departments (e.g. the
intro course is cross-listed between english and history and co-taught).
Women's Studies at my univ. doesn't resemble the portrait in Professing
Feminism. I also coordinate the assessment of our cultural diversity core
(all undergrads have to take a "cultural diversity" course from a
menu--courses have to address race and gender in the US and include
African American, Chicano/Latino, Asian American, Native American
communities). In both areas and most especially concerning the cultural
diversity core (getting it accepted by the faculty, drafting the
criteria, approving courses, dealing with student expectatations),
sections of the faculty and of the students have expressed concerns that
the courses were going to involve (using Patai and Kortege's) shorthand,
IDPOL, BIODENIAL, TOTAL REJ. Basically expecting the courses would not
involve serious scholarship, not involve debate or dissent.
        My own experience in academia, starting on my BA in 1965 and
going through grad school and teaching that the real problems Patai and
Kortege identify (orthodoxy, not allowing multiple perspectives;
proselytizing; lack of reasoned debate and discussion) have characterized
some classes in traditional disciplines as well as in Women's Studies.
        I do experience problems in many of my classes in facilitating
reasoned debate about contending perspectives, but I attribute this to
the current societal climate (either everyone wants to agree or there are
very nasty attacks on other views).
 
Jana Everett
University of Colorado at Denver
jeverett  @  carbon.cudenver.edu

 
In response to Kristi Colter, who said about a women's studies class:
" I was especially taken aback by the authors' description of males being
unwelcome/silenced in WS courses--in the graduate WS course I took at the U.
of Michigan last year, it seemed to many women that the professor actually
_favored_ the three men in the
class--she called on them more often, learned their names immediately, etc.
 In fact, I'd say those guys dominated class discussion."
 
I think this follows the same rule that is active when it's said women talk
too much.  The hard truth is that women speak much less than men, but the
standard for women is silence, so *any* speaking up is "too much."  Both
women and men tend to feel this way (no, I'm not talking about enlightened
feminists, though I suspect we get caught up in it too sometimes--after all
we all live in this distorted gender system!)  A class which is about women,
in which men are the minority, in which women's voices are solicited, will be
seen as anti-male, even if the 2 or 3 men actually speak out more,
proportionately, than the women (and believe me, left to themselves, they do
tend to do so, partly because, even in women's studies classes, women tend to
silence themselves when men are present).  It's the same dynamic that occurs
when, if women complain about their treatment in this patriarchal society,
that's called "male-bashing," a violent term that hardly accurately describes
even the real down and dirty anti-male opinion that does sometimes occur.
 After all, think about who REALLY gets BASHED in this culture?
 
This was not a well-thought-out comment, just some jottings I couldn't help
posting in response to all this discussion.
Ellie Amico

 
Could the critique of Women's Studies courses and programs be related to
the "teflon" problem?  In other words are different standards being applied
to women's studies and feminists than are applied to other programs and
approaches?  There is a great deal of intolerance and arrogance in the hard
sciences and other areas populated by men.  I still have women students
telling me about male professors who have ridiculed their interest in the
hard sciences, because they are women.  However, since this is the
establishment and the "real approach" some people assume that it is immune
from criticism.  Therefore, these areas and the people (usually men) who
populate them have teflon.  Criticism simply slides off and doesn't stick.
Many don't even notice the arrogance, bias, and unwelcoming attitude
towards women.  After all we've had centuries of misogyny so it's pretty
normal.  However, since women and women's studies and feminists are the
"derivative" or the "other", they lack teflon.  Any intolerance or
arrogance (or maybe even assertiveness) is seen as outrageous.  "How dare
they?"  Perhaps women should simply be grateful that they are admitted into
the academy at all and just shut up.  So, what I'm saying is let's put this
all into perspective.  I would say that my experience of women's studies is
not one of intolerance at my institution.  I teach a women's studies course
myself (psychology of women) and welcome men in my classes.  I want to turn
them into allies and supporters of women if I can. I agree with the post
that discussed the issue of gender composition.  When men are a minority (a
unique experience for many of them) and when they are not the topic of
discussion (in women's studies) this makes many of them uncomfortable.
Heck it even makes many women uncomfortable, who are used to making sure
that men are comfortable.  I bring up this issue at the beginning of the
class.  We deal with it up front.  That works well for me.

 
An unsigned writer states concerning Professing Feminism that fields populated
by men which are arrogant or intolerant are protected from criticism by teflon
and that intolerance and arrogance within Women's Studies is judged by a
different standard and seen as "outrageous." First, one of the major contribu-
tions of Women's Studies an feminist research and criticism is  to have
exposed, critiqued, and NOT tolerated the intolerance and arrogance which
has indeed characterised academic life and research which was and remains
predominantly but not exclusively male. Second, I would hope that we critics
would apply the same high standards to our own field - Women's Studies - an be
similarly vigilant in exposing instances of intolerance and arrogance. For
helping to raise these issues within Women's Studies, I applaud Professing
Feminism's effort, and agree with earlier writers to this list that this book
should cause us to discuss and examine introspectively our own house to be
sure that it is in order.
Joan Mandle    Colgate University
jdmandle  @  center.colgate.edu

 
Readers following this thread and interested in the way that Patai and
Koertge's book represents Women's Studies may want to take a look at
the 2-page article by Koertge in the current issue of *Skeptical Inquirer*
(v.19#2, March/April 1995, pp.42-43), entitled "How Feminism is Now
Alienating Women from Science."  On the cover of the issue, the blurb
describing the article says "Women's Studies Fights Science."  If the
book seems to overgeneralize, wait till you read some of the bald assertions
in this piece!  Granted, the readers of *Skeptical Inquirer* may have been
skeptical about Women's Studies (and about all things Feminist) without any
additional help from Koertge; but did she really have to help galvanize
them in their stance, or prod them toward even greater negativity?  I fail
to see how such a cursory treatment, addressed to a popular audience likely
to have little background in Women's Studies, can do the discipline any
good....  The authors' choice of markets (popular, rather than academic)
makes me wonder if part of their agenda isn't more along the lines of
"public shaming" (picture Hester Prynne, up on the scaffold!) than anything
else--although I hope that my hunch about this is mistaken.
                                           -- Karen Kidd
                                              kkidd  @  rocky.claremont.edu