Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies [Paperback]

Daphne Patai (Author), Noretta Koertge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0739104551 | ISBN-13: 978-0739104552 | Edition: Expanded

Feminists have often called Women's Studies the "academic arm of the women's movement." But Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge charge that the attempt to make Women's Studies serve a political agenda has led to deeply problematic results: dubious scholarship, pedagogical practices that resemble indoctrination more than education, and the alienation of countless potential supporters.

In this new and expanded edition of their controversial 1994 book, the authors update their analysis of what's gone wrong with Women's Studies programs. Original chapters feature interviews with professors, students, and staffers who invested much time and effort in Women's Studies, and new chapters look primarily at documents recently generated from within Women's Studies itself. Through critiques of actual program mission statements, course descriptions, newsletters, and e-mail lists devoted to feminist pedagogy and Women's Studies, and, not least, the writings of well-known feminist scholars, Patai and Koertge provide a detailed and devastating examination of the routine practices found in feminist teaching and research.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This unsparing account of the troubles that beset Women's Studies programs should incite vigorous debate. (Publishers Weekly )

Feminists should read this book seriously and debate it vigorously. In this way they would be engaging in the self-reflection and self-criticism that are necessary to strengthen feminism. (Joan Mandle, Former Director of the Women's Studies Program, Colgate University, and author of Can We Wear Our Pearls and Still Be Feminists? )

The answer that emerges from Professing Feminism is clear: Whatever Women's Studies in its present form may be, a scholarly or intellectual enterprise it is not. . . . This witty and informative book also is an excellent read. (The Washington Times )

Essential reading for anyone involved in Women's Studies. (Library Journal )

This book is certain to start a firestorm within the North American academic feminist movement. (Asahi Evening News, (Tokyo) )

In this illuminating book, Patai and Koertge show that . . . in many universities Women's Studies programs have been transformed into political pressure groups or religious cults. The authors' analysis of the situation, based on expert examination of eyewitnesses, leads to the inevitable conclusion that Women's Studies, as presently professed, represents a giant step backward into educational fundamentalism. (Mary Lefkowitz, Wellesley College )

This book seeks not to kill Women's Studies, but to save it. Feminists should listen closely. (National Review )

It is impossible not to admire the courage and integrity that inform Professing Feminism, although, as the authors know full well, it will provoke many feminists to condemn them as traitors and deny their claim to write as feminists at all. (Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, author of Feminism is not the Story of My Life )

About the Author

Daphne Patai's most recent book is Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism. She is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Noretta Koertge, the author of A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science, is Professor Emerita of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 426 pages
• Publisher: Lexington Books; Expanded edition (January 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739104551
• ISBN-13: 978-0739104552
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1.3 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #934,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 53 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Feminist gamesmanship July 29, 2003

By Stephen A. Haines HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Koertge and Patai reveal the impact of "Women's Studies" programmes in North American universities. They examine the aims and practices in these study areas through interviews and analysis of curricula. The analysis is presented with a unique format - the authors couch their findings in the form of "games". Like all games, there are rules, playgrounds and players. The players are the teachers and students, but the spectators are the readers of this book. As taxpayers, the spectators often aren't aware of the game. This book can go far in enlightening the audience.

The underlying theme is the dominance of activism over scholarship. The authors note how activism by feminists in the 1960s and '70s led to the introduction of these special study areas. More attention given to the role of women in society led to courses in women writers, artists and politicians. Once in place in more university classrooms, Koertge and Patai show that the assault on "traditional" standards became even more widespread. The authors open the book describing the IDPOL game - "identity politics and ideological policiing". Teachers and students alike place high emphasis on acceptable roles and see that these are enforced. A major facet in establishing "identity" is the playing of TOTAL REJ - the eschewing of anything attributable to masculine origins. Examples are traditional philosophy, mathematics, science and technology. An extension of TOTAL REJ is BIODENIAL. The latter game introduces "social construction" to Womens' Studies by asserting anything related to gender is culturally based. This imported philosophical stance has been applied to wide areas in education, but impaired science and mathematics courses most severely according to the authors.

Fear of "backlash" reaction to the excesses of the programmes led the National Women's Studies Association to undertake a study. Koertge and Patai are at their most scathin[g in assessing the report produced by the NWSA. Virtually based on the book "Women's Ways of Knowing" that advocated a "connectionist approach" to learning. Self-expression, urged the NWSA, is more valuable than study, research and writing skills - "Empowerment over Epistemology". Epistemology is traditional, hence, masculine, hence unaceptable as a foundation for learning in the university. The authors offer a different solution. They urge the dimemberment of Women's Studies programmes by relocating the courses into the appropriate departments. Game-playing and "empowerment" would be shed for more meaningful scholarship.

Almost lost in this study is its most frightening statement: "feminist pedagogy . . . is being taken up by secondary and even elementary school educators and policy makers" [p. 44]. They define "academia" has a site for scholarship and debate while bewailing erosion of these values by feminist dogma in their conclusion. This dogma has emerged in the public school system [see C.H. Sommers' "The War Against Boys"] and shows little sign of abating. Anyone interested should glance at the list of university "Women's Studies" programmes readily available on the InterNet. The same courses, often taught by the same people, using the same curricula and reading material are still listed. This realisation will keep this book useful for some time. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada.]

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece September 15, 2010

By Mad Rapper

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I never read the original "Professing Feminism," but my understanding is that this new edition is the same as the old one with an additional 100 page "update" at the end. The update is very much worthwhile and merits getting the new edition. I should be clear though, this is not casual or light reading. It is very dense, very scholarly and very highly researched and referenced. Although it doesn't have sections with problems or anything like that at the end of the chapters, it reads very much like a textbook for a university course (and, in my opinion, is excellently suited for exactly that.) The author's are professors who have been involved in women's issues and women's studies.. seemingly since they began. They are passionate, eloquent, persuasive, candid and insightful. If you're looking around the world and the status of relations between men and women and asking yourself "how the hell did things get like this?", this an excellent book to help you understand where feminism and its "academic arm" in our universities (ie women's studies) pushed us down the path. A final note on the price, it is a bit expensive, but it's a high quality publication (in terms of paper quality and binding) and is filled with tremendously researched material. When you look at the number of pages it has, keep in mind, there is no fluff here. I really can't recommend this book enough.

47 of 65 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Unmasking the sham on campus May 30, 2003

By The Old Philosopher VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Patai and Koertage have studied the hate training program called "Women's Studies" from a sociological perspective. They go into detail on how a badly flawed political training program masquerading as "studies" is now being promoted and taught at virtually every college. Instead of education, young women get dogma. Instead of intellectual challenges, young feminists are taught to accept the party line without question. The authors include reviews of government agency promotion of the dis-education now accepted on college campuses. Where "knowing" replaces scholarship, where victimology replaces competency, where hate replaces wisdom, that is today's "Women's Studies" program. Title IX is mentioned in passing, but the question of an equal education required by law is not asked. With over 700 colleges in the US now funding misandrist propaganda classes called "Women's Studies" why aren't any of them required to also teach equivalent classes for men under Title IX? Even as bad as Women's Studies comes off in this book there is other, and perhaps equally valid and more damning criticism left out.

The book needs to be widely read by every college administrator and by every legislator who has to vote on college budgets. The authors mince a few words, probably to keep from being stoned, but the message is clearly stated. Prejudicial agenda conformity and hate on campus is not education. Buy the book. Give one to your college age student. Donate another one to your favorite library and college.