Les féministes font enquête à l'université - Critique

Men's Studies Modified: the impact of Feminism on the academic disciplines: édité par Dale Spender. Exeter: Pergamon Press (The Athene series), 1981

Formuler une critique rigoureuse des disciplines académmiques, profondément façonnées par la pensée patriacale de notre société, n'est pas chose facile. Pour y réussir, Dale Spender a recueilli les analyses de sept Américains, un Australien, sept Anglais et deux Américains travaillant en Angleterre (pas de Canadien - mais le texte fait souvent allusion aux travaux de nos compatriotes). Ce recueil de textes montre que l'homme a monopolisé les structures du savoi, qu'il en a exclu la femme. Dans les universités, éminemment sexistes, les programmes académiques ont longtemps été des programmes d'études créés par les hommes, pour les hommes. Longtemps, l'homme a affirmé "objectivement" que son savoir était le seul valable. Mais comme l'a dit Adrienne Rich, dans une société patriarcale, l'objectivité n'est rien d'autre que la subjectivité masculine. . .

Au fil des années, toutefois, le féminisme a commencé à modifier les structures d'acquisition du savoir et du pouvoir. Les femmes ont réussi à se faufiler, à faire une percée dans le monde académique...

Ce recueil de textes explore une multiplicité de thèmes et soulève plus d questions qu'il n'en résout nous dit Greta Nemiroff. Dans chaque domaine qu'il aborde, il invite les lecteurs à fair une étude plus approfondie; il est donc ainsi un parfait catalyseur de la démarche intellectuelle.

Greta Hofmann Nemiroff est directrice de "La nouvelle école" au Collège Dawson à Montréal. Elle est également Administratrice Québécoise du CCPEF.

Feminists Survey the Academy: A Review

Men's Studies Modified: the impact of Feminism on the academic disciplines, edited by Dale Spender. Exeter: Pergamon Press (The Athene Series), 1981.

by Greta Hofmann Nemiroff

There is no question that for those of us who have toiled in the field of the emerging discipline of Women's Studies over the past fifteen years, more epistemological questions have been raised than answered. In the universities not only have women interested in developing Women's Studies had to work on primary research and the excavation of previously ignored information and data, and on the development of new pedagogical methodology congruent with the ideology of this emerging discipline, but often women academics have had simultaneously to fight for their individual professional survival along with the survival of their programs. For this reason, it has taken time to formulate a rigorous critique of the" academic disciplines as they exist enshrined in patriarchal institutions. Very often feminist scholars are lone figures atomised among many university departments, hanging on at the bottom of the power structure. While trying to survive, they must often develop their interest in Women's Studies alongside other more accepted areas of expertise.

Dale Spender has solicited essays examining the state of affairs in various major academic disciplines from a collection of scholars which crosses three continents: seven Americans, one Australian, seven British and two Americans working in Britain. There are no Canadians, although there are frequent allusions to the work of some Canadian scholars, especially Dorothy Smith of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. The disciplines covered are the social sciences, literature and linguistics, media studies, a cursory glance at the sciences and essays on professional education in the fields of law, medicine and education. Her purpose in putting together this collection of essays is to demonstrate the parameters of the politics of knowledge. At the outset, she acknowledges that it is not customary to bracket together politics and knowledge: on the contrary, keeping them apart has usually been perceived as a necessary condition for scholarly activity." She points out that from the point of view of those who control knowledge and its dissemination, it is self-serving to insist that politics and knowledge are separate and discreet entities: "The myth of apolitical objective knowledge has served the establishment well: those with resources have often been able to use them to protect their existing resources, and to gain more, without their activities being too closely scrutinized."