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Body Always Threaten to Overpower the Capacity to Reason. It Is body always threaten to overpower the capacity to REFLECTIONS ON LESBIAN FEMINIST reason. It is assumed that sexual relations ACTIVISM IN THE CLASSROOM' necessarily cloud judgement. Physical intimacy between teacher and student must mean that any I start from the premise that teaching about semblance of level-headedness and objectivity are lesbians can be a form of political activism. This is irretrievably lost. It is the old story of the need for true whether one teaches an entire course on reason to overcome and rule passion (and the sheer lesbians or integrates lesbian material into courses anxiety that this is not possible) that Gallop is that do not have lesbians as a central focus. Taking questioning. Gallop's own experience tells her that a broad view, it is clear that we in Canada live this need not be the case and that sexual intimacy within a context of heterosexual hegemony may, indeed, enhance and deepen the learning (Kinsman, 1996). Thus, any information that process. challenges the presumed naturalness and normalcy The Socratic tradition does indeed of heterosexuality can be seen as subversive. To acknowledge the potentially powerful sexual teach this information in a Canadian classroom is to tension between teacher and student. Plato's disrupt the status quo and as such, is to engage in dialogues are brimful of male homosexual eroticism political work. For the past fifteen years or so, I as Socrates, the adored teacher, enthralls his prize have worked to introduce the subject of lesbianism pupils. But it is well worth remembering that in the into university and college courses. At times, I have Platonic dialogues, Socrates does not succumb to done this as a guest lecturer in someone else's the physical charms of his students. In the most course, at times I have taught an entire course on noted instance, Socrates resists the physical Lesbian Studies, and at other times, I have worked pleasures offered by the heroic and beautiful to integrate material about lesbians into the syllabus Alcibiades. It is precisely a mark of Socrates' of a traditional course that I am teaching. Mostly, pedagogical prowess that he resists the lure of but not invariably, I have done this work while Alcibiades' flesh in order to lead this student to the coming out to my students as a lesbian. In so doing, far greater satisfactions of the life of the mind. I have engaged in what Verta Taylor and Nicole Gallop's narrative does not even raise the possibility Raeburn call "high-risk political activism:" "the that this road may, ultimately, be of greater value to deployment of identity for the purposes of both teacher and student and this is a great gap contesting stigmatized group representations and which lessens the impact of the "scandalous" achieving institutional change" (1995, 268). questions that she poses. Nonetheless, Gallop's In earlier years, I tended to make a point of story is a provocative, useful and timely challenge coming out. Recently, however, I have become far to feminism to reassess its trajectory as it becomes more circumspect in giving this information to more enmeshed in university structures. students, rethinking my earlier taken-for-granted beliefs about the importance of declaring my REFERENCES lesbian identity. In large part, this has been prompted by my experience that it is not becoming Gallop, Jane. Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment. Durham easier to come out to my classes. The late Kathleen and London: Duke University Press, 1997. Martindale wrote that when she integrated lesbian . Around 1981: Academic Feminist Literary Theory. New material into courses to further an antihomophobic York: Routledge, 1992. pedagogy, "[i]t always feels like the first time to me" (1997, 153). For me, each time I come out to a . Thinking Through the Body. New York: Columbia new group of students, it is as if it were for the very University Press, 1988. first time. I have learned to stand behind . The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and professorial authority to demand that students read Psychoanalysis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. material about lesbians and listen when I address lesbian issues. I have learned to address these topics Joanne Boucher about which I feel so passionately in a way that belies my personal stake in them. I have not yet and reinforce the idea that only heterosexuals are learned, however, how to tell a group of apparently normal and worthy of focus. Nevertheless, from my heterosexual students that I am a lesbian in a way experiences at seven different institutions of higher that does not feel personally threatening. learning, it is still the rare teacher who I am not alone in my discomfort. For example, fundamentally challenges heterosexist assumptions in addition to Kathleen Martindale (1992; 1997), in core curriculum courses. Certainly, there are a Didi Khayatt (1996) and a number of contributors number of us in Canada who engage in this work, to Linda Garber's Tilting the Tower (1994) have but in the greater scheme of things, our numbers are addressed this and similar issues. It seems clear to minuscule. In places where I have taught, I have me that our difficulties are an indication of how observed that most students can easily graduate pervasive heterosexism continues to be. Although from university, even with top marks, without lesbian (and gay) scholars have made significant having had their heterosexist assumptions inroads in challenging heterosexism and, at least in challenged. On the other hand, when a student is the United States, lesbian and gay studies (also able to take a course in Lesbian Studies, she (or he) known as queer studies) has become "a minor gets the message that the university thinks lesbians growth industry" (Garber 1994, ix), it remains the are important. For many students, this is a novel case that in academia, the overall environment and transgressive idea. Even when they do not supports an unrelentingly heterosexist agenda. enroll in such a course, students who notice its Increasingly, I am inclined to agree with existence may be led to confront heterosexist Khayatt (1996) who, in critically examining reasons assumptions. For lesbians, being able to take to come out as a lesbian, found that they are not Lesbian Studies allows them to do their own persuasive. As Khayatt argues, one need not always research on lesbians without fear of being told their "put one's body on the line" (1996, 22) either to work is irrelevant. I still see too many lesbians who teach a progressive perspective about lesbians, or to spend their university years challenging the be recognized as sensitive to the concerns of lesbian heterosexism not just of other students, but of (or gay, or bisexual, or transgendered) students. teachers as well. When a student feels she is always Indeed, it is not even necessary that one "be a on guard against lesbophobia, it is difficult to reap lesbian"2 to address these issues in the classroom. the full benefit of what an education is supposed to In some ways, it might even be easier and more be. Offering students a progressive perspective on effective for someone who is not a lesbian, or not lesbians, then, is something that can benefit lesbian perceived to be a lesbian, to take up these issues. students in immediate ways, but it is also something Such a person would not likely be seen to have a that can benefit all students. In my experience, personal stake in addressing lesbian issues, and the talking about lesbians in the classroom can be a appearance of objectivity remains highly prized in powerful corrective to the heterosexist bias of the academia. university. Students and the Significance of Lesbian My Early Attempts at Teaching About Studies Lesbians I am convinced that courses need to routinely I have had varying levels of success in integrate a progressive analysis of lesbians and working to find ways to teach about lesbians. I lesbian issues.3 This is a strategy that may allow began in the 1980s, when I gave numerous guest lesbian students to learn about themselves in their lectures about lesbians in undergraduate university courses, making the course relevant to their own classes. I prepared my lectures with the expectation lives. It is also a practice that implicitly encourages of facing a mostly hostile, heterosexual audience, all students to confront heterosexist assumptions. and this was, in fact, what I usually got. I spent a To exclude such transgressive material is to fair amount of time in those lectures dispelling perpetuate the silences which surround lesbianism, myths, and explaining why it is important to talk about lesbians, but I had no illusions that my one were fairly negative. Although I traded on the lecture was likely to change lesbophobes into precarious classroom authority that my position as lesbian rights activists. My real goal was to professor confers,41 found that putting into practice empower the lesbians who were there. When, as my beliefs about the importance of teaching about sometimes happened, a lesbian would come up to lesbians was easier said than done. I found that me after the class to thank me for what I said, I felt either I came out and talked about lesbians whether that it had been worth it. students liked it or not and got bad evaluations for At the same time that I was doing this, I was a doing so, or I stayed in the closet and felt dishonest. teaching assistant in Sociology. In addition to I thought it would be different when I was teaching from a feminist perspective, I usually given the chance to co-teach a not-for-credit came out to my class and talked a little bit about interest course on Lesbian and Gay Studies.
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