Welcome to Feminist Teacher, a site of inquiry for those interested in equity and justice in today’s classrooms. I am Ileana Jiménez, a thirteen-year veteran of both single sex and progressive independent schools, and I am excited to engage in this conversation with you.
Too often, academic conversations about feminism, women’s studies, gender studies, queer or LGBT studies, as well as studies such as African American, Asian American, Latino/a, Middle Eastern, and Native American studies, focus largely on higher education classrooms and the professors and scholars who teach and conduct research in these fields, leaving out teachers in secondary, middle, and early childhood education who also teach and conduct research on these subjects.
The invisibility of teachers in discussions of feminist pedagogy removes us from being seen as significant contributors to a variety of academic fields, and equally as important, from being recognized as providing young people and children with curricular experiences that are rich and meaningful.
But we are out there for sure. We are doing the work of feminist scholarship and we are doing the work of feminist curriculum and even feminist activism with our students.
This blog intends to expand the circle of discussion to educators in the k-12 sector who consider their teaching practices to be feminist in design and implementation. My goal is to make us visible to each other and to the larger world of educators, as we move forward with our important work. For this reason, I hope it will be a place of community and conversation, both inspiring and invigorating.
In my mind, a feminist pedagogy is one in which issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, age, ability, politics, and human rights—among others—inform a teacher’s philosophical vision that shapes not only content but also action, both that of the teacher as well as the students in the classroom and beyond.
Let this site also be a place of action: the action of the mind and of the heart for greater gender, racial, and economic justice.
Feminist Teacher 
We are a new women’s group dedicated to achieving equal visibility for women. Please check us and and if you like what you see link to us. Thanks.
What a wonderful name for your group: EVE. Equal Visibility Everywhere looks terrific. I will continue checking out your site for sure. I’m hoping to start a more expanded blogroll soon, so thank you for making me aware of your group.
Do you have an email address? Please? Thank you!
Now I do! feministteacher@gmail.com Sorry so late on this!
Congratulations!! I will submit my subscription. I love what you have accomplished in life and keep moving forward. I love it.
Bravo, bravo!!! So glad to have discovered your site!
So glad to see that you did the Feminist 5 questions!
I agree, we need to teach feminism in schools. My first real feminist theory was in England, when I went there in 1999 to do a semester abroad. I learned a lot about different feminist theorists, also in my gay and lesbian history studies classes in my undergrad. What I think holds feminist theories back is that there’s a lot of VERY DRY writing. And I think we can do better. We can say, “Here’s the history, or herstory, now here are some options of actions you can take, and now, which action would you like to do this week?” What do you think?
Since I majored in Literature, Gender Studies and Poetry, with a few sociology and anthro classes in there too, I think that action was never directly connected to what we were taught, which was a crying shame. We could have done so much.
Just saw your video on sexism and how it affects girls over on socio-images. I was blown away. Thank you for making that video! You can be sure that I will be linking it, and linking back to you on my blog too! It’s http://wildwomanfundraising.com
I express my feminism through teaching people how to fundraise and mentoring women.
🙂
Mazarine
Thank you for the tremendous shout out Mazarine! I’m so glad you liked the video I did with the Women’s Media Center on the sexualization of girls in the media. I showed it to my students in my high school course on feminism and it inspired them to want to attend the SPARK Summit at Hunter College (I wrote a post about it too!). I love that you work on fundraising and mentoring women; I serve on the board of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, and we talk a great deal about inclusive philanthropy in relation to queer giving and women’s giving as well. In the past, I’ve had speakers from the Ms. Foundation and the Third Wave Foundation come speak to my students as well.
Your point about teaching feminism in schools in a way that is accessible is the philosophy of the course I teach to high school students. Although we read some feminist theory, we apply it to feminist activism in New York, such as supporting GEMS and ending the commercial sexual exploitation of children through sex trafficking. I’ve written a few posts about my students engagement with GEMS, please feel free to check them out.
Many thanks for reading my blog!
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Love the video about your high school class. Both you and your students rock!
I came across your site as I was doing research for my final paper. I’m writing about feminist pedagogy for my Women’s Studies senior seminar. Your site has been so helpful! I would love to speak with you sometime or learn more about how you interpret and utilize feminist pedagogy as an educator. After graduation, I’m joining Duke’s College Advising Corps and then I hope to pursue further education with the goal of creating feminist curriculums and education policy. Thank you for what you are doing — I’m so happy to see there is a community of feminist educators!
I also found the boys in your class video about feminism amazing! I used your story and blog in reports in my Gender & Power class this year, thank you Mrs. Jimenez!
JJ
I am a doctoral student in teacher education and teacher development, and I am interested in conducting my dissertation around feminist pedagogy. I’d love to chat with you!