Transforming Student Literacies: Three Feminists (Re)Teach Reading, Writing, and Speaking

by Amy Spangler Gerald, Kathleen Mcevoy, and Pamela Whitfield

In her 1974 essay "Toward a Woman-Centered University" Adrienne Rich notes that, contrary to popular belief, American universities are not bastions of free thought but patriarchal institutions that reinforce negative aspects of society, such as aggressive competition, domination, hierarchies of power, and gender inequity. Female and male students alike are not encouraged to think for themselves but are indoctrinated into these traditional values of academia. Thirty years later Rich's concerns are still relevant and even more urgent because of the tremendous rhetorical force of the patriarchal status quo and the influence of the corporate mentality that stresses training over critical thinking. Today, we answer Rich's call for a woman-centered university by using tenets of feminist pedagogy to open our students' minds, teaching them to be resisting readers, critical writers, and empowered speakers. These skills enable our students to do more than memorize unquestioned information; students become the kind of critical thinkers and rhetors who excel across disciplines inside and outside the academy.