As a Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies professor, teaching about marginalized communities, especially using a feminist anti-racist lens, now feels dangerous. We risk being placed on watchlists created by men who are threatened by our ability to explain the way patriarchy regulates our students’ lives. Our books are banned, which may prevent students from understanding that gender power arrangements are learned, thus patriarchy is dismantlable. We fear being doxxed and stalked by students who are unhappy with the events we organize, the communities we support or the material we assign.
For many of us, we weather the intimidation by watching our students’ passion-driven learning. Our students are explicitly grateful to learn their histories and feel seen. So many of our students navigate transphobia, xenophobia, white supremacy, misogyny and more on the daily, all of which have increased exponentially under this administration. Our course content and assignments tell these targeted students: You matter.
The post I Want to Be Obsolete. Instead, I’m Afraid to Teach. appeared first on Ms. Magazine.