In this essay I discuss my attempts as a white, heterosexual male to adopt a feminist pedagogical stance in the various courses I teach. Using a feminist pedagogical approach not only involves inclusively centering the social categories of gender, class, race, and sexual orientation in all classroom discussions, but also recognizing all class participants' experiences and perspectives to be equally necessary in the creation of classroom knowledge. Ultimately, I hope to teach people how harmful oppression is, both for the oppressed and the oppressor, and to challenge preexisting inequalities. By adopting a feminist pedagogy, I have learned that the classroom is a place where knowledge can be actively derived from a multitude of voices. I have also discovered that experientially based classrooms can be settings where new understandings are made possible about the active roles each of us plays in the maintenance of our oppressive society.
In support of these assertions, I discuss my experiences teaching a sociology of sport class where most of the course participants were men, many student athletes, and almost everyone was initially opposed to my feminist ideals. In sum, I have found that using a feminist pedagogy is beneficial for both female and male course participants.
Teaching is a political act. As evidenced in the rhetoric of any field of study, and by the teacher’s selection of certain course content, all instructors are political agents. The decision not to consider certain ideas in a given class is just as political as the “objective facts” that are covered (Luke and Gore 1992; Deats and Lenker 1994; Maher and Tetreault 1994).
While classroom hierarchy (e.g., grades) typically tames and in extreme cases silences student agency (Maher and Tetreault 1994, pp. 213-14), students’ individual and collective responses are in themselves political (Orner 1992). For instance, a classroom where only the instructor’s voice is heard is politically very different from a classroom where many engaged, sometimes even angry student voices are heard (Davis 1992). Moreover, students’ expectations of the instructor, often tempered by what social statuses an instructor is seen as belonging to, are also teeming with political overtones (Basow and Silberg 1987; Gilbert et al. 1988; Kierstead et al. 1988). These expectations can have a strong effect on what students consider valid, acceptable knowledge versus drivel (Klein 1983; Mahony 1983; Davis 1992; Morris 1992).
Classroom participants also represent an infinite number of what Donna Haraway (1988) has termed “partial and situated knowledges.” While each individual’s experiences and outlooks are limited, as Haraway (1988) argues, when partial and situated knowledges are recognized and explored, better, more comprehensive accounts of the world are possible. As a white, heterosexual male using a feminist pedagogical stance, I not only recognize that the classroom is a political context, but further acknowledge both the possibilities and limits of my own situated knowledge and partial perspective. I also try to honor the fact that I am just one participant in classrooms where many other, often significantly differing knowledges and perspectives exist. I firmly believe that the degree to which I recognize the political nature of the classroom and the limits and promise of all the situated knowledges present (including my own) has a direct bearing on how successful my courses are—both in terms of learning and instilling the promise of a feminist worldview.
In the essay that follows I first explore what others have written about the feminist classroom. I next outline what a feminist classroom means to me and how I strive to create one. The responses from a sociology of sport course I taught where over 75 percent of the participants were male are then considered. Reflecting upon what I have learned using a feminist pedagogy, I end this essay by noting the promise of both women and men teaching from a feminist perspective.
Expanding Areas of Coverage
Since the late 1960’s/early 70’s, feminists have called for a more inclusive treatment of gender as a theoretical category instead of as a simple variable characteristic (Stacey and Thorne 1985; Deegan 1988; Kramer and Martin 1988; Gotsch-Thompson 1990; Lee 1993). Centering gender in analyses and classroom presentations is a requisite for comprehensively understanding any social phenomenon. However, treating gender as the most integral theoretical category, sometimes the only one that merits attention, is also a limited stance.
Many women of color and other feminists advocate that a more complete understanding of social behavior is possible only when race and class are also included as fundamental categories of analysis (Morraga and Anzaldua 1983; Andersen 1988; Cannon et. al. 1998; hooks 1989; Bohmer and Briggs 1991; Hartung 1991; Collins 1991; Lerner 1993). As Baca Zinn et. al. (1986, p. 297) argue, every individual’s opportunities and experiences in society “must be understood in relation to the societal placement of men [and women] as well as other classes and races of people.” Similarly, a growing number of feminist theorists note the saliency of sexuality in personal identity and behavior (Rich 1980; Wittig 1980; Dworkin; Stoltenberg 1987; Wilkinson and Kitzinger 1993; Schacht and Atchison 1993; Calhoun 1995; Schacht 2000). Like many others, I believe that scholarship and classroom presentations that inclusively, simultaneously, and relationally consider race, class, sexuality, and gender not only lead to diversified images but holistic understandings.
In Practice
Feminist education—the feminist classroom—is and should be a place where there is a sense of struggle, where there is a visible acknowledgment of the union of theory and practice, where we work together as teachers and students to overcome the estrangement and alienation that have become so much the norm in the contemporary university. Most importantly, feminist pedagogy should engage students in a learning process that makes the world “more real than less real” (hooks 1989, p. 51).
A feminist classroom is also concerned with how students and the teacher relate to each other and the materials presented (Rutenberg 1983, p. 72; Kenway and Modra 1992). The personal experiences of students and the instructor are integrated into the course materials to create an environment where numerous, sometimes contradictory voices are heard (Orner 1992). Such a pedagogical approach requires active student participation and the perception that all participants’ voices will be taken seriously—something often denied female students (Hesse-Biber and Gilbert 1994). Special attention must be paid to voices often silenced and opportunities given for all students to speak and be heard (Luke 1994). Thus, an instructor should always try to adopt pedagogical strategies that invite the participation of every class member present. Notions of “professor as privileged voice” should be challenged and all class members should be expected to “become self-conscious participants in the process of knowledge construction” and be made “aware of the limitations of their own experience and perspectives and therefore value the perspectives of others” (Robinson and Schaible 1993, pp. 363 & 369).
Moreover, a feminist classroom also rejects the positivistic stance of value-neutrality and replaces it with “passionate scholarship” and “necessary heresy” (Du Bois 1983, p. 112). Recognizing that a truly value-free stance is an illusion, the instructor must take positions on issues without silencing other classroom voices. Traditionally silenced material, the experiences and knowledges of both the students and instructor, are used as validity checks. Every course participants’ voice is presented as both limited and situated but necessary and equally important in the construction of classroom knowledge (Haraway 1988). Moreover, when disagreements arise, instead of smoothing them over or simply dismissing them, further energies must be spent exploring why they exist. Thus, if a woman of color sees racism while a white man does not, the difference must be noted, and then explanations for this discrepancy discussed. Exploring the applicability of course materials to the participants’ personal her/histories, even when disagreements arise, is one way to make learning a “more real” process.
Finally, as offered in the opening quote of this section, the inclusive, feminist classroom is one where there is a shared sense of struggle. Connections and feelings of community often arise out of courses taught using an inclusive feminist pedagogy (hooks 1989; Schacht 2000). Likewise, a shared sense of struggle should diminish the likelihood that critical classroom dialogue will lead to personal insults and student withdrawal. In sum, a feminist classroom is a context that not only rewards student participation but honors the experiential diversity of all classroom participants.
Most of the literature I have reviewed thus far has been predominantly written by feminist women, for an audience of feminist women, and is largely practiced by feminist women. Fortunately, however, much of what a feminist pedagogy calls for is potentially quite applicable to both female and male instructors. Men who hope to teach their classes using a feminist pedagogy must similarly attend to many of the same issues feminist women instructors do (e.g., materials covered). Yet men are also forced to approach their classes differently. Just as men who hope to live feminist worldviews must travel different pathways than women do (Schacht and Ewing 1997), men who hope to teach their courses from a feminist perspective must also undertake different steps.
While women instructor’s can experientially relate to and highlight the ways in which women are oppressed in society, I, as a man, have little if any familiarity with being oppressed (Schacht in press). To the contrary, given my background, my experiences with oppression have been in terms of being the oppressor. Thus, my partial and situated perspective enables me to share with course participants how oppression is done—sadly, I was quite successful at oppressing other people when I was younger—and why I now find it so personally troubling. My experiential background also allows me to better relate to other individuals, men in particular, in my classes who have undertaken oppressive behaviors, and to explain why I think such attitudes and behaviors are so harmful. In sum, by presenting myself as a recovering oppressor of sorts, I am experientially able to offer a different understanding of how oppression is done and why it is harmful to all parties involved.
When I pass out the syllabus on the first day of class, like many instructors I know, I try to set the tone for the rest of the semester or quarter. In all but one of the courses I teach, statistics, I always have the following two discussions in hopes of giving the participants an initial idea of what sort of classroom climate I hope to create with them: 1) what types of materials will serve as the course’s core; and 2) what types of class participation I hope will occur. More specifically, I begin each course by strongly noting that all classroom topics will inevitably consider how the social categories of gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other forms of stratification directly temper social interaction. I argue that to comprehensively understand any social phenomenon these fundamental social categories of existence must always be considered and that failure to do so results in knowledge that is limited and incomplete. Most class participants appear to agree with these sentiments; at the very least, none appear to disagree with them.
Next, I briefly summarize Donna Haraway’s (1988) previously cited article. I make note that all class participants’ knowledges and perspectives are partial and situated. I next argue that while I am well read in the areas of gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other forms of stratification (especially from a feminist perspective), I am also quite limited in these areas. That is, since my social background is that of a white man from an upper middle class family, experientially speaking, I have no idea what it is like to live in our society as a woman, a person of color, and so forth. Thus, if we (as a class) want to comprehensively understand course materials, we must rely heavily on both what others have written and the experiences and perspectives of all classroom participants.
By acknowledging the limits of all participants’ voices, especially my own, I am implicitly trying to create an inclusive, participatory classroom environment. To further highlight this goal, I invite all members of the course to please feel free to participate in every class discussion. Moreover, making note that people of color and women’s voices often are silenced or trivialized in many classroom settings, and reiterating the necessity of having an array of different voices being heard, I extend a special invitation to all such class members to please share their experiences and ideas. I state that with each additional experience and perspective considered a more comprehensive understanding of the course materials emerges. This both validates the need for different, traditionally silenced voices to be heard and lets the white men in attendance know that all voices will be equally valued. I conclude this discussion by stating that I ultimately hope this course will be a learning experience that builds upon and expands the unique knowledge and perspectives that each participant brings to class. Since teaching is a process, I often have to reiterate these initial sentiments throughout the course.
In sum, I believe by connecting my experiences, academic knowledge, and feminist perspective on a given topic with the class participants’ limited knowledges and partial perspectives, a more comprehensive understanding of course materials results. Moreover, such an approach is predicated on the notion that each class member should be an active participant in the construction of knowledge taking place in the classroom. The privilege of such knowledge is not found in any one voice, rather it is found in the total of all the voices heard and in the learning process itself. I have found such a pedagogical stance not only makes possible the creation of new knowledge but often results in a classroom where laughter, anger, and tears are all probable emotional responses to the course materials covered.
I could offer an array of quantitative and written responses from student evaluations supporting the above assertions that my teaching from a feminist pedagogical stance for over ten years has been beneficial to all parties involved. In every course I have taught using a feminist approach I have received evaluation scores that are well above departmental, college, and university averages. Since I often teach women’s studies courses (i.e., feminism & sexuality, sociology of women, and contemporary feminist theories), and these courses and many of the general sociology courses I have taught tend to have more female than male participants (with the exception of the course discussed below, and two other courses, all the courses I ever taught have been in the range of 60-90 percent female), my high student evaluations are probably not that surprising (Messner 2000). And yet I am amazed that, over the years, I have found that some of the course participants who have been most drawn to and influenced by my classes are some of the most stereotypical masculine, often misogynist, individuals found at the campuses I have taught; i.e., fraternity members, football and rugby players, aspiring police officers, and ROTC members. Moreover, while many of these same individuals often refer to me as a “man-hater,” “queer lover,” and tell me that I must hate my penis, I have nevertheless become close personal friends with several of them.
In a recent (Spring 1998) sociology of sport course I taught at Montana State University, thirty of the thirty-nine individuals enrolled in the class were men; fourteen were either present or past MSU football players; two were basketball players; one ran cross-country; another played tennis; eighteen class members were attending MSU on some sort of athletic scholarship; several had previously played rugby; most were criminal justice majors; and four were ROTC members or in the National Guard. In spite of the conflicting demands often placed on student athletes, class attendance was almost always ninety percent or better with typically two or three guests of individual class members also in attendance. On a campus with very little diversity—well over ninety percent of the campus is White—six course participants were African American, two Hispanic American, one Native American, and one Asian American. Twenty-one participants had taken a course from me the previous semester; several told me that they had convinced friends to take the class with them in hopes of disproving certain statements I had made. Everyone present said they had participated in some sort of organized sports at least through high school, and almost everyone was, to varying degrees, a sports enthusiast. Eitzen’s Sport In Contemporary Society: An Anthology and numerous supplementary articles provided the basis for all classroom discussions, two exams, and four 4-5 page reflection papers.
This course was one of the most argumentative, emotionally challenging yet personally rewarding and, I believe, successful courses I have ever taught. I feel that this was the result of my using a feminist pedagogical approach, albeit now applied to predominantly men’s experiences of participating in organized sports, as a way to validate (most typically) or to question the classroom materials discussed. Playing hockey when I was younger, having completed an ethnography of male rugby players as an active participant of the setting (Schacht 1996, 1997), being fairly knowledgeable of most professional sports, and having undertaken an additional array of “stupid men tricks” (as I refer to them in class) ranging from hunting to owning sports cars to womanizing to purposely trying to start barroom fights when I was younger, not only enabled me to experientially add to the course but gave legitimacy to my teaching the course in general (Schacht in press). In short, from my previous experiences of doing oppression, I could both personally relate to and challenge the oppressive attitudes and behaviors of the men enrolled in the class.
On a daily basis, class participants would often become quite angry at the very critical feminist ideas I suggested, sometimes walking out of class in rage and frequently calling me “a queer lover,” saying I was “full of shit,” “crazy,” and telling me to “fuck off.” As I was free the two hours immediately following class, heated discussions often would continue for some time afterwards. But with the frequent assistance of a handful of ever-changing supporters (dependent on the topic covered), by the end of the semester I also felt that we as a class had created a unique level of shared understanding of how oppression is done and the very active roles each of us play in its occurrence. To better substantiate these assertions, I will recount the first day of class, a class a few weeks later, another halfway through the semester, and the last day.
After reviewing the syllabus and discussing the previously outlined introduction I give in all my courses, in hopes of further setting the tone for the upcoming semester, I introduced two notions about sport that I knew would cause controversy. First, using Dundes (1980) psychoanalytical analysis of the homoerotic nature of American football, and making careful note that I was not suggesting that football players were gay, I outlined the ways in which such an activity can be viewed as symbolically homosexual. For instance, I asked them how can they account for a sport where two groups of men spend untold amounts of energy trying to penetrate their opponent’s defenses in hopes of “touching” the ball in their end zone to “score”? I further asked them why football used vocabulary such as tight ends and wide outs? Why does the center present the ball in the prone position? And why is the reward for good play a firm pat on the bottom, hugs, and sometimes kisses? As one might guess, my queries were met with emotional responses ranging from laughter to outright anger, the latter most strongly expressed by several football players.
After the initial clamor subsided, I asked if they could think of other ways that sports could be considered symbolically homosexual. To the chagrin of several of the football players, expressed in terms such as “don’t tell him about that,” and to the disbelief of several other class members, one of the players fondly recalled towel fights, “turd fights” and “golden showers” (urinating down a teammate while he has shampoo on his head) as locker room activities. After this, several people in the class not only were angry at me for what I was suggesting but also at the classmate who had openly shared such apparently secretive information. As the discussion continued, a former wrestler described two wrestling moves that he thought were symbolically homosexual: “checking the oil,” where the thumb is inserted into the opponent’s rectum to force him to the mat, and “five-on-two,” a means of forcing an opponent to the mat by grabbing his scrotum. Class members and I offered several more similar examples of homoerotic activities in sports before moving on to the next topic.
While teaching at a university prior to MSU, a Black college football player (who was a student and friend of mine) told me that he felt that the reason White people so enjoyed sports like football, basketball, and boxing was that it was a modern form of “Mr. Bojangles and a violent form of soft-shoe dancing.” Paraphrasing his words, White people love to watch Black men dance/perform for them, and if they beat the hell out of each other the process, being an audience member to such displays is even more pleasurable. I shared his insight with the class and, as one might expect, was met with further anger. Yet while numerous White class members vehemently took issue with his perspective of sports, all the Black class members, many whom were quite upset by my characterizing football as a homoerotic activity, were now quietly nodding in agreement.
Once the White course participants finished listing their objections to my inferring racist motivations for sports viewing, several of the Black course participants started sharing their experiences of playing football at MSU. At this time, only 31 Blacks attended MSU, a school with well over 11,000 students. All were male and enrolled on athletic scholarships with most coming from California and Texas. Moreover, an abysmal fewer than 10 percent of Black athletes that had attended MSU over the past ten years ever graduated. Several of the Black athletes noted that while everyone seem to admire them when they were out on the playing field, off the field, they felt shunned on campus and totally unwelcome in the larger community (only one Black individual lived in Bozeman). As one of them put it, “the coach brings us here to keep the alumni happy and his job secure, and when our eligibility is done, it is see ya’ wouldn’t want to be ya’.”
Another Black football player felt such outcomes were only partially true. He was a defensive back and the fastest player on the team. He had been recruited by other Division I schools but selected MSU (a Division II school) because the coach had promised that he would be a starter. Although all of the football players in the class concurred that he was a very talented player, he had never started a game and was only used sparingly as back-up to a White player who was the son of an alumni and a Montana native. Quite simply, the Black player felt that he had been brought to MSU to be a “practice dummy” for White players so they could get better and now figured he would never be given the opportunity to start a game. All of the previously angry White class members were now noticeably quiet and class ended shortly thereafter.
A week later, we were reviewing an article I wrote on the misogynist activities of rugby players based on my ethnography of two rugby clubs (Schacht 1996). In this piece, I conclude that masculine identities in sports and other male settings are largely grounded in men’s relational rejection of the feminine, expressed in hateful attitudes and behaviors; thus, the bodies of women, both imaged and real, are the real estate upon which men do masculinity. The hyper-masculine identities and activities of rugby players are offered in my article as quintessential examples of misogyny that both reflect and sustain preexisting gender inequalities.
Slowly but surely, different course participants began to share their experiences with sexism in sport. Several individuals noted how coaches often referred to them as “girls,” “pussies,” “faggots,” and “bitches” ostensibly to motivate better play from them. One woman in the class, a basketball player at MSU, noted how her present and past coaches, both male and female, had also called her and her teammates “girls” when they were not playing well. Others shared gendered references in playing sport, football in particular, such as being “dick strong” and getting hard “sticks” in on opposing players; being tough and a good player is called “having balls.” Nevertheless, in what seemed an effort to minimize their own sexist outlooks, they all claimed that their attitudes and actions were not nearly as misogynist as those of the rugby players. While entertaining their various positions, I kept arguing that while many male sports may not be as blatantly women-hating as rugby, they still insidiously promote these same sort of attitudes and behaviors.
At this point and with the typical protestations of several teammates, one of the football players noted that the coach at MSU, members of his staff, and many of the players frequently referred to women as “cum dumpsters.” Having previously never heard this specific misogynist statement before (and, sadly, I thought I had heard them all), I was admittedly a little shocked and responded, “Say what?!? And you all claim that the sports you are involved are not nearly as misogynist as rugby. ‘Cum dumpsters’ definitely matches or beats any of the woman-hating comments I have heard rugby players make. What kind of men promote the view of women being nothing more than garbage cans to dump their sperm in?” The rest of the semester, whenever one of the football players would even attempt to make a claim that football was not firmly grounded in a misogynist outlook, some course participant, typically one of the few women, would remind the class of the “cum dumpster” statement, which always seemed to quickly quiet such claims. Moreover, toward the end of the semester, and apparently the result of several players explicitly trying to challenge their coaches’ authority and sexist statements, it was reported in class that the head coach was not only “happy I only had a visiting position and would be leaving in a few weeks” but he thought I was a “cum dumpster too.”1
About eight weeks later, we were covering the topic of violence and sports. Before discussing the assigned reading materials, I introduced two widely held notions about sports: 1) sports are an excellent way to release violent impulses so that they will not be expressed in other settings; and 2) actually injuring an opponent was a very distasteful aspect of contact sports. Unlike most class periods, initially everyone seemed to be in total agreement with these sentiments.
Next, I introduced a chapter by Sipes (1996) that basically concludes that societies with aggressive sports also tend to be violent in other ways and this directly contradicts the first popular notion about sports I had put forth. In support of this apparently new outlook, many class participants offered their own experiences with violence and sports. One football player noted that he seldom left his violence on the field: he often found himself getting into fights on campus, especially the nights after home games, even though the team was formally banned from attending bars or fraternity parties during the school year because of past incidents of violence. Several additional students who played football or hockey in high school shared similar experiences of getting into fights after games. Many in the class said how much fun it was to attend local junior league hockey games because of the fights that often broke out in the crowd at the same time as the fights occurring on the ice.
We next reviewed a chapter by Telander (1996) that gives numerous examples of the joys of inflicting and receiving pain playing football which also contradicted the second notion about sports. One of the football players who frequently took issue with many of the ideas I put forth, often with the support of his teammates and others in the class, stated that “those individuals in the book were sick, and he never wanted to hurt anyone when playing.” He was immediately and rather aggressively told by another player, a 325-pound offensive lineman who was typically quiet in class, that the reason he said that was because he was a wide receiver, and his attitudes were not reflective of most players on the team. The lineman went on to explain how much he enjoyed hearing the “pop” of an opponent’s knee from a successful chop-block and how the coach very much approved of such actions as long as they did not result in a penalty. This lead to a flood of other class members recounting similar stories of the pleasures of inflicting pain on their opponents—even a cross-country runner said how much fun it was to trip opponents when the officials were not looking.
In every course I teach, the last day I give a forty-minute summary/farewell presentation. I distribute a handout of feminist poems my deceased mother wrote and quotes from radical feminist Sonia Johnson and social activist Paulo Freire. These are generously read by class participants and intermingled with recorded songs by Cat Stevens, “Father and Son” and “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out’, Tom Petty, “Wildflowers”, and John Lennon, “Imagine”. Throughout this presentation I reiterate the general themes that I have put forth throughout the class such as the only thing you are guaranteed to be able to change in your lifetime is yourself; individuals can make a difference in how society is run; and if you do not like living in an oppressive world, then try to stop being oppressive to others and/or yourself. I end by strongly noting that the choice is now theirs and then distribute the course evaluations.
When I gave this final presentation in my sport class most course participants appeared quite moved and several where teary-eyed. Many came to my office after class to personally thank me for my efforts. My real reward from teaching this class was knowing that the world might be—if ever-so-slightly—less oppressive.
Academic women and men engaged in the production of feminist theory must be responsible for setting up ways to disseminate feminist thought that not only transcend the boundaries of the university setting, but that of the printed page as well (hooks 1989, p. 360).
My intent as a male feminist author and teacher is not to speak for women and other oppressed people in our society nor to think my voice is any more valid than theirs. Rather, “. . . recognizing the irreconcilable tension between the search for a secure place from which to speak, within which to act, and the awareness of the exclusions, the denials, the blindness on which they are predicated” (Martin and Moharity 1981, p. 206), I strive to live an existence that is based upon no one’s denial (Schacht and Ewing 1998; Schacht 2000). For this to occur, I believe both the oppressed and the oppressor must form alliances across difference to create an egalitarian future (Bystydzienski and Schacht in press). Ultimately, I believe that the creation of a shared understanding of how harmful oppression is for all parties involved must take place for true social justice to be realized. When this occurs, the boundaries of not only the university but society itself are transcended.
As reflected in my experiences of teaching sociology of sport utilizing a feminist pedagogical stance, I felt what we accomplished as a class transcended many boundaries. Male student athletes who are traditionally silenced were inclusively involved in the social production of knowledge taking place resulting in a far more comprehensive understanding of classroom materials. In turn, these discussions lead to a more holistic appreciation about how harmful oppression is for all parties involved and the very active role each of us play in its continuance. Many of these same individuals personally thanked me for my efforts and came to view me as a friend—an equal—as I did them. With their active involvement, we created a learning environment where many people felt that they had learned something new and different, that would help them in life in general (sentiments of this sort were expressed to me both personally and on my student evaluations by many participants in the class). I felt a collective consciousness was created where those participating felt a sense of proprietorship and ownership of the class. And while I have experienced these feelings in previous courses, especially in my women’s studies courses, given the feminist—often explicitly anti-masculinity2 —message I tried to share with these men, this outcome seemed even more special to me.
Ultimately, “moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side-by-side a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes new life and new growth possible” (hooks 1989, p. 9). If a non-oppressive future is ever to be realized, a never-ending multitude of inclusive voices must be allowed to speak and to be heard. Not only should the students’ assumptions and expectations be interwoven into the class, but traditionally marginalized and ignored voices must also be given an audience and centered (Andersen 1988). Both women and men must be active participants in this process. Then, and only then, will the classroom move from a setting where “we’re always staying on the surface explaining the same ideas over and over,” to one where “we are rolling, and pushing out boundaries, beginning to explore our deeper mind where we know much more than we know we know” (Johnson 1987, p. 133). Knowledge born in a setting of unlimited voices has infinite possibilities.
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1. As an interesting side note, sociology of sport had never been taught at MSU prior to my arrival. Thus, fall semester I had to go before a campus-wide review committee for approval. In my application to teach this course, I submitted a course syllabus and the two articles I had written about rugby to support my claim of expertise in this area. The committee chair, a biology professor, was also the coach of the rugby club on campus. He started my review by noting that he thought it was ludicrous that someone would teach a class that promoted the notion that sports were woman-hating and homoerotic in nature. When it was my turn to respond I asked him about rugby players’ practices, such as “Zulu warrior,” all rookie players are required to do a striptease if front of their teammates after scoring their first try/touchdown, “naked beer slides,” “choke-your-chicken contests” (group masturbation to see who can ejaculate first), and “elephant walks” (naked men march in a line each holding the man’s penis in front of them). In response to my comments, he became quite red in the face and said because of an obvious conflict of interest, he would abstain from voting on my course. I would speculate that his quick response was to keep me from describing in detail what the above activities were, as I had only listed them by name. Sometime shortly thereafter, the committee voted and gave me approval to teach the class. As I held a one-year visiting position, I am guessing sociology of sport has not been taught since my departure (Summer 1998).
2. Antimasculinity should not be confused with being against individuals born with a penis. Nevertheless, consistent with John Stoltenberg’s work (1990, 1994), I am a strong proponent of “refusing to be a man” and the “end of manhood.”
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