ABSTRACT
Looking back over the last three decades at the literature on gender and education, it is understandings of ‘sexualities’ that have often been especially critical in informing and transforming feminist knowledge and thinking. In the early years of second wave feminism consideration of sexualities emerged in discussions on female teachers and pupils’ sexual orientation (Trenchard and Warren, 1984; Squirrel, 1989) and the sexual harassment of females at school (Whitbread, 1980; Lees, 1986; Herbert, 1989; Holly, 1985). As more sophisticated theories around notions of ‘difference’ began to influence feminism, there was a shift away from ‘global’ concepts of women (see Chapter 2) towards one which allowed explorations of the discourses that constitute ‘women’. Thismore complex approach includes that work influenced by Foucault’s geneaological examination of the historical production of sexuality: such theorising has led to analyses of ‘sexual subjectivities’where sexuality is seen as culturally, socially andhistorically situated (Weedon, 1987). Some feminists have long argued that gender and sexuality are inseparable (e.g. Rich, 1980) and later in the chapterwe elaborate how this inseparability is being increasingly commented on in recent feminist work.
