ABSTRACT
Let me begin with the argument for educational practice coming from both John Dewey1 and feminists of the second and third waves of the 1960s to 1990s. We, as students and teachers, come to know and understand through the filters of our experiences, our social positions in life and work and our senses of personal (and political) agency. I think most of us here would agree. I am a feminist educator because I have lived feminist experiences throughout my life. From the time I had to fight ‘more knowledgeable’ authorities (older and more powerful) to get the right to write about racial inequities in the 1960s as editor of my high school paper, to the time I realized, as a graduate student, the rage that I felt from being taught world history from the perspective of only white, Euro-American men, or from being refused entry to advanced math classes because ‘girls didn’t need that level of mathematics’, I have understood what feminist issues in education are. Living my adult life as a lesbian academic hones feminist questions about knowledge and experience even more sharply. I suspect many of you have related stories.
