Caryl and Jennifer, authors of this blog, are the Outreach Coordinators for the National Art Education Association’s Women’s Caucus. Caryl is an early professional K-12 art educator and 2009 Carrie Nordlund Award winner. Jennifer Motter is a doctoral student at Penn State University.
NAEAWC Voices is meant to give a platform for your voice in the membership and profession. We need greater participation of women and men in all of our activities to ensure equal representation in the membership.This blog will pose questions, share insights, and educate readers on the contributions of women in the arts.
To disrupt the stereotype of a feminist, let’s speak for ourselves and define the image of a feminist in art education.
naeawcvoices
One of the more interesting Women’s Caucus events for me was the “Lobby Session”. The conversation started with an observation that young professional women don’t self-identify as “feminists”. As the conversation continued, individuals (now numbering about 50 of them, mostly women) described what it meant to be a “feminist”, and we talked about our lives and aspirations as professional women dedicated to teaching. As more and more people spoke, I was profoundly moved by the similarities of the stories being told – stories of utter frustration with demeaning workplace conditions of so many highly accomplished, smart, creative, dedicated women professionals – young and old. I could only conclude that after 40 years of feminism, women have made little real progress in the workplace. The data confirms this observation.
With so little real gain over the past 4 decades, and so much to be done, the NAEA Women’s Caucus is a great place to start disturbing the peace!
You are so right, Elizabeth! Being young and having gone through the journey of identifying as a young feminist, I have found that many of my peers my age find the idea of calling oneself a “Feminist” it to be an age-old stigma. I constantly think to myself what it really means to be a feminist at 23 in the year 2010 – when things are supposedly “better” and “equal” for women – so far, that really hasn’t been the case. However, I find a lot of inspiration hearing stories from past decades and find a lot of common threads to learn from. I worry that the rich history of women before us will be lost or misconstrued since so many aren’t willing to take the torch and move it forward and to defeat the notion of “feminist” being a bad f-word.