Historically men have written the definitive texts and occupied academic
positions. At least in some fields, men do not currently dominate. I work
in a Language Education department with 15 faculty, 11 of whom are women.
Almost all of our GAs are women as well. I also coedit the main research
journal from NCTE and I'd say that about 3/4 of the ms's we receive are
written by women (if anything, that's a low estimate). Prior to our
editorship, the journal was edited by a woman; prior to that, by a
woman/man team.
In terms of the future, I'd say that about 90% of the undergrads in our
courses are women (again, possibly a low estimate). So dominance by gender
might vary by field.
At 01:05 PM 4/8/99 -0600, you wrote:
>Pursuing the philosophical lineage behind a given
>intellectual phenomenon is for me one of the most
>effective approaches for acquainting myself with
>the culture that gave rise to the phenomenon. Sadly,
>this scholastic approach is vulnerable to phallocentric
>distortion since the feminine influence is rarely
>committed to the historical record. The question
>of intellectual history is inherently gender biased,
>prompting Dianne to raise the question, "where are the
>women?!"
>
>A small exception in this current line of inquiry is
>Krupskaya (thanks Mike!). Nadezhda K. Krupskaya
>comes to us in the literature by means of her
>relationship to Vladimir Ilich rather than the
>pioneering paths she helped to lay down within Soviet
>education. Finding the details of her influence is a
>bit of challenge. We learn that she introduced project
>methodology into Russian education. But an inquiry
>into "project methodology" immediately returns us to the
>phallocentric record citing the foundational ideas of
>Kilpatrick and Dewey.
>
>In Jay's words, "by asking what was missed when mostly
>men wrote theoretical accounts of a practice conducted
>by both men and women" we are likely to end up with
>a much richer account. The challenge is to learn how
>to incorporate this practice in our research.
>
>Martin R.
>