Negotiating crisis in a feminism classroom: the politics of representation

Abstract

The issue of representation is central in gender studies and feminist classroom teaching. In this paper, we provide an account of an actual crisis in representation that surfaced in our classroom when two students attempted an oral presentation on the issue of sexuality that caused a stir among fellow classmates. The choice of graphics for the oral presentation caused some amount of offence especially for students with conservative outlooks. We detail how we proceeded to turn the management of this crisis into a lesson in feminist negotiation of the politics of representation. We believe that it is crucial to transform real crisis into concrete lessons in the classroorn , and in this paper, we show how that is achieved. We also explain the implications such a crisis has on the presentation and representation of gender issues in a multicultural Singaporean classroom.