The Paradox of Being a Woman Teacher

Abstract

In this article, the author follows genealogical lines of analysis in an attempt to map the different discourses and practices that interweave women's position in education today. Education is theorised as a nexus of created paradoxical spaces, where the female self has attempted to surpass closed boundaries and to question the dichotomy of the feminised private and/or the masculine public. The author also considers the importance of time restrictions upon women's lives and pays attention to the multifarious ways these lives are highly structured by specific space/time regulations. The genealogical mapthat is drawn depicts various positions, where the female self has created parodic unities and temporary coalitions. Finally, in tracing exit points that education has offered women, the author considers some of the implications of feminist theories for the subversion of the various dilemmas and dichotomies the female subject has lived through.