This thesis traces how feminist subjectivities are shaped, formed and lived through a focus on English schoolteachers from postwar (1945-1979) and neoliberal (1980-2015) generations. The data is located in British society at a time of resurgence in feminist activism which is also simultaneously a period of ‘postfeminist sensibilities’ combined with the pervasiveness of neoliberal rationalities. In this contradictory scenario, and using a feminist approach and qualitative methods, this research is based on fifteen life story interviews that include five further in depth thematic interviews which have been thematically analysed. The core arguments of this thesis are located in a feminist poststructuralist framework. This approach highlights the fluidity of selfhood shaped by experiences, relationality and language. Subjectivity within poststructuralism is understood as neither completely free nor absolutely determined and power relations are not only limiting but also become productive in forming the subjectivities. Accordingly, this thesis explores how feminist subjectivities are constructed and shaped in multiple ways. In particular, the feminist schoolteachers in this thesis narrated the emergence of early forms of ‘protofeminism’ located in an unarticulated sense of injustice. They spoke of the influence of ‘significant women’ and the bonds of ‘imagined sisterhood’ as enabling a more fully developed awareness of gender injustice. They also talked of their practices to support gender justice, mostly non oppositional in form or as micro resistances to patriarchal practices. All these, I argue, are experiential resources for these women to draw upon in order to enable them to form alternative and counter narratives to patriarchal discourses, and thus construct feminist subjectivities and live feminist lives to resist patriarchal regimes in neoliberal times.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:759643 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Fritz Horzella, Heidi |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/109193/ |
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