1st Edition
Coming of Age in Academe Rekindling Women's Hopes and Reforming the Academy
First Published in 2000. At what price entry? Philosopher of education Jane Roland Martin contends that feminist scholars have traded in their idealism for a place in the academy. In Coming of Age in Academe, she looks at the ways that academic feminists have become estranged from women. Determining that this is the membership fee the academy exacts on all its members, she calls for the academy's transformation. Part one explores the chilly research climate for feminist scholars, the academic traps of essentialism and aerial distance, and the education gap in the feminist text. In part two, Martin likens the behavior of present-day feminist scholars to nineteenth-century immigrants to the United States and examines their assimilation into the world of work, politics and the professions. She finds that when you look at higher education, you see what a brutal filter of women it is. Part three highlights the academy's brain drain and its containment of women and then proposes actions both great and small that aim at fundamental change. In this rousing call to action, Martin concludes that the dissociation from women that the academy demands--its entrance fee--can only be stopped by radically reforming the gendered system on which the academy is based.
Biography
Jane Roland Martin is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts. Among her books are Changing the Educational Landscape: Philosophy, Women, and Curriculum (Routledge, 1994), The Schoolhome: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families (1992) and Reclaiming a Conversation (1985).
"Jane Roland Martin...makes a powerful assessment of the state of women in higher education in Coming of Age in Academe: Rekindling Women's Hopes and Reforming the Academy...Martin writes with clarity and focus...[She navigates this complex terrain with a competence born of familiarity with both the academy and feminist activism...Coming of Age in Academe is a thought-provoking treatment of the continuing inequality in higher education and how it might be ameliorated...Clearly organized and written in a straightforward manner, this critical reflection of the loss of innocence that accompanies a coming of age should appeal to a wide range of readers." -- Book Notes
"For those of us in academe who are concerned with moral education and development across the lifespan, no new book is more important than philosopher Jane Roland Martin's Coming of Age in Academe...Her account is piercingly honest...Jane Roland Martin has written an encouraging and valuable book...Her clear observations, cogent analyses and courageous proposals can renew all of our lives if we so choose." -- Journal of Moral Education
"Brilliant and also very timely...Jane Roland Martin is perhaps unique among contemporary feminist scholars in her focus on education and her expertise in the philosophy of education." -- Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice
"What I find strongest about this work is its clarity of concepts, use of classic references, the brilliance of [Martin's] insights, and the linking of an individual woman's situation with the education-gender system...Jane Roland Martin is a major figure." -- Jean O'Barr, Duke University
"Brilliant and powerful, Jane Roland Martin's Coming of Age in Academe lays bare the foundations of education as we know it. Among other things, she shows how academic feminists, indoctrinated by this system, have unwittingly sacrificed the goal of making a positive difference in women's lives. Essential reading." -- Jane Tompkins, author of A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned
"In this brilliant and courageous book, Jane Roland Martin speaks to the heart of the women's movement--joining women inside and outside the father's house of academe and reminding us that education is the road to liberation." -- Carol Gilligan, author of In A Different Voice
"Coming of Age is required reading for everyone who cares deeply about gender equality and the education of women. Jane Roland Martin's compelling comparison of women in the academy to 19th century immigrants in the US, as well as her elegant analysis of the ways in which the academy estranges its members from women, cast the subject of women's higher education in a brilliant new light." -- Bernice Sandler, Senior Scholar in Residence at The National Association for Women in Education
"Coming of Age in Academe is a unique and welcome contribution to the subject of equal rights for women in the academy. Jane Martin has the breadth of view of the philosopher, and the practical experience of a woman with long service as a university professor. Her book is a provocative assessment of how things are, as well as a call to action for the achievement of genuine equality for women." -- Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
"Coming of Age in Academe is a thought-provoking treatment of the continuing inequality in higher education and how it might be ameliorated. --Harvard Educational Review volume 70 number 2 2000."
"Brilliant and powerful, Jane Roland Martin's Coming of Age in Academe lays bare the foundations of education as we know it. Among other things, she shows how academic feminists, indoctrinated by this system, have unwittingly sacrificed the goal of making a positive difference in women's lives. Essential reading." -- Jane Tompkins, author of A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned
"Martin's passionate treatise leaves us teetering between the radical promise of full feminist participation in the academy and the fundamental price of trying to claim a home within powerful patriarchal structures." -- SIGNS: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society
