Ileana Jiménez, PhD
Ileana Jiménez is a leader in the national and global feminism-in-schools movement and creator of the hashtags, #HSfeminism and #K12feminism. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the English department at Stony Brook University in New York.
Her research focuses on Black and Latina feminisms, feminist and queer pedagogies, and digital feminist activism in the high school English classroom. An English teacher-activist-scholar, she taught women of color feminisms and queer literature classes at the high school level for over 25 years, and has also taught courses on courses on gender, sexuality, and schools at Barnard as well as critical feminist pedagogy courses at NYU and Teachers College.
In 2011, she received a Fulbright to interview queer and trans high school students in Mexico City, and has also shared her feminist curricula and research at universities and schools throughout the world, including Argentina, Australia, Greece, India, and the UK. She received her B.A. in English Literature at Smith College; an M.A. in English Literature at Middlebury College; and a PhD in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is @feministteacher on social media platforms.
Supervisors: Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz and Limarys Caraballo
Her research focuses on Black and Latina feminisms, feminist and queer pedagogies, and digital feminist activism in the high school English classroom. An English teacher-activist-scholar, she taught women of color feminisms and queer literature classes at the high school level for over 25 years, and has also taught courses on courses on gender, sexuality, and schools at Barnard as well as critical feminist pedagogy courses at NYU and Teachers College.
In 2011, she received a Fulbright to interview queer and trans high school students in Mexico City, and has also shared her feminist curricula and research at universities and schools throughout the world, including Argentina, Australia, Greece, India, and the UK. She received her B.A. in English Literature at Smith College; an M.A. in English Literature at Middlebury College; and a PhD in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is @feministteacher on social media platforms.
Supervisors: Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz and Limarys Caraballo
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Working across borders from within and without their institutions, both teachers---one Latina and one white---designed an intense series of sessions that were held in New York that revealed the ways in which rape and rape culture are a part of a “collective national and even international systemic problem” (Simmons, 2016), particularly within schools and universities. As the students, both white and of color, moved through the course, “intimacies of solidarity” (Darder, 2011) began to manifest as girls shared their experiences of sexual harassment at school as well as other forms of gender-based violence. Using film screenings, activist workshops, and reflective writing to build community and consciousness, the two teachers and their students found that rape culture refused to hold its theoretical borders, as personal stories of harassment and violence revealed truths that demanded action. In three short days, students and teachers’ bodies became increasingly visible as “meeting points” (Ahmed, 2012) at which the racialized, classed, and gendered aspects of rape culture converged. Indeed, the impact of the course on the girls led to continued school-based activism and calls for policy-making to school leaders.
This paper will explore a transnational feminist teacher collaboration; the refusal of feminist pedagogy to be contained within the borders of a school classroom; and the dangerous and necessary effects of holding space (and letting that space spill over) in schools for feminist pedagogy to transform into both student activism and solidarity between feminist teachers.
Working across borders from within and without their institutions, both teachers---one Latina and one white---designed an intense series of sessions that were held in New York that revealed the ways in which rape and rape culture are a part of a “collective national and even international systemic problem” (Simmons, 2016), particularly within schools and universities. As the students, both white and of color, moved through the course, “intimacies of solidarity” (Darder, 2011) began to manifest as girls shared their experiences of sexual harassment at school as well as other forms of gender-based violence. Using film screenings, activist workshops, and reflective writing to build community and consciousness, the two teachers and their students found that rape culture refused to hold its theoretical borders, as personal stories of harassment and violence revealed truths that demanded action. In three short days, students and teachers’ bodies became increasingly visible as “meeting points” (Ahmed, 2012) at which the racialized, classed, and gendered aspects of rape culture converged. Indeed, the impact of the course on the girls led to continued school-based activism and calls for policy-making to school leaders.
This paper will explore a transnational feminist teacher collaboration; the refusal of feminist pedagogy to be contained within the borders of a school classroom; and the dangerous and necessary effects of holding space (and letting that space spill over) in schools for feminist pedagogy to transform into both student activism and solidarity between feminist teachers.