2023 journal article

Weaponizing Resilience: Women in the Trenches and Fringes of Pandemic Pedagogy

International Conference on Gender Research.

By: R. Schwartzman*  & J. Simon*

Source: ORCID
Added: September 6, 2023

This study foregrounds the conflicting social pressures that women educators in the United States face in dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in higher education. Narratives from three standpoints interweave to provide three perspectives on pandemic-informed practices that can build resilience as an inclusive rather than simply an individual process. The three points of view are: a mother in a non-tenure track teaching position who juggles caregiving duties; a male department head navigating how to energize allyship within a neoliberal educational system that suppresses acknowledgment and support of caretaking; and interactions among members of the Facebook group Pandemic Pedagogy, a global social media hub for educators adjusting to the pandemic’s impact. Collectively, these standpoints constitute a critical autoethnographic multilogue to deconstruct and remediate the systemic gender inequities exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic. The three perspectives converge on implementing feminist ethics of care as both a philosophical and practical foundation for constructively cultivating resilience at the personal, community, and institutional levels.