International Women's Day is the annual observation held on March 8 to rally around the women's rights, education, development, empowerment, equality and inclusion. The UN has urged, "On 8 March 2025, join us to celebrate International Women’s Day under the theme, 'For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.'...This year’s theme calls for action that can unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all and a feminist future where no one is left behind. Central to this vision is empowering the next generation—youth, particularly young women and adolescent girls—as catalysts for lasting change."
However, the teaching community can celebrate the day by discussions on feminism and feminist pedagogy to make education gender inclusive and equitable. The INFLIBNET Centre (https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in › uploads › epgp_content) in its module on Feminist Pedagogy stresses the need to understand the term feminism in its true sense as follows
"The basic presumption that Feminism prescribes to, is that all men and women are equal socially, economically or politically. It does not support looking for either similarities or differences between the male and female. So, any person who may believe that men and women are equal may be termed as a ‘Feminist’. Feminism identifies education as a tool for social change. ... Even though many struggles have been won but even today young girls and women come across issues of gender discrimination in school, work place, streets, anywhere and everywhere. Constitutional rights, provisions etc cannot ensure access to all even today !There are still out of school children today, more girls than boys. Even now there are very few women who opt for non-traditional occupations or professions. In schools too girls often select ’softer subjects’ such as Arts instead of Sciences, even if they opt for Sciences itis either Biological Sciences or Home Science. Sex Role Stereotyping is still commonly seen in curriculum and more importantly in transaction."
Though the definitions of feminist pedagogy vary widely, but there is common agreement on these three key tenets: resisting hierarchy, using lived experience as a learning resource and implementing transformative learning by treating classroom as community of diverse learners. Here is my ABC's of feminist pedagogy to understand the features of feminist pedagogy.
ABCs of Feminist Pedagogy
A: Aims at challenging the power dynamics and de-hierarchizing relationships in learning environments and instructional methods to create an inclusive and equitable education all genders
B: Beholding learner's identity and position intersectionality in the classroom and employing cooperative and collaborative methods by acknowledging diversity and differences
C: Considering and believing in the assumption that knowledge is socially constructed through interactions, dialogues, collective reflection, dialogues, collaboration, negotiations in situations in which students and teachers are colearners or co-constructors of knowledge by sharing power or control over curriculum and pedagogy
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