Can a Man Teach Bronte?

I am currently taking an English class whose main focus is the works and lives of the famed Bronte sisters: Emily, Charlotte, and Ann. Women- all of them. This class is taught by professor Michie, a woman. Roughly 25 students are enrolled, 22 of whom are female. I am one of three males in the class. Here, predominantly women are studying the works and writings of other women. If I decided to continue my study of the three sister (which I can assure you I will not) into Grad school, obtain a post-graduate degree having the Bronte sisters at the center of my studies, would I then be qualified to succeed Michie as professor of this class upon her retirement even though I am a male?

In class we talked about Males teaching courses of feminism or Anglo-Americans teaching courses on African-Americans. Should it work? Does it work? What kind of bias does this create? What kind of bias does it prevent? How about a female teaching a course on feminism where there are male students? Does the bias not flip-flop and take on a different dynamic all together?

This issue pops up most often for me in political conversation. I am outspokenly pro-choice when it comes to the political issue of abortion. Of course this stance elicits passionate opposition from males and females of a different ideological stance. Often times when it is a female that wishes to debate the issue, she will make the point that because I am a man, I shall never know what it is like to become pregnant and therefore should have no right to an opinion on the matter!

Preposterous! Here’s my take: The beauty about being human beings is our ability to transcend our own motions and ideas to express them in a symbolic order. This order (specifically known as language) works to connect humans together and allow a common playing field to express experiences that other humans can liken to their own experiences and therefore come to a generalized agreement about which it is you’re thinking (anger, happiness, sadness, hunger). No, I will never know what it is like to become pregnant (unless biological science makes some seriously huge leaps in the next 80 years), but I can talk to women – pregnant or not- and I can come to an understanding of what it is, and what it come be likened to, and therefore can understand it on common terms. Feminism, African-American studies, and Bronte sisters are no different. Though I may not be a woman and I just happen to be an Anglo-American, this does not work against me but for me. I have an experience that I can share for others to understand and likewise I can find that common understanding of their experiences. People get so hooked on the color of a person’s skin or the reproductive organs a person possesses and most often times forget that we are all persons. It would be unfortunate for such breaks in our understanding to work against the expansion of knowledge to all peoples.

Non-Jewish people must help teach of the Holocaust. Non- African Americans must help teach about slavery. Non-female people must help teach of the historical suppression of women. These things are not injustices forced upon only Jews, Africans, or Women – they are injustices forced up humanity. What do you think?