By Therese Quinn and Erica R. Meiners, $24.99; Peter Lang. Publishing House; 134 pages
In Flaunt It! Queers Organizing for Public Education and Justice, Chicago-based Therese Quinn and Erica Meiners, long-time social justice activists and educators, examine the range of issues that surround our youth, queer and straight, in the educational system.
In general, works on queers and education have focused narrowly on matters of inclusion and tolerance. But advocating only for inclusion and tolerance for queer students, and for "safe spaces" where they might feel welcome, does not address the multi-layered issues facing students. Quinn and Meiners look more deeply at the educational system and its failures to address queer needs, but without isolating queerness from economic and political issues. Flaunt It! considers how and why queer bodies are more vulnerable in a system that furthers the disenfranchisement of students already under threat from poverty, racial discrimination, and the rapid militarization of the public school system.
Quinn teaches art education at the School of the Art Institute and Meiners is a professor of Education and Women's Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. Quinn is a founding member of Teachers Against Militarized Education ( TAME ) which challenged the militarization of Chicago's Senn High School, and Meiners teaches and coordinates an area high school for formerly incarcerated men and women. The two are no strangers to the intertwining of education and social justice, an approach that is not always amenable to either the right or the left sides of the debate on education.
In their introduction, they acknowledge that they are privileged to be tenured faculty who can take on the twin tasks of organizing and education. That still does not address the larger issue of whether academics ought to take on such dual rolesthe book assumes that activism and social justice are an integral part of education. But what do we call it when right-wing teachers agitate for more inclusion of Christian or religious teachings in schools? Is it a social justice curriculum when implemented by the left but proselytizing when the right takes on a similar agenda? Debating such questions may lie outside the scope of the book, but they are useful to consider when we look at schooling environments.
The greatest strength of Flaunt It! is that it contextualizes "queer issues" within the political realms in which they exist. In a chapter titled "Straightening Unruly Bodies through Military Education," the authors consider the militarization of public education. They are critical of the mainstream gay movement's focus on overturning Don't Ask Don't Tell at the expense of a critique of the military's targeting mostly poor youth of color: "… we are offered only the normative choice of advocating for participation in a military that depends not only on poverty and racism but also on our revilement for its existence. This narrowed view of 'queer issues' derails us from the goal of justice and should be rejected." In light of the apparently always imminent withdrawal of DADT, it's likely that the first issue of revilement may soon be moot, but the larger issue of the military's increased manipulation of those mired in poverty should interest queer and straight leftists who have tended to ignore the larger economic and cultural contexts of DADT.
In a chapter on gender and teaching, Quinn and Meiners point out that the profession has not only been historically feminized but also raced through " [ t ] he white lady bountiful teacher archetype" ( think Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds ) . The archetype, with all its straightened ( and constrained ) sexuality and behavior is held up as the embodiment of the teaching professional. This "inhibits certain people from entering the field…Where are the flamey queer men? The crips? The radical black feminist activists?" For queers, there are costs that come with having to cleave to "professional" stereotypes of proprietyto this day, gay men who want to work with young children are suspected as potential pedophiles.
Flaunt It! will not satisfy everyone, given the nuance and the complexity of the issues it considers, but it is essential reading for anyone interested in education, straight or queer.
Quinn and Meiners will be addressing the issues raised in the book at a public event of the same name, along with Gender JUST, Thursday, Nov. 4, at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Residents Dining Hall Building, 1st Floor, 800 S. Halsted, 4:30-7 p.m. See www.genderjust.org .