Is academic feminism an oxymoron?

An oxymoron by definition is a paradox, a universal contradiction. But no words or concepts have such stability. Indeed, any concept subject to a feminist critique is quickly revealed as a social construction whose so-called paradoxical status is but the beginning of redefinition and the foundation for political action. So it is with academic feminism. While apparently a contradiction to 'teach' feminism within an exclusive authoritarian academy awash with masculine ways of knowing and doing, my experience in Women's Studies at Deakin University has revealed the positive as well as the negative sides of this paradox. In particular, by subverting the academy as the sole custodian of 'higher learning,' in confronting men's knowledge with the possibility of feminist knowledge, and in juxtaposing feminist ways of working and organising with pre-existing structures of power and status (even if without success), avenues of redefinition and political action have been exposed which undermine academic feminism as an oxymoron. © 1987.