Interpreting Gender Codes In Higher Education Based On Feminist Epistemology

Gender discrimination in higher education can be explained with different theories. Based on feminism epistemology, this study investigated higher education in light of "knowledge and gender", situating sociological gender inequality in the gender rank schema of knowledge in philosophical epistemology. This study revealed epistemological source of gender discrimination in higher education through gender analysis of the four core concepts in higher education, namely high learning, discipline, course and instruction. High learning, the constructing material of the framework of higher education, is closely related to and has the same structure with the traditional social gender system, manifesting in aspects such as concepts, research methods, and constructions of subjects, principles, logics and themes. The Feminism believes that the so-called mankind's domain of "knowledge" is actually overwhelmingly constructed in the male's angle of view, and it undoubtedly harbors the interest and prejudice of the male and accordingly hampers the cognition and the development of the female. Therefore, as a special form in the whole knowledge system, high learning, by no means gender-neutral or gender-exclusive, actually represents the image of the male and contradicts the female and feminity in nature. This essential character of high learning is the outcome of the male-dominated socio-cultural construct, as in the case of the social gender system. With the so-called "objectivity", "neutrality" and "universality" of the knowledge, high learning provides reasonable and legal basis for the economic, political, cultural and gender systems of the society, and thus it actually offers within epistemology an explanation of the existing gender hegemony in the politics, economy, culture and even the higher education in the actual society. As an important carrier of the academic and teaching activities of higher education, the discipline is also not value-neutral. Just like high learning, the discipline is also constructed, so there can be no neglect of the concealed power, interest foundation and ideology. Feminism holds that in the progress of discipline system, male is the only insider of disciplinary knowledge, while female is the outsider. The knowledge created by female and the knowledge concerning female have already been forgotten consciously and distorted unconsciously. Dividing the discipline into male discipline and female discipline and then making hierarchical orders is the reflection of the gender division of labor in the social gender code system upon the sphere of learning and higher education, and it mirrors and continues a male-centered or male-superior social culture. In order to eliminate the gender metaphor of discipline, break the interdisciplinary rank classification and bring the knowledge created by and concerning the female into the discipline, it is a must to get rid of the traditional mode of thought and stick to the pluralism of disciplinary construct subject and the development and openness of discipline content. Regarding the course as a gender text is a new achievement of feminism in the course domain. In the eyes of feminists, mainly created and prescribed by the male, traditional college courses and their discourse are in accordance with the male-centered value system, with importance attached to the fields and topics concerned by the male, neglecting and excluding female's experience and cognition, consequently making the world of female invisible or distorted in the course sphere. Thereby, they think that if the gender prejudice is to be removed in the field of course, the female should participate as the subject in the construction of knowledge and the choice, explanation and research of the course. The naissance of the course of "women's studies" is a pioneering research result achieved by feminists. By means of establishing research and teaching organizations which take the course of the study of women as a medium, they want to effectively penetrate into different domains of discipline, to make numerous marginalized or even covered problems related to female, or the so-called heterodox theme, emerge on the historical surface and be included in the course system, to change the situation of the college course in which male and its relating topics is the only orthodox and standard, to alter the course culture's image of male authority, and to provide an essential knowledge base and platform for female's integrating into higher education system and becoming the real knowledge subject. Traditional teaching is seemingly gender-relieved, but in fact it has already internalized traditional social gender norms, which mainly represent in aspects such as teaching content, teaching strategy and teaching evaluation. Feminism creates a new teaching concept and methodology, i.e. the feminism teaching theory, by revealing the problems of rights in college classrooms and criticizing the concealed gender stand.Proposed by the feminism teaching theory, the study relationship which is equal, diverse, tolerant, inter-encouraging and power-endowing, and the active and enthusiastic state in knowledge innovation have aroused the attention of education circles. Feminists hold the belief that by implementing the basic concepts and methods of the feminism teaching theory various prejudices, including gender prejudice can be removed gradually and the ideal classroom that feminism pursues can be realized. By giving the four core concepts of higher education a social gender interpretation, feminism diverts gender discrimination explained on the level of law and society to on the level of spirit and knowledge. It brings to light such a truth: the causes of the long-standing unconscious forgetting of the collectivity of female in higher education, gender prejudice in the process of education and gender difference in education results do not lie in what the female was born for and what they can do, but in people's gender conception and their understandings of higher education, that is the cultural stipulation of what higher education should be and should not be.