Breaking Ladders to Build Bridges: How Women of Color Faculty Raised Me as a Critical Feminist Scholar

• In Event: A Reflexive Plática Honoring the Femtorship of Black and Latina Women in the Ivory Tower

Abstract

In my autoethnographical reflection I will be highlighting how Women of Color Faculty have raised and [fem]tored me into the Critical Feminist scholar that I am (Campos, 2016; Bhattacharya, 2020). Using a Women of Color Feminist lens, I describe how Black and Latina Women of Color faculty have helped me challenge and disrupt the hierarchy and power dynamics of the student-professor relationship and move beyond climbing academic ladders to instead cross and build bridges. As the Santa Cruz Feminist Collective states “ ‘Women of Color’ resonates in feminist and philosophical debates as a critique of and alternative to oppressive, canonical forms of knowledge that restrict interventions by women, people of color, and queers in the academy and beyond” (2014).


As such, the process of [fem]torship and my relationships with each of these Women of Color have been vital to my journey and success as a first-generation Latina doctoral student. This transformational process of building bridges has created opportunities for me to understand how I can challenge and disrupt the academic norm of individuality, and instead focus on collaboration and co-creation with women and queer folks across race, class, gender, sex, and nationality among other identities. By using plática methodology and reflexivity I will be able to honor the [fem]torship of these Black and Latina faculty members while continuing to break down the oppressive ladders of academia to continue to build upon the bridges that Women of Color Faculty have built for me (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016; Hesse-Biber & Piatelli 2014).

Author

• Jenelle Nila, Claremont Graduate University