Fourteenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

This paper contends that failure—and fear of possible failure—disproportionately deters women from taking academic risks and learning new digital tools. I review the sociological literature around the impact of failure on women and then relate it to cyberfeminist pedagogies and Allison Carr’s embodied ‘pedagogy of failure.’ Such risk of resulting shame can also gatekeep women from male-dominated discourses and spaces where failure is necessary, such as digital spaces that rely on troubleshooting. As first-year writing courses increasingly incorporate digital rhetorics, I argue that instructors should also adopt reflective or labor-based assessment strategies that decrease anxiety surrounding mastery and failure. First-year writing instructors occupy a unique position in that they can teach digital technologies not as fields, but rather as rhetorical tools for women and other minorities to use for their own communicative purposes.