Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp, both foundational feminist geographers and scholars, describe the struggle of gaining recognition in academia, saying that "has been a long struggle to gain recognition within geography as a discipline that gender relations are a central organizing feature both of the material and symbolic worlds and of the theoretical basis of the discipline." Feminist geographers struggle in academia in a variety of ways. Firstly, ideas that originate from feminist discourse are often seen as commonsense once the wider field accepts them, thereby rendering geography that is explicitly feminist invisible. Furthermore, feminist geography is understood to be the only subfield of geography where gender is explicitly addressed, permitting the wider discipline to disengage from feminist challenges. Finally, within the field, some geographers believe that feminist practice has been fully integrated into the academy, making feminist geography obsolete.