food for thought: camille paglia.

Excerpted from Sex, Art, and American Culture by Camille Paglia, 1992, pgs. 50-53. Emphasis added.

In our cities, on our campuses far from home, young women are vulnerable and defenseless. Feminism has not prepared them for this. Feminism keeps saying the sexes are the same. It keeps telling women they can do anything, go anywhere, say anything, wear anything. No, they can’t. Women will always be in sexual danger.

blogging for choice.

     

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Around the blogosphere, bloggers are posting in order to raise awareness regarding reproductive rights. If you’re interested in checking out everyone involved in Blogging for Choice, you can find the list of blogs here.

Roe v. Wade is in serious jeopardy. Most of our republican candidates support overturning Roe v. Wade if they were to make into office. And even out of our democratic candidates, Barack Obama has been the only one (so far) to come forward on this anniversary and speak out about the significance of of this anniversary, compounded by the stakes of the upcoming election:

“Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it’s never been more important to protect a woman’s right to choose. Last year, the Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban, and in doing so undermined an important principle of Roe v. Wade: that we must always protect women’s health. With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a women’s fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe v. Wade. The next president may be asked to nominate that Supreme Court justice. That is what is at stake in this election. . .

single-sex education in the news.

Nightly News began a 4-part series called “The Truth About Boys and Girls” on January 15th. The name alone makes me cringe, just because of the finality of the title. Anyways, they interviewed Leonard Sax on single-sex ed, so for anyone who is interested, you can watch it here.

 The other segments are also available for view msnbc.com, with the last segment airing tomorrow on Nightly News.

food for thought: dorothy allison.

excerpt from Two or Three Things I Know For Sure (source):

I’m only supposed to tell one story at a time, one story. Every writing course I ever heard of said the same thing. Take one story, follow it through, beginning, middle, end. I don’t do that. I never do.

Behind the story I tell is the one I don’t.

Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make you hear.

Behind my carefully buttoned collar is my nakedness, the struggle to find clean
clothes, food, meaning, and money. Behind sex is rage, behind anger is love, behind this moment is silence, years of silence.

ally 101.

Please come over and join the ally 101 thread that Theriomorh has begun over at CRN.

faux feminism or third-wave ingenuity. an analytical critique of Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism.

This critique is an excerpt from a more comprehensive analytical critique, written for a graduate course in gender studies. The original critique is 25 pages long, and includes a chapter-by-chapter analysis. The critique was written with academic purposes. My intention in writing this critique was to understand the reasons behind the style and format of FFF, as well as the reasons it has become so popular, not only in academia but in general. I came at this with a postmodern lens. This critique has been a starting point for me on a larger article I am working on, which will explore the movement of third-wave feminisms with postmodern American narcissistic culture.

On this blog, I have hoped to create a space in which academia and the blogosphere can merge – a space of discussion for bridging theory and praxis. While I recognize strong antipathies regarding academic feminism, I also believe that  bridging this gap is possible and necessary to the third-wave, which is gaining momentum within gender studies departments.

I have reformatted the beginning portion of this review, based on reaction to the post yesterday. This critique is my own standpoint and perspective on Full Frontal Feminism. I have taken out any quotations by other bloggers. That said, the critiques I have linked here are part of the reason I was so interested in reading this book to begin with.  I never intended to twist words and meanings out of context, and so I have removed that section in hopes that the review can be seen in the context it was written for: an academic, analytical critique.

Finally, the discussions that were sparked by this post, along with the discussions below this post – in particular with Theriomorph – have sparked a new idea on a feminist ally discussion, which will be hosted by Theriomorph and I will announce details as soon as I know them.

 In the recently published text, Full Frontal Feminism, Jessica Valenti, prominent third-wave feminist and blogger provides an expansive and personal overview of feminism, intending convince many young women that feminism is not dead, that it is alive and necessary. The text has garnered incredible attention, both in the blogosphere, the media, and the academy. Valenti’s unconventional language and tenacious style have elicited mixed reviews, prompting my own interest in critiquing the book. Included in this critique will be an overview of the problematic features of the book, as well as an analysis of the possible reasons behind Valenti’s method and the ultimate ingenuity that Full Frontal Feminism offers.

single sex public education? separate but equal?

I recently went home for the holidays and spent some time in Boston with friends. I’ve realized that meeting new and different people has taken on a new significance, one that stems from traditional and seemingly meaningless small talk that begins all new conversations. Introductions that include polite and obligatory inquiries such as, “so what do you do?” have led to some amazingly candid and unexpected conversations about sexuality and feminism. I’ve come to feel lucky that what I “do” is viewed as so unconventional, so surprising to some. Somehow as soon as I say “gender studies”, the conversation shifts from mundane small talk to animated intrigue. Over the past two weeks I have had the most spontaneous and involved discussions, on topics ranging from the basics of feminism to fluid sexuality to queer culture. One of these conversations I had with a friend of a friend in Boston, and he asked me what my views were on single-sex public education.

I admit that I am familiar with the push towards single-sex education, but I was not well-versed enough to respond with any sort of informed or formulated argument. Instead I responded instinctively and thoughtfully, telling this friend that I thought single-sex education would be a detriment to both female and male schoolchildren, for many reasons, one of them being the ultimate “separate but unequal” argument – that separate schools for genders would somehow result in the inequality of education. Secondly I responded that the answers to inequalities in education lies not in separation or segregation, but in a concerted effort to reform a unified educational system so that it is able to address the complex issues of a coeducational curriculum. He seemed relieved with my answer, echoing my sentiments, and while I was satisfied with the answer I was able to give, the conversation stuck with me. I came home and did some research in order to find out if somehow I had overlooked or oversimplified something.