Posts by Ashley:
- 400-800 words long
- Thoughtfully addresses a topic that fits within the Equality 101 mission statement
- Uses research when appropriate
- All posts or resources are provided in the form of an HTML link
- All links must be set to open in a new window
- A “more” tag must be inserted after the first paragraph
- Must be published under the author of the post, or “Guest”
- Must allow comments
- Writes 3 posts per month
- Follows Writing Guidelines for all posts
- Contacts Team Leader with problems or concerns
- Participates as needed within team
- Rotates in and out of Team Leader position as assigned
- Reviews posts and works with Contributing Writers and Guest Writers as assigned
- Moderates and responds to comments on his/her own posts
- Moderates and responds to comments on posts by Contributing Writers and Guest Writers assigned to him/her
- Checks and participates in discussion forums at least once a week
- Participates in a monthly Equality 101 staff conference call
- Writes 2 posts per month on topics assigned by a Team Leader or Editor
- Follows Writing Guidelines for all posts
- Follows guidelines set by Team Leader and Editors
- Adheres to all deadlines set by Team Leaders and Editors
- Contacts and works with Team Leader or Editor to revise and publish posts
- There was some disagreement earlier about me using “feminists” as a general term to begin a previous letter about how upset I am becoming with the feminist blogging community (I shouldn’t add to the stereotype that all feminists feel this way, etc.). However, I am becoming more and more upset with the feminist blogging community as a whole as the days pass, so I am addressing this to you in general. This post will probably make some people very unhappy, but so be it. I need to get it out. If it doesn’t apply to you, then take it for what it is. If it does apply to you… read on. Or don’t. ↩
- More women than men are diagnosed with eye diseases such as glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy
- Women may experience changes in vision in various stages of their lives including pregnancy and post-menopause.
- More than 2.3 million women (out of 3.6 million people total) live with visual impairment, including blindness
- 6 million women (vs 3 million men) have dry eye syndrome, a condition where not enough natural tears are produced.
- Holden Caulfield – J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1945. 36. ↩
- One could argue that being literate in this way is vital to the credibility of the author of the post, but is it for commenters? ↩
- I am not saying here that you have to be white or upper-or-middle class to have a command of Standard English. Just that it is no secret that Standard English is the language of white, educated people. For more on this, see this article. ↩
Arizona’s Immigration Law and its Effect on Education
June 2nd, 2010I do not live in Arizona. In fact, I’ve never even been to Arizona. When I was in undergrad, though, it seemed like Arizona would be an oasis for teachers. There were superintendents and principals at job fairs that were offering contracts to teachers right then and there, without the strenuous interview process that teachers applying in the Chicago suburbs faced. How easy it seemed to be to get a job teaching in the Phoenix area, and how wonderful the weather would be without the stifling humidity in the summer and the snow in the winter. Now, however, I wonder if Arizona is the same sort of haven it used to be for budding graduates from teacher education programs. So much is going on in that state that it’s hard to believe anyone would move there now, in this climate.
I am the eternal optimist, or, at least, I really do try to see the best in situations. I have been told that Arizona legislators had reasons for passing SB1070. I have been told that the state of Arizona is in such a bad economic situation that they had to do something. I have been told all of these things, and more, but I can’t see any positive side to a law that creates such a culture of hatred and racism that people are comparing Arizona police to the Nazis. And now, this law and the culture surrounding it has opened up avenues to effect the education of students in the state and, by extension, the country and the world.
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Equality 101 is back!
May 31st, 2010
After much planning and hard work, Equality 101 is back up and running! Go check us out! We have great new writers and content planned for you to enjoy.
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Quick Hit: It’s Not About You: Individuals versus Institutions
May 29th, 2010s.e. smith over at this ain’t livin’ posted an awesome post the other day about the difference between critiquing institutions and critiquing the individuals that are a part of those institutions. Here’s a brief part from the post:
Yet, somehow, we need to figure out a way to do that. We need to be able to have structural discussions about our society which do not devolve into people complaining about personal attacks and lashing out, or people attacking people simply for being who they are. And a big part of that, quite honestly, is for everyone to get a little bit less self centred in these discussions, to recognise that, well, not everything is about them. Even if it seems like it is. Even if it feels like a personal attack to hear that you have privilege. (Read the full post here.)
This post was great, and said it much better than I could have. I read this post just after I posted my thoughts on bride-bashing, and I think s.e. smith touches on some of the same issues here. Attacking an institution should be different than attacking the individuals in that institution, except when those individuals are actively working to uphold said institution. I’ll stop here because smith’s post says it better than I ever could. So go read it!
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Bride-Bashing is Woman-Bashing: My Response to FMF’s Choices Campus Blog
May 24th, 2010This post at Feminist Majority Foundation’s Choices Campus blog has got me riled up. It was this type of bride-bashing that strongly contributed to my break from the feminist blogging community, and has definitely been at the root of my frustration with feminism. Women have choices. We should have the right to make those choices. This seems to be a basic tenant of feminism. You don’t have to like the choices women make, but you really should, as feminists, defend their right to make them. This type of bride-bashing (and by extension, woman-bashing) is so incredibly demeaning and unfeminist.
Needless to say, I am really disappointed in this post. What happened to the feminist idea that women have the right to make whatever choices they want? What happened to the feminist idea that women should not participate in putting down other women? I think Gloria Steinem called it “sisterhood.” Personally, I don’t always agree with all of the choices women make, but I will defend their right to make them till the day I die.
The author of this post absolutely is guilty of “adding to the woman-on-woman bashing by saying all this” (her words, not mine). She says there are better ways to spend our “time, energy, and money” – better for whom? I am getting married in October, and while it’s no one’s business what I am spending on my wedding, I’ll divulge that we are inviting 180 people, and having the big white dress, the traditional ceremony, the big reception – the whole shebang. I am planning the whole thing with the help of my mom and my fiancé – yes and my fiancé (the author of that post grossly over-generalized that men don’t have anything to do with their own weddings) – without the aid of a wedding planner or some other similar time-saver. Part of the post reads:
[The wedding industry and vendors] create all this to guilt you into worrying more and spending more. You’ll be too exhausted to think about everything else you’ve been meaning to do – saving for retirement, studying current events, donating to charity, organizing and lobbying to erase the gender wage gap, etc.
While we are all a little stressed out about it (as is natural when you’re planning a big event), we still have plenty of time and energy to save for retirement (we set up our separate retirement accounts just last week), study current events (I read the news every single day and listen to NPR on my way to work), donate to charity (I’m walking in my 6th Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in 2 weeks for which I have raised $1800 every year I’ve participated, and we are making donations to chosen charities in the name of every person there as a wedding favor), and while I haven’t organized or lobbied to erase the gender wage gap, I do somehow find time to blog regularly about feminist issues at here and at Equality 101. I’ll stop tooting my own horn here; you get the point – women can and do plan weddings all the time, and their daily lives don’t seem to suffer much, unless your only basis for this bride-bashing are television shows depicting bridezillas.
I might also point out that weddings are only a “spectator sport” (again, her words) if you’re sitting on your couch watching said wedding shows. If you are the one actually getting married, it is a 100% participatory event that involves you, the love of your life, your family and your partner’s family, and all of your closest friends. Everyone helps; everyone pitches in. And it is the absolute most wonderful thing to see people who are close to you and your partner work so hard to make sure you’re ready for a life together. It was absolutely offensive to see this sentiment diminished by the comparison of a wedding to a gladiator match.
I am a feminist. I even wrote a guest post; for this very site about being proud to be a feminist. But I have to say, the more wedding-bashing from “feminists” I see, the less I want to tell people I am a feminist. I know that it’s really trendy right now for feminists, especially young feminists, to bash women who choose to have a big wedding, or get married in general – and heaven forbid they decide to take their husband’s name! – but it isn’t fair, and it isn’t right. We feminists parade around, fighting for women to have the right to choose what happens to our bodies, but, for some reason, when it comes to choosing to have a big wedding or change our names or whatever else women have “traditionally” done, those of us on this side of the coin are subject to this type of criticism and downright ridicule. And, frankly, it makes me ashamed of the entire feminist movement.
Why is it always the people who seem the most liberal-minded who end up telling people like me that we should be doing “better things“?
Quick Hit: Women and Body Image… From A Man’s Perspective
May 24th, 2010This article might be the best article about women’s experiences of body image issues that I have ever read. And, best of all, a man wrote it! *gasp!*
I have had a few body image breakdowns lately, mostly wedding related (my hair isn’t long enough, I want long hair for the wedding but I hate how it looks now, my fingernails don’t look right, my eyebrows don’t look right, I shouldn’t be eating this, I should get to the gym more… You get the idea). Unfortunately, Tim gets the brunt of this, and he has trouble understanding how to help. (“But you’re beautiful! What’s the problem?”) The problem is, he and I are fighting against an entire lifetime and then some of media images and directives about how women should look and behave – not only on your wedding day, but all of the time! I’ve been part of this community long enough to know that this is what is happening, but that doesn’t stop the media from affecting me in the same way it affects everyone else, and it’s definitely tough sometimes not to fall prey to the internal monologue of criticism.
Anyway, this article is great. I shared it wih Tim and it was like a lightbulb went off for both of us. So go check it out!
“I wish there was more time.”
May 21st, 2010Story time!
My freshman Honors English teacher and speech team coach, Mr. John Hires, sat us all down on the last day of school my freshman year and just looked at us. He sighed a deep sigh and put his hands on the table, arms outstretched. He said: “I wish there was more time. I wish I had more time with you all. You were such a great class. I want to discuss the meaning of life. What is the meaning of life?” We all laughed and the bell rang, ending our time together as a class.
Little did I know, this would be more or less my last memory of Mr. Hires. He passed away my sophomore year, and this was one of the most heartbreaking events during my time at my high school. He was an amazing teacher – inspirational, encouraging. Treating us like adults instead of like kids. Talking to us like we knew what we were talking about. Always wishing for more time instead of counting down the days until summer vacation.
I wanted to be a teacher like that. I still want to be a teacher like that.
He taught us his favorite play, Our Town by Thornton Wilder. I love that play. It was the first play I directed as drama director at my previous school. Every time I think of this memory of Mr. Hires, I think of Emily’s monologue at the end of the play. She’s died in childbirth, and the Stage Manager – the narrator of the story – allows her to come back to see a day in her life, one last time. As she is getting ready to leave her worldly life, she says:
Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I’m dead. You’re a grandmother, Mama! Wally’s dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it – don’t you remember? But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s really look at one another!…I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back — up the hill — to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners….Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?
Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.
Emily: I’m ready to go back.
It is a beautiful moment in the play, and totally reflective of what I think is the right attitude – for education and for life. Thanks, Mr. Hires, for teaching me that.
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Miss Ashley and the Students of the Round Table
May 21st, 2010Roundtable discussions are my absolute, most favorite thing to do with students in my English class, and the last roundtable of the year always makes me a little sad.
I’m sure most of you can figure out what a roundtable discussion is, but for those of you who don’t know, it’s an activity during which I ask all of my students (sometimes 30 in a class) to move their desks into a large circle around the perimeter of the room, and then for the remainder of the hour, we talk to each other about whatever we are reading at the time. I sit in the circle with the students, too (which is always funny when someone walks into the room with a pass, because they look around the circle and say, “Where’s your teacher?” every time!), and my purpose is to gently direct the conversation, but more often, I find myself just listening and participating with the students, adding a few insights here and there.
Roundtables are amazing, because the students can all see each other, and we are really on the same level. I start the first roundtable of every year by telling them about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (it’s also amazing how many of them don’t know that story), and how King Arthur decided to have a round table instead of a rectangular one because, with a circle, there’s no head of the table. All participants are equal, including myself. Of course, that’s not really true. They still look to me for the “right” answer frequently, although that happens less and less every time they do a roundtable.
As you can imagine, the first roundtable of the year is somewhat a battle. They look at me; they don’t talk to each other; when they do talk to each other, it’s never about the literature; sometimes, they’re so shy about sharing their ideas that they won’t say anything at all. But as the year goes on, students who have never said a word in class before become the star players in the roundtable. Students who might never care about literature are excited to share their ideas. Some of the most critical thinking I’ve ever seen comes out of these roundtables, and so the last one of the year always makes me a little sad. But also happy and incredibly proud that my students have come so far.
Yesterday, we were discussing the book (and video), The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch – which is a great way to end the year, and a really easy book to discuss because the students can relate to it and they really like it – and the students were coming up with ideas I’ve never thought about left and right. They were saying things like, “I liked it, but all he talked about was work. Even though he talked about his childhood, it was all stuff that related to his work. I know he said he didn’t want to talk about his family in the video, but he could have talked about life outside of his job, right? I mean, there is life outside of a job, right?”
And there was more where that came from.
These students just blew me away, and I told them as much. When I did, and I told them how proud I was of how far they had obviously come this year, they all just looked at me and smiled. This happened twice – two classes, same results. And these were two of the best moments of my teaching career.
Doing Better Things
May 18th, 2010Last night, the English department at my college treated the Masters students to dinner as a congratulations for finishing our thesis papers and the program. It was a really wonderful evening, and it really didn’t set it until last night that I’ve finished my Master’s. It feels good, but it’s also bittersweet. I will miss my classmates, and believe it or not, I will miss the work – the writing, the discussions, the reading… all of it.
It was nice, however, to share an evening with professors and classmates that was more social than scholarly. I was sitting next to Tim, of course, but also near my professors. They were extremely complimentary of my work, which was nice to hear. They were interested to hear about the conference at which I am presenting my thesis this July. They were also curious about what I will be doing now that I have my Master’s. I had expected this question; most teachers don’t get their Master’s in English unless they want to teach at a community college or go on to their Doctorate and teach at a university. What I didn’t expect was that one of my professors would try to persuade me to “do better things” – his words, not mine. He tried to persuade me so much, in fact, that the head of the department interrupted him and said, “Stop trying to persuade her to leave high school! We need teachers like her!” This topic wasn’t brought up again until the end of the night, as we were saying good bye. My professor shook my hand and said, “Please consider going on to do better things.”
The fact of the matter is that I could not think of a single, more important thing I could be doing with my life right now.
You see, there are assumptions out there about teachers, and sometimes, those who we think are the most liberal thinkers are the ones who hold on to these assumptions the strongest. We are mostly women who didn’t actually choose teaching. We were pushed into it by a patriarchal society. We were told our whole lives that we should choose a job where we work with people or nurture people, because that’s what women are supposed to do. And, of course, those of us who teach English or other humanities courses are doing so because we were not encouraged enough to pursue careers in math or science.
Some people truly believe that we couldn’t possibly be teaching high school English because we love it or because we feel at home in front of a classroom or because we have a passion for teaching. Or because we have a passion for English language and literature.
This isn’t a new concept. I’ve been getting the same line from people at least several times a year. “Do something important!” “You were meant for better things!” I’m here to tell you, right here, right now, that there is nothing better, nothing more important that I can do with my life.
Of all my choices – and I had many choices – I chose teaching. And every day I choose teaching.
That said, I’m back to blogging with a more refined purpose. My goal here is to work to end the assumptions that teachers are either not good enough to do something else or that they’re just waiting around for something “better” to come along. I won’t write about teaching every time I write, and I’ll leave most of the educational theory and sharing of lessons for Equality 101, but I want to write here to give you all a little insight into my life and my work, and I want to show you all how feminism and human rights play out in my life and my work.
I’m excited to be back to the blogging community, and I’m excited about this new path for my writing.
It feels good to be back.
Call for Writers
May 18th, 2010Equality 101 is a group focused on leading the ongoing discussion of diversity and difference in education. If you are interested in adding to the discussion on this site, we are always looking for editors, contributing writers, and guest writers! If you are a teacher, administrator, student, parent, or just have something to say about diversity in education, we’d love to have you write for us!
If you are interested in writing a post for us, or if you are interested in any of the following editorial or writer jobs on the site, please contact staff@equality101.net with your name, what your involvement in education is, what you’d like to contribute or what position you’re interested in, and a link to your blog if you have one. If you have a post you would like to submit a post for review, please edit it to adhere to the following guidelines and attach it to your e-mail to us. We do accept cross-posts, but you must provide a link back to us on your blog. This is an unpaid writing opportunity; none of us are paid for writing on this blog.
Posting Guidelines
All posts for Equality 101 adhere to the following guidelines:
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Positions available:
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An Open Letter to the Feminist Blogging Community
May 3rd, 2010Or: “Why I am Taking a Break.”
Dear Feminist Bloggers 1,
I think it’s time I take a break. I don’t know if this will end in a complete “break up,” if you will, but it will be a definite break. I am not going to blog or post on Tumblr for 30 days, starting right after I post this, I am not going to be reading any blogs, (In fact, I am going to seriously clean up my feeds) and I am not going to post or read anything on Twitter or Facebook for at least 10 days. I’ve really enjoyed our time together, and you all have been invaluable to me as I’ve stumbled through a thesis using your brilliant ideas and writings, and as I’ve grown into my own definition of feminism.
But, that’s just it. My definition of feminism seems to be growing away a bit from the community’s as a whole, or maybe it just was never the same. I think there is a disconnect between me and my beliefs and many of yours, and I think that disconnect lies in the fact that I am a high school teacher, and I am not steeped in academia or living in the middle of a liberal city. I think it’s easy to have lots of highbrow discussions back and forth when you’re in the midst of many other people who have read the same articles as you or who have been to the same lectures as you (say, on a university campus, for example. Or in the middle of a big city.), or, perhaps, when you’re the one giving the lectures. But, sometimes, it’s very difficult to reconcile these academic ideas with the world in which I live and work. And I think me being out of grad school for a while has only helped to deepen this divide.
Don’t get me wrong; the work of the academics and lecturers is vital to the feminist movement. However, for every academic discussion about feminism (or any -ism, really), there isn’t necessarily a clear, practical application for those of us who are not on a university campus or in a big city, and who aren’t constantly surrounded with people who share our beliefs and opinions. And it is this disconnect that, in turn, causes a disconnect between belief sets.
Let me give you a concrete example of what I’m talking about. Anyone who’s spent any time in undergrad or graduate level classes knows the frustration (or perhaps this does not frustrate you) of reading scholarly articles after scholarly articles that do nothing but talk in circles around each other and add nothing to “real life” but more theory. This theory is vitally important, and change could not be made without it. But it is sometimes difficult – maybe impossible – to practice what is preached, so to speak.
Theory is often a one size fits all type of thing. You’re either going to buy it or you’re not. But there is very rarely any in-between. Take, for example, the idea floating around out there that feminists should not get married. Or that, if they do get married, it should be a simple affair because importance should be placed on the marriage, not the wedding, and “these bridezillas who care about nothing but their white dresses and perfect, expensive receptions, never stop to think about their marriages, and shouldn’t that be the important part?” (Yes. I saw that sentiment on a feminist blog a little while ago.) In my opinion, this just isn’t practical, nor is it correct. It seems based on various bridal shows one might see on TLC, but not based so much on real life. (And this surprises me a bit coming from a group of people who continually critique pop culture; why would such a group willingly buy into the idea that most brides are actually anything like what we see on reality TV and romantic comedies without critique or second thought?) OK, I’ll be the first to admit it: I may be hyper sensitive because I am having a rather large wedding, and we decided to do that because this is the biggest decision we’ve made in our lives so far, and it is the happiest we have ever been, and we wanted to share it with as many friends and family as possible. But we are also very focused on our marriage and getting our lives together right. We have conversations almost daily about our future. The wedding is a day. The marriage is a lifetime. And I think most brides really do know that.
But this is just one example. I have had feminist bloggers who don’t know the first thing about teaching try to tell me how to implement feminism in my own classroom, or tell me that I’m “doing it wrong” when it comes to teaching and feminism. I’m not trying to be elitist here, but I am saying that I do know my craft. And maybe feminist blogging isn’t my craft, but teaching most certainly is. And, as a teacher, I know that I cannot make radical changes or radical theoretical statements in my classroom. They just won’t go over well, and might even get me fired. Theory must be radical, but teaching cannot practically be so. Perhaps that’s where my philosophy of Small Strokes comes in: I am not trying to be radical in any way, but just trying to make small differences. Maybe one student this year might remember the discussions we had about feminism who wouldn’t have otherwise known about feminism at all. Maybe two students might see a boy treating his girlfriend badly and say something about it because of my influence. These things might seem small to you, but they are my ultimate success stories.
I think it is this that makes people look down on teachers quite a bit. (Do you know how many times I’ve been told I could do better than teaching? Or how many surprised and disdained looks I got when I told people in undergrad that, no, I wasn’t going on to grad school right away and, yes, I always wanted to teach?) We’re in a different sphere, making different changes in different ways than, say, the feminist blogosphere. But when I’m teaching, I feel I’m doing the most important thing I can do with my life. Sure, other people might be traveling the world, giving lectures or volunteering or studying (all extremely important activities), but I’m in the trenches. And I’m not leaving. And I won’t ever stop being an activist in my classroom. There has been a lot of talk circulating about the privilege embedded in blogging-as-activism, and that bloggers can just walk away from their writing and their activism – put it on hold for a bit while they take care of other things. I’m telling you right now, I cannot walk away from my activism, for, as soon as I do, I cease to be helpful to my students or to myself. I live and breathe activism in my classroom, and I see things that many feminist theorists may not. But when I blog from my perspective, often, I’m told that I’m wrong or didn’t say it right. (I didn’t know thoughtful opinions steeped in research or personal experience could be wrong.) Frankly, I just can’t handle it right now. Not to get too personal, but I’ve lost a lot of the confidence I felt I had previously, and the incessant criticism that is coming at me because of this blog is too much. And it’s hard not to see blog posts that probably have nothing to do with you, but indict something that you’re currently immersed in and not take it personally.
So, I’m going to take a break. I’ve seen how valuable this can be with Equality 101, and I now want to do it for myself. I want to relax a bit, let this all sink in, focus on the end of school and grad school, and – hopefully – refocus on this blog and Equality 101. I don’t know what this blog will look like afterwards, or what time commitment I will be promising to it, but I know that this is best for me.
So. Hopefully I’ll see you all on the flipside.
Sincerely,
Ashley Lauren
My Internet is Out of Control!
April 29th, 2010Well, not so much my internet, but my multiple profiles and websites have me totally boggled. How do I get so many?! And what do I do with them all now?!
What profiles do I have, you may ask? Well…
This site – Small Strokes – for starters. This is where I write my serious feminist stuff. It is really very serious, and I treat this site seriously. I do leave my other less serious doings for elsewhere, although you can probably see a few of them in my sidebar.
Then there’s Equality 101, of course. My brainchild and a group blog for teachers. We’re on a planning break now, but that will be back up and running and MUCH more structured with MUCH better content very soon.
And I’m on Twitter and Facebook (You don’t get my Facebook link. Sorry! It’s private.) Those are where I socialize and share information with other people, although it is a constant battle there to keep up a professional air. Those forums are so off-the-cuff, that it is easy to slip into a more colloquial style, but I worry about who’s finding what, you know?
I’m also on Tumblr, and that’s a more relaxed space for me. I post pictures, quotes, general text and links – basically things that make me happy. I take that much less seriously than I take this site and Equality 101. I don’t feel pressure to keep it up, and I don’t feel pressure to post things only related to activism, which is nice.
Then, you’ve got the standard other sites that everyone seems to have now: Goodreads, foursquare, Google Reader, Instapaper, Pandora, Yelp, Nike+, Blogher, Shewrites… and probably a few more I’m forgetting.
The thing is, most of these I maintain from my phone. In fact, I rarely ever visit the Goodreads, foursquare, Google Reader, Instapaper, or Yelp sites on my computer. I like the iPhone apps for them better, actually (although the Goodreads app is missing some functionality I’d like…). And Pandora doesn’t require maintenance at all. And I really don’t ever use Blogher or Shewrites; my information really is just sitting there collecting computer dust.
But I do sort of feel now like I am just in way too many places. It seems to me like anyone anywhere could find anything they want to about me. I go back and forth between shutting lots of these sites down – What if my students found me? What if my employers found me? What do my friends who don’t really care about any of this stuff or buy into the internet stuff think of me when they read this stuff? Does anyone even read this stuff? Then I think – It might be good if students or employers found me! I write good stuff! I think critically about my job outside of my job! This is good! So what if my friends don’t care or think I’m “weird.” And of course people are reading; even if they’re not commenting, I have quite a few hits when I actually get around to posting! Plus, it’s fun to connect on Goodreads and Pandora and foursquare and Google Reader. It’s almost like we really do use all of these sites to build well-rounded personalities on the internet and share those interests with others. This can be really cool and really creepy all at once – maybe more daunting than creepy, because there is so much pressure to maintain sites and personae and, you know, do a good job at it all. Plus, you know, these things can be serious motivational tools! My Nike + and Goodreads accounts have stimulated my reading and workout habits, and my Pandora account has exposed me to some awesome music! Foursquare, though? The verdict is still out on that one. I think having people know what I think is much different than having them know what I am doing at any given point in time.
I’m still undecided about how to go about keeping or not keeping all of these sites. Summer is coming up, and grad school is almost done (MAY 19!!!!!), so I’ll have a lot more time to play around with things and see what I like and what I don’t like and think about what to get rid of or what not to get rid of. I just stepped back and looked at my bookmarks and iPhone apps the other day and was like “WOW! That’s a lot of stuff!”
How do you feel about online personae? How many sites are you on? How do you maintain them all, if you do? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Recommended Reading 4-28-2010
April 28th, 2010Color-blind racial ideology linked to racism, both online and offline by Phil Ciciora
Images from racial theme parties that are posted on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace not only elicit different reactions from different people based on their race and their attitudes toward diversity, they also represent an indirect way to express racist views about minorities, according to published research by a University of Illinois professor who studies the convergence of race and the Internet.
Wal-Mart Faces Largest Gender Bias Lawsuit in U.S. History
Yesterday, the happy news came that the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Wal-Mart must face a gender-bias lawsuit filed by six of its female employees. The women claim that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest private employer, pays its female employees less than their male counterparts for doing the same jobs and that promotions are few and far between for the women of the Wal-Mart workforce.
Two Ways About It by Becky
Abby and Carolyn give conflicting advice about what to do with unmarked wedding gifts.
DEAR ABBY: My daughter was married last weekend and received several unmarked gifts. When sending out thank-you notes, how do you know what to say and to whom? There were several guests that would never have come empty-handed, yet there is no way to match the mystery gifts to the right guests. Not sending a thank-you note to someone I’m sure brought a gift seems awkward and embarrassing. — AT A LOSS IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
I’m getting married very soon, and I absolutely did not think of this at all. Thanks for more anxiety, Becky. 😉 I kid. This was good advice, and I def never would have thought of it!
The Blind Assassin discussion is going on at Radical Readers and Feminisms for Dummies! Check out this early post by Amanda
I got a little ahead of myself and finished this selection early (love, love, LOVE Margaret Atwood – we could do an entire book club just around her!). Here are some things I think are worth keeping in mind as you read…
How is education (in both the most literal and broadest senses) passed on between characters? Who is teaching, and what is being learned?
What is the relationship between violence and silence? How do each manifest throughout the novel?
My post is coming soon!
What Does Feminism Mean For You? and A Reader’s Response to FAB Blog Debacle from Emily at Gender Across Borders
So I’ve been called a “troll” on one blog–named called “fabulous fab stuff” where the author Miska declares that feminism is only for women, not for “gay men, or black men, poor men, or disabled men.”
I disagree. I made a comment stating that:
I am totally for feminism having different definitions for each person, so I will disagree with you because our definitions are very different. I believe that feminism is not just about women, but equal rights for all. By excluding men and the like, you are making feminism exclusionary. Just my two cents.
I thought sharing opinions was part of the Feminist community online, and I also believe Emily was unduly attacked.
“My Deaf Family” (And My Hearing Life) from Danine Spencer
I’m hearing impaired. I was born with a 60% hearing loss in my left ear and an 80% loss in my right ear. I have worn a hearing aid in my left ear since I was three years old and in my right ear sporadically. It’s hard to explain but wearing a hearing aid in the right ear doesn’t really help all that much. It sort of provides a surround-sound effect that is distracting, like background noise that doesn’t really add anything to my listening experience. For instance, when you’re talking with a friend in a café, do you want the radio turned up or down? It’s easier to hear your pal when the radio is turned down, right? Well, it is for me, anyways. Wearing the right hearing aid is a lot like that.
Thanks for sharing this, Danine!
Wage Disparity Not Just Between Men And Women, New Study Says Blonde Women Make 7% More Than Non-Blonde from Sophia
From the Telegraph, a new study out of the University of Queensland states that a survey of over 13000 women revealed those with blonde hair make on average 7% more than women with other hair colors. The study also revealed that women with blonde hair (in the UK) are more often married to wealthier men.
Whaaaaat?!
What Does Blogging Mean To You? by Colleen at Gender Across Borders
I was moved by this post at The Pursuit of Harpyness and wanted to share it. The author shares honestly, allowing the reader to accompany her/him while s/he struggles through some convoluted, but important, thoughts. S/he struggles with the idea of blogging as activism, and wonders, as we all have, what role it takes in our work for equality. Later the same day I read this post by Amy at Science & Sensibility also exploring her thoughts about blogging but with a decidedly more positive tone. Her post also resonated with me because I, like her, have turned from a non-believer to a preacher of the power of social media to inspire social change.
Blogging is as draining as it is important, but never doubt that it is important!
And…. RMJ at Deeply Problematic is back! Yay!
What have you been reading and writing this week? Post some comments!
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The Feminist Lens: A Pentadic Analsis of The Blind Assassin
April 28th, 2010
Cover of The Blind Assassin
I loved The Blind Assassin. I saw that Radical Readers and Feminisms For Dummies was reading it this month, and I thought to myself: That title sounds really familiar… I went to look at the bookshelves in my closet and, lo and behold, there it was among my mom’s books! Just waiting to be read! So I grabbed it and started immediately, and I couldn’t put it down. This book is truly epic, and the way Margaret Atwood weaves multiple stories together, revealing just enough information at a time to keep the pages turning, is absolutely masterful.
I could gush about the book for hours, and probably not even make a dent in the brilliance of this novel, I’ve decided to add to the discussion of the book by doing a Pentadic analysis of the marriage and subsequent love and sexual violence which ensued between the main characters.
(WARNING! There are spoilers in this post, so don’t read it if you haven’t finished! I’ve put the rest of this post after the jump to avoid angry readers!)
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Now What?
April 21st, 2010I originally started this blog last summer as part of a grad school project. I wanted to join the feminist blogging community and study it. And I did. And then I wrote my thesis about it.
But I really had no vision beyond that project. I sort of figured if I liked keeping this blog when the project was over, I’d just do it. But I never really thought about it much.
Now, I’m finished with the thesis, and I like blogging, but I’m not sure where this blog will go, or what it will morph in to. I’m starting to realize that I like blogging about teaching much more than about pop culture, theory, or anything else, but I don’t want this blog to turn in to just a teacher blog. Equality 101 is coming back soon, and that seems to be my teacher-writing-outlet.
But I need to write. Something drives me to it, always has. I’m not sure. I guess I’m saying that I don’t know if and how to continue here, and I’m open to suggestions.
Recommended Reading: 4-18-2010
April 18th, 2010Don’t forget! There’s still time to donate to my Avon Walk for Breast Cancer AND to RSVP for the #chifems April Tweetup!
The Impact of Twitter on Feminism: Its Facilitations & Limitations by Emily Heroy
Feminism makes it way all across the internet–in universities all over the world, news articles posted online, in forums, on Facebook, and (as the title suggests), Twitter. I’ve talked about the impact of social media and feminism in a video interview I did awhile back. But for this post, I want to stress the impact of Twitter on feminism.
Teenagers and Reading by Justine Larbalestier
1. There seems to be an implicit assumption that all teenagers are the same.
2. There’s also an assumption in all these discussions about YA that it is primarily read by teenagers.
3. Another assumption is that a) only reading fiction counts and b) reading is better for you than any other pastime.
4. Then there’s the assumption that there is such a thing as good writing and bad writing and we all agree on what those are.
Smarts, books, teens and fairy dust by Chally
There’s a particular trend in the challenging of teenagers’ reading choices. Everything teenagers read – or everything teenagers are supposedly reading – is baaaaad. It’s immoral! Or it’s sapping their minds! Or they could be reading something better! say the older folk. We must question where such valuation of these books comes from. Is there something particularly wrong with Harry Potter or Twilight?
Beyond the Pale: Is white the new black? by Kelefa Sanneh via The New Yorker
In a marvellously splenetic essay, “On Being White . . . And Other Lies,” James Baldwin argued that America had, really, “no white community”—only a motley alliance of European immigrants and their descendants, who made a “moral choice” (even if they didn’t realize it) to join a synthetic racial élite. And, in the nineteen-nineties, a cohort of scholars took up Baldwin’s charge, popularizing a field of research that came to be known as whiteness studies. In 1994, the white labor historian David R. Roediger published an incendiary volume, “Towards the Abolition of Whiteness.” Paying special attention to unions and strikes, he traced the unsteady growth of American whiteness, a category that eventually included many previous identities that had once been considered marginal: Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish. “It is not merely that whiteness is oppressive and false; it is that whiteness is nothing but oppressive and false,” he wrote. “Whiteness describes, from Little Big Horn to Simi Valley, not a culture but precisely the absence of culture. It is the empty and therefore terrifying attempt to build an identity based on what one isn’t and on whom one can hold back.”
What Makes a Great Teacher? by Amanda Ripley via The Atlantic
For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data.
Five Years by Danine Spencer
Sunday was the anniversary of a really good day. A great day, in fact. It was the fifth anniversary of the day I was admitted to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, Wis., where I where I stayed for the next two months. I’m sure most people wouldn’t commemorate the anniversary of the day they entered a hospital for two months, but April 11, 2005, was a day that changed my life.
Guest Post: Interview with Julie Zilinger, teenage editor of top feminist blog, the Fbomb from Veronica Arreola
We had the opportunity to talk to one of the busiest (and youngest) bloggers on the web, Julie Zeilinger, sole founder of the Fbomb, a feminist blog for teenagers. Let us rephrase: while the blog may be run by a teenager and posted from a teenage perspective, the content is relevant for any feminist young and old. Zeilinger attracts an international array of young feminists while posting from Pepper Pike, Ohio. In this interview, she tells us how her feminist outlook was shaped, juggling school, the blog and the way her peers and parents view her.
SAFER: Beyond the Campus by Amanda ReCupido
I recently volunteered with SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape), where I’ll be writing a weekly blog post that collects news of sexual assault from “beyond the campus” (their mission is to improve college sexual assault policies). Below is my first post, cross-posted here.
Food and Moral Weight by s.e. smith
But the thing I really like about Michelle is that she talks about the structural systems behind the food we eat, and she specifically addresses and refutes the commonly held idea that individual eaters should be held morally culpable for the system they are trapped in. She does not, in other words, think it’s very productive to judge people who don’t have a lot of choice when it comes to what they get their stomachs around. In fact, she thinks, as I do, that it’s actually pretty counterproductive to be berating people for not eating “right” when “right” may not be an option for them.
Take Care of Your Eyes! by Danine Spencer
Day of Silence by s.e. smith
Bullying kills. This is not just about kids being kids. It is about unparalleled viciousness and horrific behaviour. It is about violence and rape and hatred. It is about school districts which stand by and do nothing while their students are literally bullied to death and people are begging for help; the ‘not my business’ attitude harms youths who are being bullied in particular because they are counting on the adults around them to do the right thing and when they don’t it is an act of betrayal. An act which can’t be made up later, when the victim is dead, I would like to point out.
Following up on the F Conference by Chally
But a problem with feminism is that those “other” issues get treated as pet issues that mainstream feminism can pick up once in a while for minority points and drop again. And the sad thing is, intersectionality isn’t that hard a tool to employ. There are so many conventional sites of feminist activism that could centre, for instance, disability along with gender, but just don’t.
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Standard English Privilege and Teaching
April 17th, 2010This is a cross post from Equality 101.
I wrote a post the other day about Standard English Privilege that has garnered quite a bit of attention. The main argument of the post (I won’t bore you all with the details again) goes a little something like this:
Why is it that so often on the internet I see people revert to the argument that so-and-so writer or commenter can’t spell or construct a grammatically correct argument and therefore the entire argument has no validity in this sphere?
Is literacy so important to credibility here? (One could argue that being literate in this way is vital to the credibility of the author of the post, but is it for commenters?) Or, let me rephrase: Is Standard English literacy so important to credibility here? Or, let me rephrase again: Is white, upper-or-middle class English literacy so important to credibility here? (I am not saying here that you have to be white or upper-or-middle class to have a command of Standard English. Just that it is no secret that Standard English is the language of white, educated people. For more on this, see this article.)
When we discount people and their arguments because of their command (or lack thereof) of grammar, what we are really saying is: Your thoughts are useless because you don’t use the kind of grammar I’ve come to expect from literate people on the internet. What we are also saying is far worse: You don’t have the privilege to have learned the “correct” way of writing or speaking, and, therefore, your ideas are worthless.
In this previous post, I was referring specifically to blog authors and the surprisingly widespread tendency I’ve seen to discount arguments because the commenter “can’t even write a grammatically correct sentence! So they must not be very smart! [giggle]” However, I think this has some interesting implications for teaching, as well.
As teachers, we are taking into account our privilege all the time. Some of us have white privilege or male privilege or class privilege or any number of other privileges, and those of us who fall into those categories must realize that we have these privileges and be constantly aware of them as we teach our students who may or may not have those privileges, as well. But there is another privilege that isn’t very often discussed that is almost a non-negotiable privilege for teachers that we don’t usually talk about: Standard English privilege.
Standard English (SE) privilege means that you, one way or another, have a good command of SE grammar. As stated above, this usually means a few things: 1) You grew up speaking SE at home; 2) you have had access to enough books, articles, and other written works to teach you what SE is supposed to look and sound like; or 3) you have had access to enough education to teach you what SE is supposed to look and sound like.
We know that 1) SE has been dubbed White English Vernacular (WEV); 2) books and articles cost money and parents have to have a lot of time to read them to their children; and 3) education is often expensive. We blog and talk about these sorts of things all the time in our education communities, and yet there are still teachers out there who see three grammar mistakes and hand the paper back for the student to correct it before he/she will read any further. This type of behavior – the type that makes grammar mistakes more important than the ideas in the paper – reeks of white privilege and class privilege. I think my favorite literary character said it best when he said: “That’s something else that gives me a royal pain. I mean if you’re good at writing compositions and somebody starts talking about commas.” 1 When we mark up a paper with our red pens – circling every spelling error, crossing out every extra word, pointing out every missed comma – and hand it back to the student and ask him or her to revise, it’s no wonder all we get back are corrections of grammatical errors and no real revisions of ideas. When students think all we care about is grammar, all they’ll edit is grammar. Far worse than that, when all we care about is SE grammar, we call their entire literate identity into question, and when we tell them their grammar is “wrong” – if that’s all we tell them – what we are really saying is that their argument is worthless because their command of SE grammar isn’t good enough.
I know there are still a few grammar sticklers out there, clutching to their red pens for dear life. (“But it’s on the ACT!!!” you scream. “We MUST teach grammar!!!”) I’m not saying we should stop correcting grammar all together (although maybe we should stop calling it “correcting”). I’m just saying that with practice and the nurturing of a student’s ideas in a paper, the grammar will come. And, really, aren’t the ideas more important, anyway? What, really, is “good grammar” without interesting thoughts?
Standard English Privilege and Teaching
April 14th, 2010I wrote a post over at another blog about Standard English Privilege that has garnered quite a bit of attention. The main argument of the post (I won’t bore you all with the details again) goes a little something like this:
Why is it that so often on the internet I see people revert to the argument that so-and-so writer or commenter can’t spell or construct a grammatically correct argument and therefore the entire argument has no validity in this sphere?
Is literacy so important to credibility here? (One could argue that being literate in this way is vital to the credibility of the author of the post, but is it for commenters?) Or, let me rephrase: Is Standard English literacy so important to credibility here? Or, let me rephrase again: Is white, upper-or-middle class English literacy so important to credibility here? (I am not saying here that you have to be white or upper-or-middle class to have a command of Standard English. Just that it is no secret that Standard English is the language of white, educated people. For more on this, see this article.)
When we discount people and their arguments because of their command (or lack thereof) of grammar, what we are really saying is: Your thoughts are useless because you don’t use the kind of grammar I’ve come to expect from literate people on the internet. What we are also saying is far worse: You don’t have the privilege to have learned the “correct” way of writing or speaking, and, therefore, your ideas are worthless.
In this previous post, I was referring specifically to blog authors and the surprisingly widespread tendency I’ve seen to discount arguments because the commenter “can’t even write a grammatically correct sentence! So they must not be very smart! [giggle]” However, I think this has some interesting implications for teaching, as well.
Read the rest of this entry “
Standard English Privilege and the Literate Argument
April 10th, 2010Why is it that so often on the internet I see people revert to the argument that so-and-so writer or commenter can’t spell or construct a grammatically correct argument and therefore the entire argument has no validity in this sphere?
Is literacy so important to credibility here?1 Or, let me rephrase: Is Standard English literacy so important to credibility here? Or, let me rephrase again: Is white, upper-or-middle class English 2 literacy so important to credibility here?
When we discount people and their arguments because of their command (or lack thereof) of grammar, what we are really saying is: Your thoughts are useless because you don’t use the kind of grammar I’ve come to expect from literate people on the internet. What we are also saying is far worse: You don’t have the privilege to have learned the “correct” way of writing or speaking, and, therefore, your ideas are worthless.
We’re all very aware of the fact that we have privilege; it is the topic of many blog posts in the feminist blogosphere. Criss says this well here; we are bloggers and, therefore, we have privilege that many others don’t have because, in order to blog, we need a computer with internet access, free time in which to blog, and we need to be literate. This must mean that we have at least enough education to understand a command of the – in this case – English language, and we must feel comfortable enough with our command of the language to write articles and put them out there for everyone to see (and comment on, and criticize). Not everyone has this privilege. For one reason or another, not everyone possesses the same level of comfort with Standard English as we bloggers do. These reasons are very often related to race and class; it has been my experience that students of a different race than me and students from a lower socioeconomic background than me posses (often exquisite) command over a different English grammatical structure than me. But does this make their arguments and ideas less valid? No. And to argue such reeks of race and class privilege – just the things we work so hard against. Which is why it is appalling to me how many times I see people say: “This person can’t even write a coherent sentence, so they must have no idea what they’re talking about.”
I would urge you, bloggers, from now on to look at your practices in a new light. Sure, all we’ve got on the internet is literacy – all of our communication more or less takes place using reading and writing practices – but be careful when discounting or making fun of arguments because they are not written using Standard English. Not everyone has the privilege of understanding its use.
Blogging as Activism in Cuba
April 9th, 2010It’s nice to see stories like these about activism on the internet. It gives bloggers validaion instead of allowing us to be pigeonholed into the all-bloggers-do-is-spew-information-about-their-personal-lives-on-the-internet stereotype.
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Gym Harassment
April 8th, 2010This morning, I walked into the gym at 5:15 AM to get a short workout in before work. This is a normal practice of mine. I like working out in the morning for a few reasons: my days are long and my to do list gets longer by the end of them, I refuse to take two showers a day so if I do anything with friends after an afternoon workout I do so smelly, and – most of all – I like morning workouts because the gym is virtually empty and I can workout unbothered and get the equipment I want. I particularly like the unbothered part, as I am small and look much younger than I am and the young men who work out there like to stop my workout to tell me what I’m doing wrong. Which, as you can imagine, is particularly annoying.
So I walk in at 5:15 this morning, go to a treadmill, and yawn. It is, after all, 5:15 IN THE MORNING. I hear a man yelling in a deep, bellowing voice: “WAKE UP! WAKE UP!” I sort of turn around because, seriously, it’s 5:15 in the morning and why is this guy yelling? And I see he is staring and pointing right at me.
Ok. I don’t know this guy and he’s yelling and pointing and standing with a friend – also male, laughing like this is funny or something – and people are starting to look around to see what’s up. It was uncomfortable and awkward and wholly unnecessary. I should have said something sarcastic and mean but, as it was 5:15 IN THE MORNING, I was tired and angry and just put my headphones in and started my jog. I would have informed the staff but they are no better, especially the guys that work the early shift. They just think this stuff is hilarious.
I don’t think this is funny. At all. I am absolutely fed up with being harassed at the gym. I pay just as much for my membership here, and I should be respected as such. Or, you know, I should be respected there as a person, but lately that’s seeming like too much to ask.
Cross posted at my Tumblr