Posts by Ashley:
International Women’s Day: I love being a woman.
March 8th, 2010It’s International Women’s Day! Be sure to check out what’s going on at Gender Across Borders for #BlogforIWD, and at Equality 101 – we’re blogging all day about gender equality and education!
I know it is usually the way of the feminist blogosphere to focus on what needs to change and how far we have to go, but in honor of International Women’s Day this year, I’d like to focus on how wonderful it is to be a woman.
I am happy to be a woman, even more so now that I have found this wonderful community of feminists with whom I get to celebrate being a woman every day. I chose to get married, and I get to look at pictures of my wedding dress every day and giggle. If I have the ability and I choose to do so, I’ll be able to experience the miracle of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. I am afforded the opportunity to voice my opinions and fight for equal rights from my unique perspective as a woman and as a teacher. I get to experience the fun it is to wear high-heels and skirts and makeup, and I can also choose not to wear high-heels and skirts and makeup.
I get to have a special relationship with my mom that only mothers and daughters have. I get to have a special relationship with my friends that only girlfriends have. I get to be a strong woman role model for those around me.
I am fortunate and privileged, I know. But the more I surround myself with amazing women, the more fortunate and privileged I feel to be a woman and to interact with this amazing community every day.
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Teaching Feminism: The Yellow Wallpaper
March 3rd, 2010“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman* is one of the most interesting short feminist texts I’ve ever read (need a refresher? Check Wikipedia!). I have a feeling several people agree, so I’d like to share with you a glimpse into my classroom and tell you how I taught this wonderful story earlier in the year.
One of the most interesting things about this text is that it was originally categorized as a horror story or Gothic text because there was no “feminist genre” in which to place it when it was originally written. Some still see it as a horror story, thinking the women in the walls are ghosts rather than hallucinations. Because of this, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is perfect not only for an introduction to feminism, but an introduction to reading literature from different points of view.
My intended audience is college prep sophomores in an English 2 class during a 50-minute class period. This was the first full week of school, so I kept that in mind as I created rigorous plans, yet eased them into thinking after a long summer.
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End the R-Word
March 3rd, 2010Last week in my Theory of Rhetoric class, I left very upset over an argument that ensued over the use of the word “retarded.” It was brought up in one of my classmates’ responses inspired by Rahm Emanuel’s recent comments. One of my other classmates actually said, upon hearing all of this: “You know, I was reading all of this stuff in the news, and the only thing I could think was: How retarded is this?!” And all I could think or say was: “How insensitive can you be?” Then, the typical arguments that people use when defending their right to use ableist language ensued. (For a rundown of those arguments and excellent responses to them, read this post.) I, of course, stood up for what I believe, which is that the use of the word “retarded” in this way is wrong, but it wasn’t enough, and the argument was cut short in the interests of time.
So, for this week, I wrote my response on just this, and I mean it to serve as an argument against the use of the word “retarded” to mean undesirable or useless and posted today to coincide with this event. What follows is my response, meant to use the readings from this week to support my position and extend my argument.
I’ve been looking for a way to write about our discussion at the end of last week’s class about the word “retarded” for an entire week now, but haven’t found the words. I think after reading I.A. Richards, I have a clearer sense of the argument that was posed.
Richards spoke quite a bit of words and their meanings in this reading. It was stated in the readings that “Much of Richards’s perspective on rhetoric is concerned with how words come to mean what they do. Richards sees meanings of words as central to a theory of rhetoric not only because they are essential components in the function of language but also because of the ways in which meanings serve the users of words” (Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric 24). In fact, he seemed to think that words and their meanings were at the root of rhetoric and his problems with it. He especially rejects the notion of several classical rhetoricians that there is one correct word with one correct meaning that is to be used for a given situation. In his lecture on “The Philosophy of Rhetoric,” he states:
Most words, as they pass from context to context, change their meanings; and in many different ways. It is their duty and their service to us to do so… We are extraordinarily skilful in some fields with these shifts of sense – especially when they are of the kind we recognize officially as metaphor. But our skill fails; it is patchy and fluctuant; and, when it fails, misunderstanding of others and of ourselves comes in. (Readings in Contemporary Rhetoric 5)
In other words, he argues that if we didn’t allow words to change their meaning if their contexts have changed, we would be doing language a disservice and allowing for more misunderstandings. Therefore, from this quote, it might be said that Richards would defend the use of the word “retarded” with a meaning of unappealing or useless or undesirable because, over time, that is what this word has come to mean. This is the root of the problem with the word “retarded.” There is a faction of people who want to allow for the meaning of the word to change from a name for a disability to another word for unappealing/useless/undesirable and there is a faction of people who say that this use of the word is offensive because people with this disability are not unappealing/useless/undesirable, and using this word in this way has negative implications toward people with this disability.
However, this argument only works if you can argue that the context surrounding the word has changed. Richards also says: “Some words and sentences still more, do seem to mean what they mean absolutely and unconditionally. This is because the conditions governing their meanings are so constant that we can disregard them” (Readings in Contemporary Rhetoric 4). The most important question, then, is this: Has the context around the word “retarded” changed enough to allow for a change of meaning? I would argue no; the only reason the word “retarded” came to mean unappealing/useless/undesirable in the first place was because people with this disability were seen as unappealing/useless/undesirable, and the word was then used to describe anything that was unappealing/useless/undesirable. The word is now widely used incorrectly in this way, and correctly used not only in a medical and educational context, but people and families do still choose to use the word when it applies to them. The context has not changed, just the usage of the word, and the context surrounding the word does not change just because it is widely used in the wrong way. Therefore, I believe Richards would argue that our contemporary use of the word “retarded” to mean unappealing/useless/undesirable is not correct. Rather, the contemporary use of the word “retarded” is in and of itself a misunderstanding; it has been used to denote an incorrect meaning for so long that people have been led to believe that the context surrounding it has changed, but that’s not how it works for Richards, or for the world as a whole. The context must change before the meaning can, not the other way around.
For more on the topic of ableist language, please refer to this excellent blog post written for a blog about disability: http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/23/o-language-again/
Works Cited
Foss, Sonja K., Karen A. Foss, and Robert Trapp. “I.A. Richards.” Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc., 2002. 19-49.
Foss, Sonja K., Karen A. Foss, and Robert Trapp. “The Philosophy of Rhetoric: Lecture I.” Readings in Contemporary Rhetoric. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc., 2002. 1-9.
Special thanks to meloukhia for help on this post!
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Wedding Update
March 1st, 2010It’s been a while since I’ve written about my wedding, so I figured I should give everyone an update. Planning has been pretty much put on hold until Tim and I finish our Masters degrees in May (although we’re going to a tasting on March 8, and I’m pretty stoked about tasting some great food!), but since Tim, my mom, and I are all teachers, we’ve been able to get a lot of stuff done on days off and vacations. All we really have left are guest lists, invitations, and flowers.
Since I’m a pretty non-traditional person, it may surprise some people that we opted for a rather traditional ceremony and reception, but I think we’re putting some nice twists on it to make it our own. What follows is what we have decided so far:
1. We are having a more traditional ceremony. I’ll have the white dress and will be walked down the aisle by both of my parents as a symbolic gesture of combining families. I will not be “given away,” however – no one will be asked “Who gives this woman to this man.” And no one will be asked if they have any reason we should not be married. I’m sure there are plenty of people with reasons, but I don’t want to hear them. 🙂
2. We are not writing our own vows. I know, two English majors not writing their own vows?! My problem with handwritten vows is that they never seem to sound very sincere, and I don’t think I’ll be able to speak loud enough to be heard anyway, so we’re opting for the “I do” vows, although they will be customized. None of this “honor and obey” stuff. And none of the “Mr. and Mrs. _____” or “man and wife” stuff, either. I’m not changing my name, and I’m not going to pretend I am for the sake of ceremony and tradition. We’re going to be introduced as “The married couple, Ashley and Tim.” I like that. 🙂
3. My uncle – my mom’s brother, and one of the coolest people I know – will be officiating the ceremony. He is not affiliated with any religion, so it will be more of a civil ceremony, but it will follow the traditional religious format so to speak. We will also have a mix of religious and secular readings.
4. I’ll be walking down the aisle to The Beatles. And that is awesome.
All-in-all, it is shaping up to be exactly what we want it to be, and with every decision I am more and more excited. So, there’s your update! If you have any wedding stories or suggestions to share, please do! I’d love to talk wedding for a few days here.
Only the Photogenic Need Apply
February 24th, 2010Me: Yes. I do know what those two words mean. However, my department chair and most of my professors know that I have nothing good to say about this program, so I am left to assume that you stressed the need for someone photogenic.
The Rhetoric of Hate
February 23rd, 2010This is part of a series of posts about rhetoric and feminism. I’ll be writing these responses every week as part of my graduate class about Topics in Rhetoric this semester, and I welcome any and all responses!
This week, a particular passage about passions from Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres really struck my interest. Excerpts of this passage are as follows:
We should observe in what manner any one expresses himself, who is under the power of a real and a strong passion; and we shall always find his language unaffected and simple. It may be animated, indeed, with bold and strong figures, but it will have no ornament or finery. He is not at leisure to follow out the play of imagination. His mind being wholly seized by one object which has heated it, he has no other aim, but to represent that, in all its circumstances, as strongly as he feels it… Beware even of reasoning unseasonably; or, at least, of carrying on a long and subtile train of reasoning, on occasions when the principal aim is to excite warm emotions….Warm emotions are too violent to be lasting. (The entire chapter can be found here.)
In my experience as an activist and blogger, this idea can be applied to any number of passionate speakers using their passions to do wrong. However, this week, I’d like to use this passage to discuss Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.
Like many preachers, Fred Phelps is an incredibly passionate speaker. The delivery of his speeches is, in some ways, memorizing. (In my opinion, this is more equated to not being able to take your eyes off of a car accident as you pass by it, but that’s neither here nor there.) However, I feel if Blair were to see him speak, he would consider Phelps a passionate orator, and one to watch out for. From what I understand, Phelps’ entire premise for his protests is that God condemns gay people to hell, and punishes not only people who are gay, but also people who are allies to the LGBT community. Under his reasoning, 9/11, the school shooting at NIU, the violent murder of Matthew Sheppard, etc. all happened because of the gay people in the United States.
If you watch Phelps speak, you see his language is, as Blair states, “unaffected and simple.” (A good example of this is in a documentary titled Fall from Grace in which we see Phelps, his supports, and several other philosophers, evangelicals, etc. who disagree with his perspectives, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5xHfDMGtD0 – Please know that there may be some offensive or triggering images and speeches here; this is simply posted as an example for this response.) It is clear, even just watching him for a few seconds, that his mind is completely wrapped around the issue of gay people in our country. His arguments are, therefore, singular and unimaginative. He is certainly “not at leisure to follow out the play of imagination,” as Blair put it.
Blair ends this passage with a caution: “Warm emotions are too violent to be lasting,” but, unfortunately, Phelps has a relatively large following who seemingly devote their lives to protesting funerals, events, etc. that have anything to do with gay people or gay rights. Why is this happening if we know that extremists such as this rarely prosper in the end? If we have been formally warned since the 19th century not to engage in this sort of rhetoric and those who do are not to be believed?
The only answer I can think of is that, for those who do not think critically about the arguments presented by Phelps, the logic works. The passages he quotes are, in fact, in the Bible and, if you believe the Bible is the word of God, there is very little to argue with here. However, if you dig a little deeper, or “follow out the play of imagination,” you will find what the other theorists in the video are discussing: These passages also state things like clothes made of certain fabrics should not be worn, and grain harvested from a farm with more than one type of seed should not be eaten, etc. Contemporary religious figures like Phelps do not see the need to adhere to these rules, but do see the need to follow the rules regarding sexuality and preach that message passionately.
I believe the idea of a person speaking with much passion being a person without much rhetorical skill closely resembles Quintilian’s idea that a rhetorician must be a good man. In this case, I would agree with Quintilian as well as Blair: to really use rhetoric, one must be using his or her oratorical powers for good. I would not consider Fred Phelps a skilled rhetorician, no matter how many followers he manages to procure through his impassioned speeches.
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Student Choice and Independent Reading
February 22nd, 2010I have been absolutely inspired by the push to include Differentiated Instruction into every classroom, and what better way to celebrate diversity of all kinds in the classroom while helping each student learn in the way that is best for them than to include Differentiated Instruction and choice in the curriculum.
This is relatively easy to do with English classes because you can give a student a choice as to what topics to write about, what projects or papers to complete at the end of a unit, even sometimes what books to read within a specific genre or time period. I, however, never felt like this was enough choice within my curriculum. I do think that students need the experience of reading the required books and doing some required assignments in order to get a well-rounded educational experience, but I also believe that this should be supplemented with some choice. So, with the help of this website, I created the ultimate project of choice: an independent reading assignment with a Differentiated Instruction-based, tiered list of project options.
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The Baby Boom
February 19th, 2010I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about babies lately. This is definitely not because of some sort of desire to have a little mini-me (or, even scarier, a little mini-Tim! *kidding!*) running around. I think it’s more of one of those things that once someone says something about it, you start noticing it everywhere. And, trust me, people have been talking about babies.
It all started with the engagement ring. Well, that’s probably not true. But the comments directed at me definitely started with the engagement ring. First, it was: “Oh, marriage and families are wonderful! We are so happy for you!” Second, it was a man in my grad class talking about his kids, then saying to me: “See what you have to look forward to?” (And ended with me asking him why he would assume I will have children, and him telling me: “Because you’re a person and that’s what people do.”) Then, it was “So when (not if!) do you think you’ll start having kids?” Not long after that, it was a woman holding a baby, saying: “Soon this will be you!”
And don’t even get me started on what happens after people find out I’m not changing my name. (“What will you do about the children?!”)
Assumptions bother me, and there are several assumptions going on here. First is the assumption that I am even able to have children. Honestly, I don’t know if I am able as I have never tried. Second is the assumption that, assuming I am able to have children, I want them. Third is the assumption that, assuming I am able to have children and I want them, that Tim wants to have children.
So let’s set the record straight: I don’t know. I don’t know if I want children, and I do know that Tim has always thought he would be a father, but looking at the time and risks and responsibilities involved in child-rearing, he isn’t so sure anymore, either. (And, like the progressive man he is, he’s willing to wait until I’m more sure to have a discussion about it.)
Please don’t get me wrong. Quite a few of my friends are having babies, and I couldn’t be happier for them because that is what they wanted. And I am happy when people get what they want! And I think babies are cute and wonderful and absolute miracles. But I would never assume or push an agenda on anyone, especially when it comes to a permanently life-altering decision.
I am an academic. I’m obsessive about my job. For as much as I complain about this grad program, I am also totally invested in my thesis, and have high hopes for making something out of this writing gig. I’d love to publish a book, teach part time at a community-college along with teaching high school, travel. I am career oriented, and maybe even a little bit selfish with my time, and I’m not sure there’s room in this for a baby.
Sophia brought a really great article (you all really should go read it) to my attention about academics and motherhood, which absolutely underscores my greatest fear: I will have to give up more of myself than I am willing to at this point to become a mother. Maybe that will change over time, but maybe it won’t.
And all of this was just brought upon by personal communication with others. That’s not even mentioning the manipulation of the media. We are constantly being bombarded with headlines – Women Over 30 Have a Higher Risk of Having a Child with Autism. Women Over 30 Have a Higher Risk of Having a Child with Down’s Syndrome. Women Who Wait Till After 30 to Have a Child are at a Higher Risk for Breast Cancer (scroll down to “Lifestyle related factors and breast cancer risk”). After 30, Your Chances of Conceiving Drop Dramatically. Even the Prime Minister of Australia is blaming childless women for ruining the state of the economy in England (thanks, Megan, for pointing out this gem):
At that point one of my friends introduced me, dropping in that I am completing a PhD. At this, Rudd rolled his eyes and in a terse voice lacking any sense of irony remarked that is the “excuse” that “all” young women are using nowadays to avoid starting families. Since then I’ve come up with numerous one-line retorts, but in the moment I just froze in shock.
The guilt and fear are everywhere, apparently, but it seems that there are just as many reasons to have a baby as there are to wait or not have one at all. The problem here seems that the psychology and the biology don’t seem to match up. If it is true that all of these risks are present for women who wait, then sure, maybe our biological clocks are ticking. But our minds may not be ready when our bodies are. At the root of the issue is the fact that women’s decisions regarding children are deeply personal, but the guilt and fear are highly public.
I don’t have a solution to this. Because of the personal nature of the issue, there is not clear answer. I do know, however, that the decision to have a child is probably bigger and more life-altering than any decision one can ever make, and that decision should be personal and not the result of any kind of pressure.
Research and Credibility in Rhetoric
February 18th, 2010This is part of a series of posts about rhetoric and feminism. I’ll be writing these responses every week as part of my graduate class about Topics in Rhetoric this semester, and I welcome any and all responses!
To be totally honest, I did not find this week’s readings as fascinating as last week’s. I think this is largely because I’m not as interested in classical studies as I am more modern ones, so reading about classical theories of rhetoric wasn’t as exciting to me. That aside, I did find a number of passages that were, again, interesting to me as a feminist blogger and as part of the feminist blogging community and as a teacher.
I first found it interesting that “Quintilian compares on the teacher-student relationship to one between loving father and devoted son… Thus he would inspire love of learning, not fear of punishment” (Quintilian 294). We have definitely carried on this tradition in teaching up through modern times, and this is especially true when we discuss effective teaching techniques. Every article or post or discussion about effective teaching that I’ve been a part of has discussed fostering productive relationships with students, and this begins with inspiring students to learn, not intimidating them into doing so. Apparently Quintilian was on to something here, because I have also found in my personal experience that responding to students with the intention of helping them rather than punishing them is much more effective.
As a teacher and a writer, I also found it interesting that “Aristotle devoted a large portion of the Rhetoric to invention, or the finding of materials and modes of proof to use in presenting those materials to an audience” (Foss, Foss, and Trapp 7). In school, when I teach writing or speech, there is a great deal of emphasis on finding information. Whether this is to make an informed opinion yourself or to establish credibility, it is vitally important to begin the writing process with at least a little research. Not only do I stress this as I’m teaching, but I try to do the same in my own writing, especially when it comes to my feminist blogging community, and I do believe all of the community members try to do the same, as well. I have found in the past that, if I try to just write something down without doing at least a little research into the background of the situation, my audience will generally call me out on it, or at least post a few links to articles for me to read in order to broaden my perspective. Also, it is important to check the credibility of your sources, which can be very difficult to do on the internet. This is why I do not allow my students to do anything but cursory research on the internet and constrain their true research to online databases purchased by the school and books or printed magazine articles. As a blogger, however, that is not always possible because so much of what one is reading and responding to are others’ opinions posted on their blogs, but if the author has gone a long way to establish his or her own credibility by linking to academic studies or articles or other well-respected sites, it’s generally seen as OK to quote them. After all, as Plato said: “any man who does not know the truth, but has only gone about chasing after opinions, will produce an art of speech which will seem not only ridiculous, but no art at all” (Foss, Foss, and Trapp 7).
Finally, this idea shows up in Rhetorica ad Herennium, as well: “Finally, they say the highest art resides in this: in your selecting a great diversity of passages widely scattered and interspersed among so many poems and speeches, and doing this with such painstaking care that you can list examples, each according to its kind, under the respective topics of the art” (253). It seems here that these classical rhetoricians and theorists do privilege research a great deal, which, because of my writing and teaching practices, makes sense to me, and also happens to validate my teaching and writing processes.
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Effectiveness vs. Accountability in Teaching
February 17th, 2010In my graduate program, I am required to take a course on the theory of rhetoric. I am in that course right now, and last week, we had an interesting conversation about the definitions of words and what the words we choose for certain policies say about the policies themselves. There are about a million ways I could go with this – and I probably will sometime in the future – but the passage that I found the most interesting, and that generated the most interesting discussion, is as follows:
To illustrate the process by which the unconsidered choice of terms can lead to dangerous conformity, consider a couple of different examples from the worlds of education and business. When schools are supposed to be “accountable” instead of, say, “effective,” the debate over “tests for the tests of [educational] success” is short-circuited. We assume that the “objective” measures of accountancy provided by standardized tests are valid while broader, more complex measures requiring interpretation are “too subjective” to fit neatly in our accounting ledger. Hence we end up arguing over what to do about “underperforming” schools and whom to blame for their failure while setting aside discussions about what success and failure might actually mean. And students likewise are invited to internalize the judgment of a multiple-choice test that defines them as smart, dumb, or average.¹
Wow. There is quite a bit going on here. Let me just start by saying that this entire book is written in what is supposed to be a sarcastic, quippy manner meant to reach the resistant students of rhetoric, and I hate texts written like that. Give me the scholarly textbook any day. Also, I think we would all agree that it’s easier to talk in a sarcastic manner about accountability and effectiveness in teaching than to actually BE accountable and/or effective. It is also always a more clear-cut distinction between the two when you are not actually in the public education system.
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Valentine’s Day and The Laramie Project
February 16th, 2010
Image via Wikipedia
I have written before about The Laramie Project. Please take a few seconds to read that post – especially the comments – before reading this one.
This Valentine’s Day, I was fortunate enough to see a former student in a production of The Laramie Project. It was, quite honestly, one of the most wonderful moments of my life. As a teacher, you always know that you’re doing important and meaningful things, but it is not often that you get to see just how important and meaningful these events really were.
I was accompanied to this show by Tim, who had never seen the play even after as much as I talked about it, and another former student, Mike, who was also cast in our production of the play before it was canceled. We were able to have a late lunch with Mike and Collin (the student who was in this production of the play) and we reminisced a bit about the show and about what it meant to them to hear that it was canceled. I knew it upset them, but I don’t know if I ever knew the extent to which it upset them. And I don’t think I let on to them how much it upset me.
When the show was canceled, that night and for about three days afterward, I had to sleep on my couch with the TV on so I would have something to concentrate on besides the thoughts running through my head. I was so sad and felt so helpless. Here I was, trying to make a difference in these students’ lives, and instead I had just opened them up to the heartbreak and rejection they must have felt. I felt responsible for it, because I was the one that brought up the idea of this production, knowing full well it may be canceled at any time.
And the worst part about it? I did nothing. I didn’t fight the decision. I tried to tell myself that I couldn’t fight it for a few reasons: 1) I promised those kids a play, and they had seen enough productions canceled during their high school years for one reason or another, so I had an obligation to put on the show. I asked the students if they wanted to drop out after it was canceled, and none of them did, so we found a new play and moved forward. 2) Quite frankly, I needed the stipend I received for the drama program. 3) I knew I was leaving the school at the end of that year (although the kids did not know that until much later) and, as a second year, non-tenured teacher looking for a new job, I didn’t want to burn any bridges by causing a big stink about it. But I feel guilty about that a lot. Here I am, touting myself as an activist, and what did I do? Nothing. I pushed forward and did the best I could with my time left at the school, but said nothing about the show until much later.
It didn’t even make any sense that they canceled the play in the first place, and I could have fought it, and fought it well. The play isn’t really about a gay man; that is simply the backdrop for the event of the murder. Even Matthew Shepard’s murder is just a backdrop for the townspeople’s feelings. To quote Mike from yesterday: “The play isn’t even about being gay! It is about how it’s not OK to beat the [crap] out of someone and leave them alone to die.” And it really is about that. About how it’s not OK to hate, and how hate this severe is often ignored until it manifests itself in a violent way like this, and what that hate and its violent manifestation can do to an entire town, an entire nation. An entire world. The backdrop to this play could have just as easily been any violent tragedy spurred on by hate.
And, most importantly, the play ends with hope – something on which we must focus if we are going to see any changes made. Just before the end of the play, Dennis Shepard gives a statement at the trial of Aaron McKinney, saying he will not seek the death penalty in this case, and describing to the audience that Matthew was not alone out there. He had the beautiful Wyoming countryside and the stars and the moon and the beautiful night sky and the wind and God.
In the face of this terrible tragedy, we see hope. And, as I saw Collin deliver the last lines of this play, I thought: Maybe in the face of what must have been a tragedy for these students is hope, too. Maybe they will see changes in their lifetime, and maybe they will be agents of those changes because of their experiences. And maybe this time, I can help them.
I certainly hope so.
From the program
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Why I Am the Way I Am
February 15th, 2010Why do I care so much about human rights?
Because of my mother, of course.
I mean this quite literally. The first time I remember hearing anything about civil rights that really made me think, and one of the defining moments in my upbringing, was when my brother and I were sitting on the couch, watching the Rosie O’Donnell Show and giggling at the news that Rosie O’Donnell had just come out as a lesbian. My mom came down and sat next to us and asked us what we were giggling about. We told her and she said: “So?” We didn’t have an answer, but she continued: “Does this mean she is any different today than she was yesterday? Does it mean we will stop watching her show?” All we could respond was: “No.” I felt so bad for laughing. I was too young to even understand what I was laughing about, but I knew enough to know that I should have felt bad.
And thus, my passion for civil rights was born.
Do you have a moment like this that made you more aware of civil rights? Please share!
Female Teachers and Female Students’ Math Anxiety, Part 2
February 10th, 2010“[Math anxiety] keeps girls and women out of a lot of careers, particularly high-prestige, lucrative careers in science and technology,” she said.
Feminist Bloggers and Discourse Communities
February 10th, 2010This is the beginning of a series of posts about rhetoric and feminism. I’ll be writing these responses every week as part of my graduate class about Topics in Rhetoric this semester, and I welcome any and all responses!
This week’s reading was an excellent introduction to rhetoric. I found the definitions of terms and, particularly, the examples provided in the Covino and Jolliffe article extremely helpful as I began my journey into this class. I was also pleasantly surprised by how much of this introductory reading related to my thesis project. Tina had told me that I would see a lot of connections between this class and my project, but this thesis project has been sort of a culmination of a few courses, so I expected there would be a few connections, but not necessarily big ones. I was wrong!
I am writing my thesis project about literacy in the feminist blogging community. There is a “community” of feminist bloggers on the internet who use blogging as a form of activism or, at least, to spread information about feminist issues. I use the term “community” loosely because there isn’t necessarily one site to which we subscribe, like a forum. Rather, we all have our own personal blogs and we read and comment on each other’s posts. In this case, then, the rhetor would be the blogger and
In fact, in my research, I’ve found several people who discuss blogging as “…a new rhetorical opportunity, made possible by technology that is becoming more available and easier to use, but it was adopted so quickly and widely that it must be serving well established rhetorical needs” (Miller and Shepherd 1451). These rhetorical needs may include a voyeuristic need to share and read personal information, as Miller and Shepherd posit (1454), but it may also include a need to distribute political information quickly and effectively, as I’ve seen with the feminist bloggers. In this sense, the exigence or kairos as Covino and Jolliffe discuss is the need to disseminate information about women’s issues. The specific urgency might change depending on the author and the situation about which the author is writing, but everyone in the community experiences the same general kairos – the need to make the public aware of feminist issues.
I found the sections about audience particularly interesting in light of my project, as well. Bloggers are always concerned about their audience; this is mostly because, like any author (or rhetor!), bloggers want their posts to be read, so they try to write things that will catch people’s attention and get linked or shared by other bloggers. As I stated before, there is no one forum for the sharing of information, but each blogger uses his or her own site to post information. This information is always different depending on where the blogger senses kairos, but if one is a feminist blogger or has read even a few posts by feminist bloggers, he or she will have a sense of how to share and respond to this information. In other words, the audience will have a sense of the feminist blogging discourse, thus creating a discourse community. “A discourse community, according to Nystrand, comprises people who ‘may very well never speak or write to each other,’ but who ‘could effectively so interact if required since they know the ways-of-speaking of the group” (Nystrand 15 qtd. in Covino and Jolliffe 13; emphasis in original). The feminist blogging community that I so loosely defined earlier is actually a discourse community, which then “allows rhetorical theorists to analyze interactions among rhetors and both primary and subsidiary audiences, and to illustrate how audiences and speakers and writers influence each other’s texts” (Covino and Jolliffe 14). This is, inadvertently, what I have been dancing around with my thesis project. I have been studying how literacy events – the experience of reading and writing for an audience – has shaped the bloggers’ sense of community and the writing itself by only considering these blog posts and responses as literacy events, not necessarily rhetorical situations. Exploring these blog posts as rhetorical situations and the bloggers as rhetors may add a new dimension to my project.
Works Cited
Covino, William A. and David A. Jolliffe. “What is Rhetoric?” Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995.
Miller, Carolyn R. and Dawn Shepherd. “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog.” The Norton Book of Composition. Susan Miller, ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 1450-1473.
98 Days of Hope
February 10th, 2010With all the talk about schools being shut down and budget cuts in the education sector around the nation right now, it’s clear that it is a difficult time for teachers. In the Chicago-area schools, there is much talk about budget cuts and personnel cuts because of the dire situation that is the Illinois budget. And this isn’t just Illinois; it’s across the nation.
But in the face of all of this, we do see some hope. Wonderful and extraordinary things are happening in our classrooms every day, despite the fear that, at the end of this school year, many more teachers may be joining the ranks of the unemployed.
An undergraduate classmate of mine, Megan, is chronicling the end of this school year on her new blog, 98 Days of Hope. Read the rest of this entry “
Trying To Do It All
February 9th, 2010I’ve written about all of this before, and I think we’re all pretty aware that, as women, we really do try to do it all. We are caregivers, employees, wives, mothers, teachers, students… you get the idea. Sure, each of us are not all of those things, but I know, regardless of that, women really do try to take on the world.
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I need to cut back a little bit; that I’ve taken too much on. I’ve also realized that I spend so much time on work and school that I barely spend any time on myself anymore. So I started making sure to take some time out of each day to do something just for me – paint my nails, watch a favorite TV show, eat some chocolate, take a few deep breaths, do some yoga, listen to a great album, go tanning. These are all maybe not the healthiest of things I could be doing, but making sure to do something for myself every day has really helped me keep my head on straight and keep a positive attitude.
What do you do that is just for you? Please share!
On Body Image: Men and Advertising
February 6th, 2010I strongly believe that it is just as important to discuss how men appear in advertising as it is to discuss how women appear in advertising. Men suffer from body image issues just as women do, often as a direct result of the bombardment of images from the media. You’ve got your total binary here: men in commercials, movies, and TV shows are either super awesome ladies’ men with washboard abs and sweet sports cars or doofy husbands incapable of doing much of anything. (Just like women are either super-skinny models or nagging, never-happy wives.) Don’t take my word for it! Check out Sarah Haskins below:
So, as much as I have learned about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, and as much as I now understand that their motives are not all together pure, I do also understand the need for images of real women AND men in the media, which is why I was a little bit happy to see that Dove is planning on adding men to their Real Beauty campaign.
Yes, Unilever is not a great company and, yes, they still produce those ridiculous Axe commercials with women seemingly magnetized to the guy wearing the Axe spray. And yes, all of those guys in that picture are white and middle-aged. But isn’t this a step in the right direction? Any campaign that touts self-esteem in relation to body image should include women as well as men.
“When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.”
February 5th, 2010Thoughts on “The Politics of Correction”
February 3rd, 2010“How can I help kids gain fluency in Standard English – the language of power – without obliterating the home language which is a source of pride and personal voice?” – Linda Christensen
For a recent school improvement day, the English staff at my school was asked to read “The Politics of Correction: How We Can Nurture Students in Their Writing and Help Them Learn the Language of Power” by Linda Christensen. Now, I have read many, many articles about African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and English Language Learners and English Only legislation. I’ve read many, many articles about how students who have grown up learning Standard English – predominantly students who are white and/or middle-to-upper class – have an unfair advantage over students learning other vernaculars when it comes to taking state tests and other state standards. So much of these articles, however, were simply theory, and finally, after reading this article, I felt someone had finally written about what we, as teachers, can do to help these students.
Thoughts on “The Politics of Correction”
February 3rd, 2010
This is just a little taste of my new post on Equality 101.
“How can I help kids gain fluency in Standard English – the language of power – without obliterating the home language which is a source of pride and personal voice?” – Linda Christensen
For a recent school improvement day, the English staff at my school was asked to read “The Politics of Correction: How We Can Nurture Students in Their Writing and Help Them Learn the Language of Power” by Linda Christensen. Now, I have read many, many articles about African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and English Language Learners and English Only legislation. I’ve read many, many articles about how students who have grown up learning Standard English – predominantly students who are white and/or middle-to-upper class – have an unfair advantage over students learning other vernaculars when it comes to taking state tests and other state standards. So much of these articles, however, were simply theory, and finally, after reading this article, I felt someone had finally written about what we, as teachers, can do to help these students.
Personally, with the way the state standards are at this time, I believe that there has to be a way to help students learn how to code switch – talk and write in their own vernacular with friends and family, but talk and write in Standard English when appropriate. In her article, Christensen posits a few solutions to this issue that made sense to me. She begins by discussing students she sees every day who are “handcuffed” by their inability to use Standard English – the language of power. She fears they will leave school and be afraid to speak up in public meetings or write letters of outrage over policies because they “talk wrong.” In this way, she justifies teaching her students Standard English; it is not just because of the state tests that they need to learn this vernacular, but because of future instances in which they may need to be able to use Standard English.
So how do we effectively help students feel comfortable about their writing and proud of their heritages while teaching them the “language of power?” …
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