Women Talking

5 November 2023: “Doubt and uncertainty and questioning are inextricably bound together with faith.” --Miriam Toews, Women Talking

This morning, I pulled into my driveway at just the moment that the audiobook of this tremendous novel concluded--with a chorus of women singing "Just a Closer Walk With Thee." Sat there in my car, listening as tears filled my eyes. This one will stay with me for a long time. 

"An Angel in Hell"

6 June 2023: 

"I was not the lead character in my own life for a long, long time. Cordelia knew she wasn’t the lead character either, but she protagonized herself. She stole the life out from under the less interesting man at the center of the story."

This essay is so good.  

"My sensitivity is my strength."

29 November 2022: This post's title comes from something one of the students in our GWST 201 class shared today as we talked about their reflective essays and started to wrap up the semester. Some excerpts from other students: 

• "I'm writing about how this class gave me confidence."
• "Sometimes you have to break the rules to make a change."
• "I realized I have to hold myself accountable when I see injustice."
• "I learned that I have to keep learning."
• "This class helped me understand my past experiences better."

What a gift these students are! 

"We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down..."

2 October 2022: Finished my entry on Transcendentalism today. I joked to Hannah earlier that it was a bear of an entry--but a little bear that I had neglected. But it's done so that's that. 

It took me awhile, but I figured out how use one of my favorite lines from Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century: “We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man" (20). There's something timeless about her rhetoric here--which is also kind of depressing because women (and other marginalized folks) keep having to make this demand. 

Work Cited

Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth-Century. Edited by Larry J. Reynolds, W.W. Norton and Company, 1998. 

"I'm in love with your grandmother"

21 July 2022: Doing the research for my entry on The Awakening and really enjoyed Emily Toth's essay (cited below) where she includes this little story: When Per Seyersted--the scholar who played a huge role in the Chopin revival--reached out to Chopin's grandson, he confessed to him, "I am in love with your grandmother" (Toth 19). Of course, this makes sense--loving and studying literature can feel like falling in love. It seems especially relatable with a figure like Chopin.

That anecdote, charming as it is, is only some of what Toth's essay does so well, as she recreates that time when young scholars had to fight and fight to even study women writers--and did so in the midst of great social upheaval and change. It's a great piece.

Work Cited

Toth, Emily. "My Part in Reviving Kate Chopin." Awakenings: The Story of the Kate Chopin Revival, edited by Bernard Koloski, Louisiana UP, 2009, pp. 15-31.

Men

20 May 2022: Amy and I saw Men today. What a strange, disturbing, and interesting movie! Some of the moves it made were a bit heavy-handed, but that's okay. I am sure I'll think about it for a while. And I keep putting it into conversation (in my head) with Under the Banner of Heaven, which I've been watching on Hulu. Lord knows we need to be thinking and talking about the damage the patriarchy has and will keep doing. 

"Under the Table"

27 October 2020: Everyone needs a friend like Hannah, who makes me feel supported and seen and provided me with the perfect anthem for some bullshit I had to deal with today. 

Project 19

 18 August 2020: After a long day working on my Emily Dickinson syllabus, I just spent some time looking at the Project 19 website, which collects poems from contemporary poets celebrating the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Not a bad way to wrap up the "thinking" part of my day, though my brain is fried just enough tonight that I'm going to need to revisit the site a bunch.

"Polly Platt: The Invisible Woman"

1 August 2020: I finished up the last episode of Karina Longworth's season on Polly Platt on my walk this morning. It's such a great season. I knew barely anything about Platt, but Longworth creates a portrait of a fascinating and complicated woman. And it's heck of a depiction of how misogyny and the patriarchy held her back and limited her, even (of course!) making her complicit in her own oppression. 

The ways previous, not-so-long-ago generations wrestled with the patriarchy has been a minor theme of my quarantine cultural consumption. I think about the second season of Dirty John, based on the Betty Broderick story, which I couldn't bring myself to finish because I found it so depressing. (It's also why I haven't yet watched Mrs. America, though I know it's supposed to be great.) 

"the feminist tool-belt..."

27 February 2020: Grading midterm essays all day and find myself struck by this insightful and funny (and kind of butch) line from one of my GWST/HNRS seminar students: "The withholding of laughter is a prominent feature in the feminist tool-belt."

I've been thinking a lot about this lately--how easily we laugh at what disturbs or offends us, or perhaps even more problematically, how women laugh when men say unacceptable things. My favorite (and by that I mean least favorite) manifestation is when men (and not all men...duh) make jokes about why they haven't done something they were supposed to do, why they did something they weren't supposed to do, or why they messed up, as if their charming "oh shucks" moves absolve them. And I love (and by that I mean love) the move of just looking back at them without smiling or laughing. Such a flex.

So yeah...totally featuring that tool on my feminist tool-belt.

“Dear Future Female President: My List of Demands”

8 February 2020: “When you get sworn into office, yell, 'I'm a feminist,' and then throw your fist in the air like you're Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club....Don’t be trifling about being a feminist…[do] the actual work of trying to make things equal for everybody. You’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty in order to create a society that takes women as seriously at the men. The type that encourages us not to define ourselves by who we go to bed with at night, but by who and what we see reflected back at us in the mirror in the morning. The type that recognizes that women are not a monolith and that they have wildly different experiences informed by their race and/or sexuality. Be that beacon of light that we can look toward. Be the feminist who will help normalize the idea of Feminism for society. Be the feminist everyone needs. No presh.” --Phoebe Robinson, You Can't Touch My Hair...

I am re-reading Robinson's book for my Gender and Humor seminar. In her blog post last week, one of my students wrote that she wasn't really "very feminist," but if you know her, you know that's not true. Like so many young women, she just doesn't really know what the word means. I can't wait for her to get to this section of the book.

[A really interesting addendum: Robinson notes that if this first female president is a woman of color, she'll need to "chill out." "You need to be hella low key about your feminism, at least during the first term. This sucks, but them's the breaks, Madam President."]

"In Praise of Prickly Women"

23 May 2018: This piece is giving me life this morning. Love it. Here's a excerpt: "Despite the negative connotations and perceptions they incite, Prickly Women have exactly the kind of insight and persistence needed as the crises in higher education continue to mount. We argue that among the deluge of advice being tossed around to address those crises, one of the most radically simple solutions would be to identify your Prickly Women and listen to them."

Some Reflections Upon Marriage

18 January 2018: "But some sage Persons may perhaps object that were Women allow'd to Improve themselves, and not amongst other discouragements driven back by those wise Jests and Scoffs that are put upon a Woman of Sense or Learning, a Philosophical lady as she is call'd by way of Ridicule, they would be too Wise and too Good for the Men; I grant it, for vicious and foolish Men. Nor is it to be wonder'd that he is affraid he shou'd not be able to Govern them were their Understandings improv'd, who is resolv'd not to take too much Pains with his own. But these 'tis to be hop'd are no very considerable Number, the foolish at least; and therefore this is so far from being an Argument against their Improvement, that it is a strong one for it, if we do but suppose the Men to be as capable of Improvement as the Women, but much more if according to Tradition we believe they have greater Capacities." --Mary Astell, Some Reflections Upon Marriage

Each time I read Astell's text, which we discussed in my ENGL 311 class today, it surprises me with its relevance to our day and age. Especially during our current cultural moment, Astell's point in the section quoted above--that men are capable of improvement when it comes to their views on women--strikes me as both hilarious and hopeful.

My students today--all women, interestingly--loved the piece and Astell's wit. And they get it. In the words of one of them, "This text is dangerous."

Finishing up "The Bible as Literature"

6 December 2017: "It's really telling that some of the images are fantastical like beasts and dragons and then you have a prostitute and a bride." --a student in my Bible as Literature class, responding to the apocalyptic imagery in Revelation. She also made the point that while it might have been harder for readers to imagine a dragon or a beast covered with eyes (two images in the book), the female images are much more accessible.

It was fascinating to realize that, after a semester of studying the Bible, in Revelation we find ourselves with two very classic representations of woman in the end: the pure bride and the corrupt whore. The patriarchy...it is a very clever and complete system.

"Shattering The Blue Velvet Chair"

21 July 2017: “Well, who else is gonna do it?...When I think back to those days I think of this ferment, this activity, in people’s kitchens and living rooms…[They were women who said] ‘We’re not gonna wait. We are going to recognize ourselves and each other.’” –Joan Larkin, in the latest episode of the Poetry Off the Shelf podcast. I blogged about a previous episode here.

Off it goes!

8 June 2017: "All done." --my friend Amy today, as she hit the button submitting the final version of our article, accepted for publication in Feminist Teacher.

Always a sweet moment to hit "send" on that final version of a publication, but this one--in a great journal, on a topic I really love, written with a fantastic colleague and friend--is a different flavor of sweet. And working with someone else like this--when writing is so often a solitary activity for me--involved so much listening, so today's post really hits this year's theme.

"Raise a glass to freedom / Something they can never take away..."

Pro-tip: enjoy social media coverage of so many amazing Americans (including many of your loved ones) marching today while listening to Hamilton. Your heart will swell with even more pride and hope and love. Side effects include lots of teary eyed moments, but that's okay.

"Look around, look around! How lucky we are to be alive right now!"

8 November 2016: Who knows what will happen today when the results come in, but I voted for a woman for president today and darn it, did my eyes get teary! I voted for hope, love, and a deep faith in our common humanity and the American experiment.

Women record-breakers at Rio

22 August 2016: As I finish up my first day of the semester (heading home to mow the lawn!), I realize I've been thinking fondly all day about this post, listing just some of the awesome women who broke records at Rio. It's got to be today's good thing.

"Too many women"

2 June 2016: Calling it early today, but this post from the women at "Stuff You Missed in History Class" wins the today's "good thing" contest. I love love love that they answer the haters with data. And of course, even if the balance were "off" in favor of women, it would only be filling in all the stuff you missed in history class.