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I thought it was interesting that in class on Thursday we came to conclusion that Heidi Hartmann was a power feminist.  I didn’t realize this at the time but one of the questions I had brought with me to Tuesday’s class challenges this idea of power feminism.  I was really intrigued my the family first economic policy that would allow for families with newborn children to take time off of work to care for the child without losing a significant amount of compensation.  What Hartmann failed to address was how a company would maintain the same level of productivity.  Would staff members who are single and without a family have to work extra hours? Would they receive extra compensation for those added hours? Maybe this is a prime example of normative time and requirements for productivity but this seems like a flaw in this economic plan that’s striving for leveling the playing field between men and women.  After Thursday’s class and our defining of the term ‘power feminist,’ I realized that this economic plan attempts to create equality by placing an unwarranted burden others who may or may not have the same familial complications. 

     It’s fall. It is supposed to be cold. Instead, the sun warms us as we sit in the grass. He smiles at me as we reminisce on the beauty of childhood. A kid runs by with a kite, painting shapes in the sky. The child’s parents guide her away from us; I guess it could look sketchy, two teenagers sitting on the edge of woods in a park. But we are literally just sitting there. We’ve been outside for hours, kayaking and walking, and just talking. It’s been so nice to see him. For the first time in a year, he’s come to visit me. We’ve spent the whole day together, and I don’t ever want it to end.

Samantha Plate

Play In The City

11/17/2013

Deep Play in Critical Writing

The other day, I went in to do my internal interview for a big scholarship I'm applying to. For some background, this scholarship is for people interested in public service fields, and I want to be a social worker in the Navy. As expected, I was asked right off the bat "why the military?" and more specifically, why I wanted to be IN the military rather than just work WITH the military.

The answer for me was an easy one: how many times does a person get the opportunity to be a real part of the group that they want to "help"? I feel like I do good work when I go and mentor at Belmont every monday, and I know my mentee really responds to me, but the reality is that I can never be a low-income African-American boy from the city. This is not an identity I share. I know that my inability to relate to him on this most fundamental level means that I can never really be the most effective mentor. I'm missing that level of empathy, and I don't know exactly what he needs. The military represents an opportunity, though. Finally I can avoid the trap that is professional imperialism and serve the population of the military because not only do I know the unique stressors and challenges they face, but because I face them, too. 

Of course, this would have been the answer I'd have given in a perfect world, or with interviews whose goal was not to push my thinking. So instead my answer went something more like: "...want to try and avoid stepping into a population and doing my best to help the way I think is ri---"

Last class, we met in our groups and tried to come up with an economic approach to whatever topic we had chosen for our web event, and having chosen gendered pronouns, I struggled for a while trying to figure out a practical application. After talking it out with one of my partners, though, she helped me realize that a business-centered pronoun could potentially solve the issue. If you use a pronoun unrelated to either gender (possibly deriving from pre-existing gender-neutral pronouns), the terms come without any subconscious connotations, then until one is face-to-face with the individual, there's a preconceived notion of how they operate their business. And even then, using identical pronouns can force the speakers into operating on a subconscious equal playing field across genders, stemming from the idea of male pronouns being action takers (and a point I didn't realize until after the fact, female pronouns being applied to possession - ships and cars - while stereotypically female jobs like secretaries and nurses are seen as subservient to male positions).

When I imagine power feminism I get an image of a woman finding a rope to climb up in society and then once she reaches the top, cuts the cord. To me it is also denying the struggles of other women, the idea that if I made it in this current system that there is no need to change the way things are. Even though it means fewer women can reach the top. At the same time I think that power feminists tend to be the ones we look up to. The ones that are not defined by gender and have succeeded in a patriarchal system. Some of these power feminists are the women who inspire other women to believe it is possible to achieve in this system. It can be inspirational and help change perceptions about gender when there are strong women in high positions but if she is getting there by putting down other women I’m not sure if it can be called feminism. Is power feminism ever a positive thing for other women?

I played with Frost. It was October. If only I had learnt from Ray Bradbury that October was a grotesque Country where you should only step foot if you are looking to be assaulted by the skeletons your mind shoved in a closet on purpose in the first place. It was October, silly.

I opened the closet, and out walked Robert. He brushed off the Frost from his shoulders; it must have been cold and dusty behind the Doors. Or he was tired of being cold. He walked out. And I stepped into his Home Burial.

I fell deep. The door was wide open and I fell damn deep. I told myself all I had to do was pull apart the words and reconstruct them into a window. So I sat on the narrow, creaky staircase and listened attentively to Frost and his wife. But slowly – I found – slowly, I was listening to myself. And I had the same voice as his wife.

I was accusing. I was hurt. I was pushing away. I was losing. I was missing. Home Burial. 

There wasn’t a way to pick out my own words, care about his, and try to assemble a window which might cast light on our conflict. What we needed to was to smash open the windows we already had, and get some fresh air.

I was overwhelmed as I fell deeper and deeper into Frost’s Home. Or was Frost just pulling out some things that already existed deep in the back of my closet?

 Lay them on the table. Let me hear you say what you already know about them, but use a different voice so you can hear yourself do the talking. 

In class, we discussed the concept of power feminism and whether or not it is helpful to feminism as a whole. Many people felt that power feminism was individualistic and working within the patriarchal system that already exists to gain power, hurting those who are oppressed by the system along the way. I then began to wonder about the concept of empowerment within feminism. Feminism, at its most basic level, is the belief that we are all equal despite our gender. However, we live within a patriarchal system. How can the concept of empowerment work so that all everyone oppressed by the current system can gain equality? So that it's not really "power" feminism, but rather "empowering" feminism? Should power really be a goal at all? Is a hierarchical system coming into play when we consider the concept of power?

I was going to make a post about "Freedom's Silences" in Edgework by Wendy Brown, until this article came up on my facebook newsfeed. It's a really great read! It is entitled "Your Silence Will Not Protect You" It opens with how when we are young we are told to simply ignore the hateful comments people make towards us about who we are. Then the author makes this statement "I decided that I wasn’t going to be sorry for standing for what was right – that I wasn’t going to be sorry anymore." We cannot live our lives being silent we are opressed and put down by others. Being silent will not change things. I agree that being silent does have its place and in certain circumstances it can be effective, and even powerful, but when one is attacked head-on, one cannot be silent! We have to defend and stand up for ourselves. Calling others out on their actions may be hard, it may be uncomfortable, but we have to do it. We cannot live our lives in a comfort zone when other attack us. If we chose to be silent when we are openly attacked, we accept the attacker as more powerful and/or correct. We have to speak up. "We must be held accountable for our voices, but we must also be held accountable for our silence." I am all for choice. We are all independent indivduals who have the right to make a choice. But we must accept the consequences of our choices. We must accept the consequences if we choose to be silent.

I'm wondering, in light of our conversations about queering and cripping time, what you all might make of a talk focusing "on the slow end of this tempo spectrum, on creating opportunities for students to engage in deceleration, patience, and immersive attention...."? See The Power of Patience.