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Dearest Anne (or those who wish to defend Anne on this one...),

We seem to be talking quite a bit about cirriculum revision and about education as a means of empowerment. So, I thought it be productive if I post my thoughts on one of the few ways I feel disempowered in this class in particular. It is, in fact, what we will be discussing in class today: about selecting future texts.

In class Tuesday and in your class notes for today you ask "How do feminists make decisions?" While I respect the fact that you as well as numerous others in the class identify as feminists, I am not entirely sure this was the best way to ask "How will we all--as a group of undecided and declared feminists-- decide on texts to read?" I distinctly remember you saying, Anne, that your goal in this course is not to "...make [us] all feminists." Why, then, did you/ do you continue to make the generalization that we are all feminists? This disempowers me especially because I am an undecided feminist...so, that makes me question my authority. I wonder: Is my way of voting, of deciding not the right way? It makes me feel like my voice doesn't matter...although my post (my "e-voice") is put up on today's class notes... I am not quite sure you are "empowering [me]," as you said you seek to do.

And another thing, the question "How do feminists vote" is a puzzling one...especially since we have not discussed what feminism is. I agree with Allie in that I find the class puzzling because we have seen several lens to feminism, several subsections of feminism....so is that feminism? Is feminism all-encompassing? I am unsure of how to answer the question that you propose. Please do enlighten me (us?), and explain to me what it is to be a feminist.

Sincerely,

A Feminist..?