a slam, slamming feminism in academia

I try to check out podcasts on rabble.ca as often as possible. Many carry youth activism / feminism tags... good collection of stuff.


So I came across a poetry slam by Shaunga Tagore (read by her sister, Proma Tagore), recorded at the Feminism FOR REAL (edited by the *amazing* activist, Jessica Yee) anthology launch at Rhizome Cafe in Vancouver this April 14th. The work is called "A Slam on Feminism in Academia" and it asks "why did you let me through the doors [of this ivory tower] in the first place if you were just going to turn around and force me out?" Why do we debate in high theory "while barely paid migrant workers prepare lunches for seminars, conferences, forums..."


Her points are fantastic. People with disabilities, those who survive sexual violence, people with familial historical ties to places filled with siege, indigenous students who are forced to use language that erase and colonize their own languages, those who want to learn alternatively through art, etc... Academia doesn't really want these folks. The ivory tower's ideal student doesn't need to be an activist because she's already well-read about it. And she can't talk about positionality without "referencing some article." She's white, straight, able-bodied and minded, and rich. She "luxuriously" enjoys sitting in a corner and reading 900 pages a week with her "fairtrade Starbucks coffee in hand and Lululemon trackpants on ass."


I think the author is brilliant and admirable. Fairly, she asks: your ideal student is not me(!) so why did you let me through these doors!? It's a great point. Minority students fill departmental quotas to collect and secure funding for the program, and then they are squashed by the rigidity of the system that was not made for them. This is horrible and it's about time somebody pointed it out so remarkably and artistically.


This said, parts of Shaunga's slam make me cringe, because to make her point, she describes my privilege. It's effective. I'M SITTING HERE IN YOGA TRACKPANTS WITH FAIRTRADE COFFEE RIGHT NOW. I think I'm FINALLY empathizing with some of my male friends who have been offended by my feminist positions in the past. I have always insisted that in pointing out social stratification, I am not making privileged men out to be the enemy.  I am merely drawing attention to hierarchies, and to do so, I depict privileged bodies and juxtapose these with minoritized ones. But here I sit, listening to the slam against feminism in academia (on repeat) which I want with all my soul to validate, feeling offended.


I'm sure I mostly feel offended because I'm forced to acknowledge my complicity in the rules of an institution that will ultimately serve to push me into an elite social status. If I'm being honest with myself, this is already happening as I gain access to professional and social functions that have strict gatekeeping mechanisms. It's hard, though, to fully embrace the critique because I often feel burdened by the acknowledgement that feminism in academia, even high theory, is itself minoritized by the academy and funding bodies. I'm sprinting on the hamster wheel system that is continually undoing the work I'm trying to do. It's mind-numbing, and is a perfect illustration of the (white...racist?) liberal feminist paradox.


But I think I'm also partly offended because to depict the graduate student donning lululemon pants and sipping lattes in all her glory is to erase the struggle of this. I hope I don't sound like I'm whining. Yes, I have the extreme privilege of being able to enjoy reading 900 pages per week, but this isn't all gravy. Sometimes I sit in tears because the writing makes me feel like an idiot, or the opposite: I realize that my mad love affair with theoretical writing serves to isolate me from the people I love. Further, I'm proud, after sifting through thousands of pages of dense writing per term, to cite and credit the authors I've read. Ironically, I'm resisting the urge to do this throughout this blogpost.


If anything, I think Shaunga's important slam will teach me to nuance my own harsh criticisms so that I don't erase the struggles and traumas of being human. I'm not tied to a history of colonial struggle, nor do I face the threat of my culture being wiped off the planet or the immediate threat of illness. Also, I pass as straight in every sense of the concept, so I get to parade my gender and sexuality in public all the time, and I don't even stop to think about the affect of my celebrated body and perceived orientation on my psyche. I am damn lucky for that, but... I can't help but follow this up by saying that the overwhelming guilt of privilege is unproductive.


This poetry slam was inspirational. I'm inspired to take my research on masculinities further into the trauma faced by men under hyper-masculinism. I'm also inspired to use kind words when installing my critiques into broader theoretical musings. I think this is the key to a united feminist movement, and key to academic reform.

Women in the 41st Canadian Parliament

I'm preparing my wikipedia submission now. "Women represent only 22% of Canadian Members of Parliament. That's right, we rank 47th in the world. The UN insists that women must fill 30% of parliamentary positions for a chance at getting their voices heard on national issues. In January 2007, a national public awareness campaign aimed to create gender sensitive courses in at least two provinces and raise awareness of gender biased media, both to address issues of women running for office. This research was funded by Status of Women Canada - oh yeah, that funding was slashed."

So that's not quite how wikipedia would relay the info, but you get the drift. With the Conservatives leading the polls coming into the final days of Elxn41, women face facts that the democratic deficit will continue, making for continued ugliness in question period and parliamentary commitments that make participating in family life impossible.

Here's what things look like by party *(thanks Equal Voice: Electing More Women in Canada):

Candidates Nominated and Elected by  Political Parties – 2006 Election
Political Party	Total Candidates		Male Candidates		Female Candidates		%  Female Candidates
	Nominated	Elected	Nominated	Elected	Nominated	Elected	Nominated	Elected
Bloc Québécois	75	51	52	34	23	17	30.6%	33%
Conservatives	308	125	270	111	38	14	12.3%	11%
Liberals	308	101	229	80	79	21	25.6%	21%
NDP	308	29	200	17	108	12	35%	41%
Green Party	308	0	236	0	72	0	23%	0

The graph reflects one glimmer of hope: when women run, they win. Nominating 12% is no way to achieve representation. When it comes to justice, Canada has been a world leader on issues ranging from forest and environmental management to accessibility for folks living with dis/abilities. We embarrass ourselves with our poor record on women's political participation. This makes me turn inward and wonder why I don't consider running. The ruthlessness of partisan politics is certainly part of it. Lack of women role models is another.

stripped of dignity (back scatter brain follow-up)

Interesting talk about TSA pat-downs continues to surface in the wake of back scatter technology installed across airports in the US and Canada. A recent NYT op-ed called Stripped of Dignity by Maureen Dowd, citing Alaskan state rep, Sharon Cissna, suggests that not everyone's bodies should be scrutinized in the same way by security pat-downs. In defending rights of children, seniors and folks living with disabilities, Dowd inadvertently(?) calls for less rights for suspected terrorist bodies. Unfortunately, one of the only benefits of back scatter technology, its potential to be race-blind, is undermined by the call to heighten passenger profiling as a way of avoiding humiliating "good, law-abiding people." Dowd says that one of her relatives wrote a letter to the TSA about a humiliating experience with her ostomy bag. She asks, "does having an ileostomy now make you a terrorist suspect?" Of course not, but I ask: does having a turban?


Shoshana Magnet responds to the potential biasing of security technology in her book chapter, Bio-Benefits: Technologies of Criminalization, Biometrics and the Welfare System. Here she questions whether biometrics are race-, gender-, class-, and disability-neutral mechanisms, arguing that biometric technologies facilitate the visualization of criminalization vis-a-vis modes of identity. Particularly vulnerable bodies become hypervisible, and bodies that comply with invasive security practices are rewarded as good citizens. This is my gross oversimplification of the brilliant chapter, but Magnet basically asks us to question the assumption that a more 'scientific' way of looking at the body is thus most 'neutral.' Fantastic!


I think Magnet's intervention is a wonderful contribution to how we privilege the visual realm in our positivist culture, what Puar refers to as "the privilege of seeing." I hope to build on these critiques of visualist culture in my future theoretical work :)


Off to flash vote mob! Ttfn!

oceans of sorrow, tidal waves of joy

Today I'm spiritually thanking John Lennon for "pools of sorrow, waves of joy" (and thanking my dad for pointing me to these lyrics when I was a kid, thus starting my Lennon love early). On this stunning Good Friday before Easter, I have finished all of my coursework (for the term and for life!) and I am missing my family on the coast. Toward life goals, I feel restless and semi-productive. I'm in that wavy pool.


This week, I got together with some good friends of mine to make this video [http://youtu.be/lHxKdE5avxg], urging folks to vote against Stephen Harper's Conservatives in favour of any of the less militant alternatives. We had great fun shooting the lines and bonding over a shared leftist contempt for the current political situation. Afternoons like these help to keep us a little insulated from the depressing reality checks that are articles like these: [http://t.co/5yHgZgI]. The ageist rhetoric of this article would be alarming if we weren't already desensitized to political corruption. Now it's just sad.


The day after our "Breaking Up With Stephen Harper" vid went public on youtube, I got a comment to my phone when I was at lunch with some old choir friends. Sure, I've read the horrible comments on every other publicly posted video I've ever watched on youtube, but for some reason it didn't phase me that anyone would disagree with US. HA! I started writing retorts in my head while trying to be social at lunch, but then some healthy debate started on the comment wall and I let the commenters calm each other down. Whew. This is my encouragement for all those who agree with us to comment on the board :)


Now that the vid is done and vote mobs are planned (for tomorrow! vote!), I'm going through old papers and pulling thoughts together for future writing. As I mentioned in an earlier post: this review of old writing thing is the coolest thing going. Try it out!! For example, last year, I wrote a paper (for a political economy class) entirely in hypertext to present the potential displacement and reinforcement of the humanist subject in post-modern fiction... Well, as it turns out, when I was 19, I wrote this about Gulliver's Travels: "In Swift’s satirization (via Gulliver’s vain aspirations to become a more rational version of himself), he rejects the Period of Enlightenment, and its promotion of the supremacy of reason." First of all, who knew I read Gulliver's Travels? Not me. [What in heck's bells is a Houynhnhnm??] Who knew this urge to disrupt all the core tenets of classical liberal reason was birthed in my adolescence? Probably my parents did, but again... not me! I challenge you to check out the trajectory of your passions and reinforce them to yourself! Eat some chocolate eggs while you're at it!!


On that note, I'm off to caress my Lennon-opened mind with some snacks. Here's wishing you all a happy state holiday weekend. May it be filled with fair trade cocoa treats and organic free-range egg hunts! 


And please enjoy my fave Easter vid while you munch:
http://youtu.be/zCRUPWDIgYM

back scatter brain

I am amused by how border security varies by airport. Two weeks ago in Ottawa, I was going through border security to the US. The attendant asked my preference for x-ray or pat-down, to which I opted pat-down. The touching wasn't more invasive than the back of hand scanning that has occurred on the other side of the metal detector before all of this x-ray business. It went by like a cool breeze. I felt curious and somehow disappointed when I was told I could go ahead and grab my stuff after I hadn't felt the least bit violated. I wondered about my privilege at this point. Clearly, I was not suspect and joked and giggled my way through security and customs with the lovely border folks.

At LAX a week later, I wasn't offered the opt-out. I was ushered into the horrible round x-ray machine and told to lift my hands. I politely requested a pat-down and the security officers graciously agreed and asked me to hang out in no-persons-land between the lines until they could find me a woman officer to do the touching. My presence between the lines confused some people, and the lines got a little screwed up as people started lining up behind me. Clearly the opt-out is not a common thing at this airport. When the officer arrived after what felt like quite a long time of my standing there confusing people, she took me to the other side of the room away from the security machines and offered me a private room (upstairs somewhere!). I said that wouldn't be necessary and she proceeded with a thorough touching and squeezing of my parts. She was instructional and polite about it, and I felt comfortable with her. Quite a contrast from the Ottawa experience, though.

Last week, I left Ottawa for the US again and this time (no joke!!), nobody noticed me walking through the metal detector. It was late at night, nobody was around, I walked past the bag scanner folks, nervously collected my stuff, stood there awkwardly for a moment and walked away toward the customs line. Seriously, I felt like I was being surveilled and tested and border security officers were about to roll out of hiding and tackle me to the ground.

A few days ago in Washington, I opted for body grope, and it was the most serious pat of them all. The officer was wonderful in that she explained what she was going to do in full beforehand and asked permission before changing hand positions on my body each time. I can see how this amount of touching could make people uncomfortable. She pressed firmly on inner thighs and breasts and had to slip her hands inside my waistband. It took a few minutes. Again, she was great about it, but for the first time I woke up to the potential invasiveness of the procedure. She touched everything.

First of all, the TSA does not have its crap together. I'm not a security fan, just pointing out how inconsistent (and merely psychological, money-making and fear-instilling) the whole business is. Likely that psychological effect is the point, in which case, I'm against it. And as my dad pointed out a couple of weeks ago, if we wanted to make a statement of our resistance against employing back-scatter technology, we could organize for more folks to opt for the body-grope on a regular basis, because airports are totally not equipped for this burden of time. It took more than five minutes (probably closer to ten) at LAX for the security officers to find me a woman officer. If I had requested a private screening, this would have added time. I also think the idea of the back-scatter is normalized in the security line. Resisting might also serve to draw attention to new securitization and start folks asking questions.

9/10, 9/11, 9/12

Today was a very cool academic career moment for me. It was our graduate student conference (Making Waves) at which the students of the two graduate seminars at the Institute of Women's Studies (Gender/Race/Representation and Globalization and...something...) presented their end-of-term work. I learned soooo much, especially that I have some seriously impressive colleagues making fascinating interventions! Topics ranged from citizenship to spectacle, Lady Gaga to veil banning, Sex and the City 2 to surrogacy in India, Sisters of Islam in Malaysia to "The Biggest Loser," Victoria Secret, Marxism, the list goes on. My mind is hopping. Thanks folks!

I presented my artwork on 9/11 as an example of the fetishizing of time by mainstream representations of events. I was a little nervous that it wouldn't be well received because it's mostly theoretical and I know what it can be like to listen to that (cue confused and frustrated yawn), but I felt heard and found respondents comments relevant and stimulating. Yay! One of our professor's comments (thanks Sethna) pointed me to Glenn Beck controversies and the 9/12 campaign. Under my boycott-FoxNews-lest-I-fall-into-paralyzing-depression mantra, this shit flies under the radar.

WHAT THE FRACK IS UP WITH THE 9/12 PROJECT?!  Talk about problematic display of nationalism. The mission of the group is to "unite our communities back to the place we were on 9/12/2001" - because the day after the attacks, Americans weren't concerned with "the color of your skin, or what religion you practiced." Bullshit. Let's scan over some of the principles, shall we?

1. America Is Good. Apparently now a whole nation can be moralized. Innnnteresting.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life. What part of this says inclusive of diverse spirituality? Hey Beck, I think you do care what religion someone practices.
   God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday. As if lying is the cause of American hardship. Cue Foucault's critique of the repressive hypothesis.
   Honesty “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government. Spoken like a true upper-middle class, white, heterosexist and non-feminist soldier for justice.
   Marriage/Family “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it. (Yeah, and everyone gets a fair trial. Except people we think look like they might have a chance of having something to do with some part of terrorism... we can detain them indefinitely, no question).
   Justice “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson
6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results. Greeat.
   Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable. It's hard for me to believe people are unabashedly promoting selfishness and enabled bodiedness. I mean, I know the ideology, but to say it explicitly seems shameful. 
   Charity “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. This I agree with. If only this led to creative dialogue and not hate speech...
   On your right to disagree “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me. The less state, the better, we get it. (How does military fit into this rationale?) 
   Who works for whom? “I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson

I didn't intend for this post to read like a full-on rant over 9/12, but I'm just appalled at the whole thing. I'll certainly employ the 9/12 project as a prime example of disgustingly prejudiced nationalist representations (that rely on a singular understanding of the 9/11 attacks) in my future work on temporality and spectacle. As for me, spectacle of naptime...

trauma: spider in my grapes, tuition due before payday, my shorts fell down in gym class

No matter what you type into Google Images, pictures of women's bodies turn up. I know this is an old cliche, but the truth becomes more startling as your search words become less and less relatable to bodies or sex (obviously, on the internet, body/sex = female/nude). Today I was traumatized looking for an image of an inside out clock. What gives? I said clock.

Speaking of trauma, this week I got weepy reading Ann Cvetcovich's An Archive of Feelings. Cvetcovich employs a collection of creative works from various authors/artists on topics of incest, lesbianism, AIDS activism and care-taking, to theorize trauma. Trauma, she argues, is unfixed. It is daily and unremarkable, on the side of the road, unrepresentable... rather than something we can pathologize (and heal) according to the latest DSM. It cannot be presented with narrative ease as it is usually done in our culture (i.e., survivor of conflict zone will display x/y symptoms for z months). Thinking about trauma in this unconventional way allows us to engage with and appreciate our complicity in traumatic processes. Trauma is not about pity or fixing, but about losses of connection that are non-linear. We all experience loss of connection and we've all had our hands in instigating others' sensations of loss...and these interchanges construct our lives in multiple ways. Overall, I loved the book. Bold intervention into trauma studies, hell of a tough read emotionally.

Going into the Gender/Race/Representation seminar yesterday with emotions flying, I found some clarity for a longstanding internal tension that I discussed in GossipGirl-induced Identity Crisis. In discussion about the visual grasp of trauma and the need for nontraditional representation of trauma in critical/feminist film and video art, we illuminated the importance of finding the sweet spot between text  (in this case, video) and spectator (in this case, moi). THIS IS THE COOLEST IDEA EVER! I took the 'sweet spot' to mean that zone where the text speaks to me, even if it plays to a non-feminist soundtrack (as Shoshana so eloquently put it).

Okay, think Gossip Girl. To me, there is something seriously seductive about the emotionality and beauty of that show. Note: it is a horribly problematic series(!) and I cringe when I describe it as beautiful... but it is in many ways! It is so glamorously produced and edited and lit and soundtracked and the actors are breathtaking. Not to mention, my act of watching this show provides necessary self-care in my depressingly capitalist life. The very process of unwinding alone in the dark with this tacky teen drama on my laptop is wonderfully invigorating and it propels me toward my next day of work.

Trauma aside for 40 minutes, I'm meeting Gossip Girl where I can and it is oh-so-sweet here.

New Depths of Shallowness

Post-dated, March 26th.

Today I'm looking in/north at the Ottawa bubble from my sunny perch in Los Angeles. One observation brought to me by my hotel: USA Today is a different national paper than the Globe and Mail, that's for sure. It makes me more proud of our daily circulator than usual. 

Anyway, down to more cynical observations. As world leaders exchange sound bites about providing aid to Libyans, it’s time we took care of our own shallow democracy. In the midst of all of this parliamentary scandal and grotesque campaigning (did anyone see Harper singing/butchering Imagine? "And no religion too," my ass. Cue John Lennon throwing hissy fit in grave), we need to organize as activists around what is unethical. Shout-out here to the Slutwalk Ottawa taking place on April 10th, 2pm, Minto Park. 

This week I've been working on a literature review for my work on the status of women in Canadian universities. When I think about all of the ways cultural imperialism is trickling out of our nationalist discourses, I get disillusioned about using gender as a primary category or object of analysis in this work (especially about looking at the race/class/blue-eyed privileged subsection of Canadian women who take doctoral studies). How can we isolate gender in such a racist political climate? When I was 21 or so, a professor who I didn’t like very much was teaching a course I really didn’t like, and she prescribed Iris Marion Young’s “Lived body versus gender.” Looking back, I was too hard on this course material. I love it now.

Young (2002) illustrates how the idea of the lived body is appealing because it precludes an additive visualization of oppression ([woman] gender + [black] race + [queer] sexuality = triply oppressed) and blurs the lines between individual and group, implying the process of negotiating ourselves alongside and against our neighbours. In this imagining, bodies are arranged differentially according to capacities and desires, not according to definable and shared circumstances based on an arbitrary social category.

But she also says that we need to keep gender around to understand why and how women are more likely than men to be poor, and more likely to suffer violence and disease. No matter how we theorize, there’s real gendered stuff going on: see, the sexual division of labour, normative heterosexuality, a global culture of militarism (hyper-masculinism). I’m glad Young makes this point so clearly. Of course this appeals to me, as it provides some sick justification for my insistence upon studying “women” in my dissertation, not to mention I am preoccupied with questions of fertility, which conceptually link gender to sex. I’ll be the first to negate claims of a shared womanhood, but we may as well salvage gender as a category so long as it is imbedded in structural inequality. I’ll try to remind myself of this.

Back to it! Wishing students and professors everywhere the best of luck during this April crunch time! Excited to come up for air with some of you in a couple of weeks :)

(Cultural) Imperial(ism) (Leather/Margarine)

Oops! I dropped off the world during crunch time! Here is some post-dated writing from 1.5 weeks ago.

Gloomy day in the Windy City, the palate of Vancouver skies. Perfect opportunity for a blog update.

This pre-dawn morning, I was waiting in the baggage drop line at the Ottawa airport. I obeyed the canvas tape separating me from the line for “First Class Passengers” (Apparently we still call them that? Holy eff!), which herded only a few guys with briefcases. I was snapped out of my pre-coffee daze when the desk attendant looked to the front of the First Class line and called to the brown man (wearing a white collared shirt, brown belt, matching shoes, and a turban), “Sir, this line is for status.” I didn’t catch his reaction because I was behind him. The attendant moved to the side of her desk, away from the customer she was helping and repeated, “Sir, this is the status line.” Still don’t know what look was on his face, but she then asked, “Sir, do you have status?” to which he responded, “Yes, I do.”

I expect some of you might insist that I have overreacted to something because the attendant would have asked this of anyone. I don’t know. I was pretty shocked by the whole situation. I think the attendant’s racist/classist reaction to a visual representation of culture was pretty clear.

As luck would have it, I read Gary Young’s article on ‘multiculturalism’ in the latest Guardian as soon as my cabin baggage was stowed. His commentary provokes lefties to start calling things like we see them instead of feeling paralyzed by both the endless promulgation of (racist) conservative discourses around immigration, torture, etc. (you name it!) and the fear of taking a culturally imperialist stance. We have to stop allowing conservative ploys for “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” to separate race and class struggles. We have to stop pretending that opposing a violent regime is treading on cultural imperialism. The paralyses are surely characteristic of the illustrious space of intellectual health, but as Gary Young says, “Honor killing is murder, forced marriage is kidnapping.” Our lines in the sand are somewhere.

I know, I know, it’s hard to say this. It's even harder not to cringe at the imperialist media depictions of the Middle East these days. “Pre-modern” kingdoms “get a taste” of Western “values.” Muslim women are “submissive no longer.” Rebels resort to terrorizing in an “all-too-familiar” culture of violence. Dramatic unrest in the “Arab world” – a homogenized culture that we can observe from a distance and understand? Photos of women in burqas and young boys in ripped clothing with makeshift weapons abound. I’m sure these aren’t even the worst of the depictions...

All of this to say YES, we have the responsibility to be critical of the ignorance and, especially, the militarist motives of the West for this re-branding and recycling of Orientalist stereotypes. We must be equally critical of the way our discourses are rebranded to paralyze us. Here's my Tuesday morning call for more lefty confidence.