These years, I read about things that are "problematic." For examples, "The representation of queerness in Gaga's Born This Way video is so problematic," or, "The way the Because I Am A Girl Movement needs to use hyperfeminine tropes to gain political clout for gender equity is so problematic." We grad students seem to like, as my friend Heather calls it, to do paranoid reading (that is, to read skeptically). We get good at it too. Everything is problematic, even eating chocolate ice cream. If you eavesdropped on our hangouts, you'd think we get off on discovering that things are, say, racist, or poorly conceived in general. Mostly we like pointing out how ironic is everything over beverages. That is what grad students do. Last one to point out the problematic thing is a rotten soybean!
Well, based on the above, it's a terrific thing, since I am a part of my cohort of study, that I'm so darn problematic. As some background for my dissertation, I'm currently looking to theories on social scripts, social roles, and fantasy. I've been tripping out to literature on daydreams since this weekend, and now that I've analyzed my own day fantasies more rigorously, I'm feeling like a huge hypocrite. And I'm feeling like my thesis argument is stronger than ever because of it.
Why I am so problematic:
Since I have formed some critical thoughts on the literature on women’s role conflict, I am surprised by the often-competitive thoughts flowing through me while pursuing this degree project. Like most doctoral students, I have had my share of motivational ups and downs throughout, but the most surprising to me is how, even in the midst of examining the way social scripts function to oppress personal and professional roles based on gender, I continue to follow these. I am explicitly glued (in my own mind) to particular scripts.
Illustrative of my investments in performing according to certain scripts, my life stresses, generally speaking, can be attributed to straying from them. My imagined roles may alter slightly from more traditional norms, but I think they reflect archetypes typical among my cohort. I frequently daydream about simultaneously embodying the ideal neoliberal subject and the ideal mother, down to the minute details of wardrobe and staging. I literally have visions of pureeing organic root vegetables for my gleaming toddler while pausing to receive a phone call from my highly reputable book publisher that my latest revisions have been accepted. The phone call is usually interrupted by a kiss on the cheek from my brilliant, handsome, chiseled, loyal, feminist husband who adores me and joyfully performs more than half of our domestic labour so that I may travel for my career. In this dream, I am also agelessly fit and healthy, and so is my dog, which does not bark.
This “secret” daydream – the one that exists among knowing what there is to know about competing devotions as well as how certain fantasies are imbricated in neo-colonial and imperialist projects and yet still promotes “having it all” – does not cease to shock me. Today I was dreaming it while on a morning run (in this morning's version, I was being greeted by my family at the finish line of a marathon. Following the race, we returned home to consume kitchen sink muffins, baked freshly that morning by moi. Then my partner and I worked on the feminist project we were co-authoring). The denial is palpable. I now understand that this seriously reinforces my major argument.
For now, back to the literature. Share your problematics, people.
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