It's Dr. if you're nasty

It's not exactly a great start to the day. At least for once I didn't wake up at 7:30am, the problem is I woke up at 5:15am. I took the puppy out and tried to get back to sleep for about 40 minutes before giving up to go make some coffee and oatmeal.

Then I opened the email and this article from the LA Times came through. In case you can't get to it. The article is about how "pompous" it is for Jill Biden to expect to be called Dr. Biden when she only has a PhD in Education. I understand it's historic for a second lady to keep her day job, but if you really want to get all worked up about that then really talk about it.

Don't just thrown in as an aside the paragraph about how little she'll make as an adjunct faculty member.

McClellan declined to say exactly how much Biden would earn, but said she was teaching 10 hours a week and that the range of pay for her adjunct position was $900 to $1,227 per credit hour. (That means each semester her pay could be from $9,000 to $12,270.)

Point out the fact that this "not that much amount" is what most adjunct family members LIVE ON. Or maybe that she is making that much IN SPITE of the fact that she got her PhD, IN SPITE of the fact that she has 20 years of experience.

Or, maybe we should talk about the fact that she chose to work at a community college and what that means for everyone involved. Jim McClellan, the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Northern Virginia Community College, (notice how unlike in the article I showed respect for his position by capitalizing his title --you, know like you should for anyone) said,

"She could have done anything with her time and make a difference, but she chose to teach, and teach at a community college. That says to our students that they are important and that community colleges are an important piece of the American educational system."

The article doesn't pay much attention to what McClellan says, but I like that he equates teaching with a way to make a difference. Dr. Biden did her time in school, took the exams, wrote the dissertation all of it. She deserves her title. Notice how the article includes the title of Lynne Cheney's dissertation, but not Dr. Biden's.


Don't even get me started on how undervalued the Community College system is in this country. It's a personal soap box.

On Feminism....

Reading about Bill Clinton's 1991 presidential campaign has be reliving my youth...or, well, rethinking it.

Once I asked my mom when/why she thought I became a feminist. The easy answer was when I did a research paper about it my sophomore year. My mom doesn't usually go with the easy answer. She, like so many other women, equated feminism with the desire to work outside of the home. Her answer was that since she and her mother and many of the other women in my life worked I'd grown up around feminism. It's true. My mother has worked outside of the home ever since I can remember. In fact for a while she was my grandmother's boss -- weird, huh. There were, however, other influences in my life. My favorite Aunt and my paternal grandmother both stayed at home. My aunt had 4 daughters to raise...well, 5 if you count me. I guess since my own mother was always working outside of the home (because we were poor and she had to) I internalized that choice. It didn't ever occur to me that working outside of the home was a choice...or a part of a political stance.

After we moved out west and my mother went back to school, she would have her friends over to study. Whether she or I realize it or not that experience instilled in me the value of education. I saw all of those women stuggle, graduate, and get "decent" office jobs. Hey, when your only work experience was cleaning houseboats an office job looks like a big step forward. Once my mom got her job in the office at the college, she'd talk about and bring over her friends from work. One woman in particular made an impression on me. Christine really was a feminist and, next to my own mother, my first influence. She went out with her husband to buy a car (this was in the 80's) and puposefully paid more because she bought the car at the lot where the salesman talked to her instead of her husband. This was going to be HER car afterall. When I was younger I thought that was the coolest story and that was exactly what feminism meant for me.

As I said I did a research report about feminism my sophomore year of high school. All I really remember is that I did an interview, which I'm sure was full of lame questions and that every other person in the class did stuff like gun control and legalizing prostitution. It wasn't until my senior year, when in a moment of procrastination, I used that research paper again. I reworked it to fullfil an assignment. Once I'd turned the paper in, I didn't think about it again...until, the teacher made me read it outloud. Seriously. For the rest of the year he would ask me what I thought of stuff, as if my opinion were somehow different because I'd said in a paper I was a feminist.

Needless to say that experience turned me off for a little while, well that experience and then the Clinton campaign. I remember how hard it was to be young and idealistic when feminists were getting such poor treatment in the press and media. I also had a hard time reconcilling my own love for the men in my life with an understanding about their sexism. It wasn't until I came back to graduate school that I learned to say simply, "I am a feminist" without providing some sort of caveat.

It would have been just as easy for me to absorb the "stay at home" narrative, but I think my mother's independance and respect for learning was much more of an influence on my than I give it credit for. Growing up poor wasn't always easy, but it instilled values that I sometimes forget and take for granted.

Because I'm a Sexist Feminist....

It's true. A student wrote that on an official evaluation. Luckily I wasn't teaching a course in Feminist Theory, because then I would have really failed.

As I sat in bed watching Juno, I was still bothered by Bleeker's lack of involvement in the whole situation. Then the DH came home laid down on the bed and said of Jason Bateman. "He's really gross in this movie." I said, "Yes he is" before I realized we were commenting on two completely different aspects of the film.

The DH thinks Mark is gross for hitting on Juno and, possibly, for abandoning his wife. We agree about that. However, as I listened to Vanessa tell Mark about his "stupid" shirt, I realized this was another aspect of Mark that was gross. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks he still might end up Kurt Cobain - before the suicide; and/or they are upset because they thought they'd die before they were 27 - either way, he is tied to his rock star fantasies.

The shirt is stupid, not because Vanessa doesn't like the band, but because it demonstrates the way Mark is fixated on his past. In the film it is easy to see how Vanessa is fixated and demaning. The house is a shrine to it. It's easy not to see,until it is too late, how tenaciously Mark is clinging to something else. I just want to point out that Vanessa's critique of Mark is a valid one. It's as valid as the critique the film makes of Vanessa; and, it's every bit as "gross" as Mark trying to kiss Juno. However, I think there are a lot of men and women who don't sympathize with Vanessa's position. Heck, the film doesn't even sympathize with her. Just think for a minute of what you remember of Vanessa. It makes fun of her. It is a comedy after all.

There is no one perfect way to "grow - up." In many ways Vanessa is just as wrong as Mark, but by portraying Mark as this cool guy the film is sympathetic to him. It lulls us into forgetting that in reality we should all be able to grow and change.

Waves upon waves upon waves...

Reading Shakesville this morning, I stumbled across this piece by Amanda Fortini.

The idea of a reawakening is so appealing. But Fortini's article raises an issue I've had for quite some time.
Fortini's acceptance, and use, of the "wave" metaphor of feminism bothers me. Yes, there are many, many young women out there who believe they live in a post feminist moment. The semester I co-taught a Feminist Theory class with Dr. Snarky and Fiery Mentor we spent the entire first month defining feminism and defending it as a legitimate and necessary position. Yes, that was in a course clearly labeled Feminist Theory. The fact that the women and men in this class felt that feminism was over demonstrates a perceived lull in the movement. However, in reality, by the end of the semester several of the students in that class had officially joined the Women's and Gender Studies program, and started a student run Feminist Group on campus. (I'm not sure if that group still exists.) What they saw over the course of the semester was that the moment was not dead, and that a larger community existed for them to join.

There have certainly been stronger and weaker moments for the movement, but perpetuating the wave metaphor keeps elements of the movement distinct and dispersed. Because waves are always distinct and separate, when members of the movement are assigned to specific waves, they are separated. If we accept the wave metaphor, we accept allow ourselves to be separated. We allow the 'rift' between the second and third wave feminists to become reality and grow. If we allow the wave metaphor, then we accept that for each wave we begin from a flat surface, that we have to build our movement and momentum always from scratch, without drawing on the energy of the members of the wave before us. Enough with the wave metaphor.

That's all I have time for right now, but I'm sure this issue will come up again.

Not at all what I should be doing...

All the recent hoopla over the Edwards Campaign bloggers caught my eye and added a couple new blogs (like this one and this one) to my favorites folder. I haven't had the time to keep up with everything surrounding this issue, but imagine my surprise when I checked out one of my new favorites this morning and saw this.

While Marcotte's decision to resign is understandable, the acceptance of her resignation, and the silence about it at the Edwards site, is not.

Clearly Edwards, or someone on his staff, was aware enough of Marcotte's work at Pandagon to want to hire her, which means they were [should have been] aware of the nature of her work at that site. If, as a campaign, Edwards and company cannot vet their employees better than that, they do not deserve my vote. If, as a campaign, they do not have the guts to do more than issue mealy mouthed comments about their employees while waiting for the right time to let them quietly step down, they certainly do not deserve my vote. And now they've done it again, Melissa McEwan, who had also been targeted for views posted on her blog before joining the campaign, has also stepped down; and, again there is no comment from the Edwards campaign.

Okay, I didn't start this post to complain about Edwards' cowardice. There are larger issues here that need to be considered. In comments responding to Marcotte's announcement Michael Bérubé points out that we are in new political territory. His comment is worth reading in full.

Clearly, blogging involves a very different kind of
rhetorical compact with one’s readers than campaigning does. But not until last
week, so far as I know, has there ever been a demand in this country that
ordinary campaign staffers account to the candidate — and to the general public
— for everything they’ve written prior to becoming campaign staffers. If you
sincerely think that the fault lies with Amanda for not alerting the Edwards
camp to the full metal Pandagon archives, well, I think you’re being
played.

Hiring campaign bloggers is a new phenomenon. The tension created as we attempt to identify and define this new rhetorical space needs to be carefully analyzed. When bloggers choose to write, in their own spaces, about sensitive issues they blur the lines between public and private discourse on those subjects. Certainly weblogs are a form of public discourse. Unless I choose to hide an entry, I understand that once I hit the “publish” button I’m no longer in control of my rhetorical audience. Consequently, as I write I should probably construct my audience as broadly as possible, being careful and deliberate in my word choice. However, the “log” nature of this format lends itself to feeling like a private discourse, which allows for an individualist voice. My private views, expressed in my own voice, become a part of public discourse in a way that has different ramifications from speaking loudly in the local coffee shop.

Unfortunately, I’m not being as articulate as I’d like here, and I don’t have the time to really work through this right now. What I’m trying to get at is a question about how our “published” words get used in these situations. Underlying this whole situation is, I think, a rhetorical (and ethical?) issue about how personal blogs are used (for political means) within public discourse.