(no subject)
Last week I went to Edmonton and I came back on Monday. Here is a graph roughly representing the trip:
My presentation went well, I think. Or at least people laughed at the right parts and I wore a cute dress that garnered many compliments. You know, all the important stuff. My panel had a particularly great chair, and the discussion period afterward was very lively and participatory! People asked great questions, I think I sounded reasonably smart in my responses, dear little Jen took her divacup from her purse and waved it above her head triumphantly...!
I made some really excellent conference friends, however my Ottawa U companions chided me for this in the same manner one might chide a 13 year old girl for having a boyyyyfriendddd. The West Edmonton Mall is not for the faint of heart. I likened it to pi, until we saw that it actually does repeat a lot. But I mean, a shooting range and water park! In the mall!
But generally, Edmonton is a drag, and the whole thing was kind of a bust. For a third wave feminism conference, it was pretty heavily focused on second wavey "sisterhood" and "women's lib" rhetoric. I guess I just feel that the third wave is supposed to entail a lot more critique of those kinds of ideals, and a lot more emphasis on gender troubling. I had huge problems with the overall tone, the weird self-congratulatory "look how awesome U of A is!" focus, the glaring regionalism, and also the lack of attention to the failures and incompatabilities of instituational organizing in the third wave. Also, the preponderance of ecofeminists. I can't be the only one who finds them annoying?
Overall I'm glad I went, because I think it was a significant event in Canadian young feminist organizing. But I also think that the fact that it was such a significant event in Canadian young feminist organizing is overshadowing all of those problems. I don't know, don't I ever get to come to a point where I don't have to be so critical of my own peers all the goddamn time?
Unrelatedly, I found out that I got accepted to U of T with pretty substantial funding, and I find that pretty substantially hilarious. Sorry dudes, but I guess I don't feel the same neocon faculty that employed Michael Ignatieff is yet ready for my kind. Have fun still talking about federalist justifications for taking rights away from aboriginal people, or whatever it is you do.
My presentation went well, I think. Or at least people laughed at the right parts and I wore a cute dress that garnered many compliments. You know, all the important stuff. My panel had a particularly great chair, and the discussion period afterward was very lively and participatory! People asked great questions, I think I sounded reasonably smart in my responses, dear little Jen took her divacup from her purse and waved it above her head triumphantly...!
I made some really excellent conference friends, however my Ottawa U companions chided me for this in the same manner one might chide a 13 year old girl for having a boyyyyfriendddd. The West Edmonton Mall is not for the faint of heart. I likened it to pi, until we saw that it actually does repeat a lot. But I mean, a shooting range and water park! In the mall!
But generally, Edmonton is a drag, and the whole thing was kind of a bust. For a third wave feminism conference, it was pretty heavily focused on second wavey "sisterhood" and "women's lib" rhetoric. I guess I just feel that the third wave is supposed to entail a lot more critique of those kinds of ideals, and a lot more emphasis on gender troubling. I had huge problems with the overall tone, the weird self-congratulatory "look how awesome U of A is!" focus, the glaring regionalism, and also the lack of attention to the failures and incompatabilities of instituational organizing in the third wave. Also, the preponderance of ecofeminists. I can't be the only one who finds them annoying?
Overall I'm glad I went, because I think it was a significant event in Canadian young feminist organizing. But I also think that the fact that it was such a significant event in Canadian young feminist organizing is overshadowing all of those problems. I don't know, don't I ever get to come to a point where I don't have to be so critical of my own peers all the goddamn time?
Unrelatedly, I found out that I got accepted to U of T with pretty substantial funding, and I find that pretty substantially hilarious. Sorry dudes, but I guess I don't feel the same neocon faculty that employed Michael Ignatieff is yet ready for my kind. Have fun still talking about federalist justifications for taking rights away from aboriginal people, or whatever it is you do.