a wok in the park
This is how stupid I am: I'm around so many feminists all of the time that I had no idea how many people still use douche. I was just under the impression that it had gone away like the chastity belt. I knew it was probably still used in parts of the world where people like to practice that old-time patriarchy (perhaps in the South, for example), but I didn't think I would ever read any reference to it as if it were a normal, common thing.
I had a strangely productive Sunday, even though I spent part of the morning with my sister and then had lunch with some people at the new vegetarian restaurant near my house. For that matter, I also took a lot of internet breaks throughout the day.
I think I just feel accomplished because a good subject for my paper finally came to me. Last week, I was feeling a sort of despair as I flipped through books mindlessly and searched electronic sources aimlessly. The page requirement for the paper seemed like an insurmountable task. The deadline, I knew, while seemingly far away in time right now, would probably come to me suddenly, bringing with it a sort of sick feeling.
But then my rummaging for possible subjects finally paid off. A stream of curiosity and my subsequent wanderings through the library eventually put me in the middle of the third floor, with a book in my lap and my brain abuzz. Thoughts were coming to me faster than I could write them down.
A requirement for our paper is that we use publications from the Bureau of American Ethnology. These were written at a time when Western academics still considered indigenous people to be nothing more than savages. The reports and bulletins were written from such a patronizing and bigoted perspective that their descriptions of Native culture were usually very superficial, providing little or no information about the purpose or context of any given ritual, belief, or story within its culture. Therefore, I decided to err on the side of being too broad with my topic, rather than too narrow.
Pointing out examples of Eurocentric biases in these publications would be almost as intellectually challenging as a good game of bingo. So, I may stick with my original whim and probe instead how Western society's patriarchal biases might color its perceptions of a culture that is matriarchal, matrifocal, or at the very least regards women and men as "asymmetric equals" (to use Henry Sharp's words in Women and Power in Native North America).
I'll need to do more research and thinking before I say with certainty that I have a subject picked. Regardless, I feel that my day was spent well.
I had a strangely productive Sunday, even though I spent part of the morning with my sister and then had lunch with some people at the new vegetarian restaurant near my house. For that matter, I also took a lot of internet breaks throughout the day.
I think I just feel accomplished because a good subject for my paper finally came to me. Last week, I was feeling a sort of despair as I flipped through books mindlessly and searched electronic sources aimlessly. The page requirement for the paper seemed like an insurmountable task. The deadline, I knew, while seemingly far away in time right now, would probably come to me suddenly, bringing with it a sort of sick feeling.
But then my rummaging for possible subjects finally paid off. A stream of curiosity and my subsequent wanderings through the library eventually put me in the middle of the third floor, with a book in my lap and my brain abuzz. Thoughts were coming to me faster than I could write them down.
A requirement for our paper is that we use publications from the Bureau of American Ethnology. These were written at a time when Western academics still considered indigenous people to be nothing more than savages. The reports and bulletins were written from such a patronizing and bigoted perspective that their descriptions of Native culture were usually very superficial, providing little or no information about the purpose or context of any given ritual, belief, or story within its culture. Therefore, I decided to err on the side of being too broad with my topic, rather than too narrow.
Pointing out examples of Eurocentric biases in these publications would be almost as intellectually challenging as a good game of bingo. So, I may stick with my original whim and probe instead how Western society's patriarchal biases might color its perceptions of a culture that is matriarchal, matrifocal, or at the very least regards women and men as "asymmetric equals" (to use Henry Sharp's words in Women and Power in Native North America).
I'll need to do more research and thinking before I say with certainty that I have a subject picked. Regardless, I feel that my day was spent well.