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Uhh! I’m totally just - uhhh! - frustrated. I totally had to give a mini-presentation in class today and I totally just flaked on it because… well, because.
Last week Dr. Chang said that we should each hold the floor for 5 minutes and talk about something from our lives. Okaaay… that’s pretty vague. So I wrote down three topics or so that I could discuss and then I’d just decide which was the most appropriate when I got to class. Two of the topics had to do with my life personally - that is, events that occurred in my life that shaped me. The third topic was more concerning questions I had about feminist discussion in general. OK. So. I thought I was pretty well prepared.
I get there and a Polish woman starts speaking about the history of the women’s movement in Poland. Than Mala did and overview of the same for India. Uh-oh. Ok, so I’m racking my brain to come up with something more related to the women’s movement in the US. I figure I don’t really need to talk about the history of the movement in the US or spend too much time talking about the US, because if there is one thing the US is good at it’s exporting culture, even if that view is a warped one.
I decided I’d talk about how I, as a member of the second generation following the women’s movement of the 60’s, now see women on the brink of something big or something damaging to our progress, such as: that too many young women think equality has been achieved, that there are too many things that divide women including race, religion, class etc. And that oppositional forces use our vulnerabilities to deepen divides externally with other women and internally with ourselves so that it becomes more difficult to act on our behalf. For example: Our identity is tied to our role as nurturer, that as women it is our special gift to be nurturing and we can make the world a better place by influencing work situations, children, etc. BUT, the "authority" calls into question our role as nurturers by pointing a finger at single mom’s in poverty or at many feminists' disassociation from the "mothering" role. These accusations hit us in a place that hurts and we feel at once a need to protect and step back instead of unifying and recognizing that part of ourselves that is afraid to fail at nurturing. I think it’s time for another consciousness raising like the one in the ‘60’s, to re-evaluate where we stand and where we need to modify strategies. Most importantly we need dialogue to bridge gaps and specifically, we need to listen to each other.
Now do you think I even managed to come close to saying anything like that? No. Instead I just mumbled a bunch of crap like, "Uh there are divisions and the movement is pausing now because we’re, uh, wondering what’s wrong but, uh…. Oh, let’s see, there’s these divisions that keep us from having dialogue that keep us from seeing how authorities are, uh, attacking our vulnerabilities, which are, uh, are ties to our identity as nurturer." thpthpthpthpthp!
Good grief! What an embarrassment!
It was our last class and I’m not too sad to see it go. I’ve got other things planned. Being the last session, though, it ran really late and it was totally dark outside (6:15) when Mala dropped me off at the bus stop. I didn’t have correct change so I had to pay busfare with a banknote which means I paid more than twice the fair necessary. That was crap. However, I got a seat and I was happy. But then I noticed weird noises coming from behind me and people standing near me were looking at the person sitting in the seat behind mine. Uh-oh. Random Weird/Drunk Guy. I figured that as long as he didn’t mess with me I’d be OK. But, you know, being white and all I pretty much stick out like a sore thumb and makes me Weird/Drunk Guy bait. People kept staring at him and he kept singing and making strange sounds. At one of the stops I notice that white guy was getting off. I didn’t see him before because he was sitting in the back seat. I recognize, after a few seconds, that he’s one of those foreign guys who is always on TV. Hmm. That’s interesting. Then I notice as he was walking away from the bus, that he was staring back and laughing at the guy sitting directly behind me and that he had a Korean woman attached to his arm. What a dork. I hate guys here who are totally freakin’ dorks in their country, ‘cause they damn well deserve it no doubt, and then get all over TV and hook up with a Korean woman. Total ugly man’s paradise. So he’s laughing at this guy behind me and I start feeling sorry for the weird guy. I mean, he could be mentally ill and having delusions - that’s not his fault! And this American/Canadian/whatever/white guy who’s duping the local women and feeling all confident because he’s Mr. TV Star in some little country in Asia is turning around, pointing and laughing? That’s really ugly behavior.
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