is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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What It Means To Be A Girl.
What It Means To Be A Girl.
Here is a pretty photo of the dogwood outside my house. Or, more accurately put, a photo of a pretty dogwood. Is it a dogwood? I�m not sure. Hey. I just remembered that there are plaques on all the trees telling me what kind of tree each tree is. I should just go read it. Tomorrow when I�m not wearing pajamas.
Two semi-related things today.
One. I had a semi-humbling or maybe inspiring experience when I did a google search on one of my pseudonyms. It�s a name that I still use to subscribe to some magazines, and lately I�ve been realizing that a student will be living here all summer, so I should think about what she can learn about my life just from being in this house. So I googled myself using the pseudonym, and found that an article I wrote about how to define feminism in 1994 still gets used as material in some feminist theory classes here and there. And also, that sometimes young women just find the essay and are happy about it. Aw, shucks! One woman in particular had been struggling with how to answer the question �what is feminism?� and couldn�t find any definition that didn�t make her feel like she�d missed something or done something wrong. Then she found my tiny essay and wrote: �After reading it for the first time, I felt that Midons� entire essay could have come from my own mouth or that of many other feminists I knew. I was so excited that I immediately wanted to share it with everyone, so I will share it with you now. Midons answers our stated question, �What is feminism?� like this: �Feminism, if it is to have any viable meaning at all, must mean that women make their own choices, live their lives according to their own definitions. That is the only true path to "freedom," power, or self-determination. I suppose we are seeking "equality," but what that means in this world I don�t know. I am always wary of slippery-slope words that are so easily defined by those who write dictionaries�. equal to what? For whom? On whose terms? Ending up where? Let�s just say we�re seeking to live�� (Midons 176). Aw, reading that makes me feel young, and old, and funny and serious all at once. Anyway, this woman found the essay because it was republished in a book called Girl�s Guide to Taking over the Universe (Heidi also has an essay in that book, and one of my linoblock cover-art carvings was also featured), which is a good look at the girl-zine movement, of which I never really considered myself a part, but of which I was considered to be a part by some, because I�m a girl who published a zine. If you�re a girl who publishes a zine you must be part of the girl-zine movement, right? This relates to my next point.
At least once a year, sometimes more, I�ll be at a conference, and, since conferences are professional events, people will be talking about the job market, and someone will say to me, �hey, I hear there is a job in feminist theory opening up at X�University.� Then I will say, �I am not qualified for that job. It is not my field.� And why did so-and-so think that it was my field? BECAUSE I�M FEMALE. (I never talk about feminism. None of my work mentions it or is linked to it in any direct way. No one has any reason to be 'misled' into thinking that is my field. In fact I have been criticized for 'ignoring the woman question.' Etc.)
I certainly don't mind being included in a book about the girl-zine revolution. And I am certainly glad there was such a thing as the girl-zine revolution (even though I wonder about the word 'revolution'). I just want to maintain a wariness with regard to the easy equation of girl with girl-zine and female academic with scholar of feminist theory. A perfectly reasonable wariness, no?
Last Saturday at the brunch, I was telling the story about epilating for dollars (phrase courtesy of Evany), and lots of questions were asked, and it was all funny, and I told the story of the pain, and also how funny it is that I would go through the pain just for hair removal and writing about it. Then, predictably, one woman in the room said, �Well I solve the problem of hairy legs by wearing pants.� And what did I say? I said, �Well, it sounds like that works just great for you.� (I said it that way because her assertion was accompanied by a look best described as "aghast.") It was a friendly brunch so luckily we didn�t have to wade all the way into the part of the pool where I say FEMINISM DOES NOT MEAN TRADING IN A WORLD WHERE MEN GET TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO FOR A WORLD WHERE A CERTAIN KIND OF WOMAN GETS TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO. It seems like such a simple definition. And yet it is so hard to spread it around, it seems.
11:51 p.m. - April 10, 2006
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