I'd like to second Mark's recommendation of Emma Bee Bernstein's (what a great name! the daughter of Susan Bee and Charles Bernstein) and Nona Willis Aronowitz's GIRLdrive. They're on an inspiring trip.
Some of their posts raise the possibility of male feminists: it's not a title I feel I necessarily have the right to, but I am going to be the father of a daughter who will have to struggle for her own power and freedom in a culture that is routinely violent toward women. Or of a son who will have to come to understand his privileges and find his own path toward the renunciation of such violence. My influence and example will be crucial in either case, and not just in a philosophical way, but in the day-to-day work of meeting his or her needs: changing diapers, cooking meals, defusing tantrums, telling stories. So I will at least claim the right to call myself a fellow traveler of feminism.
Will I have a girly daughter, or a butch one? Will my son be gay, or a football player (or a gay football player)? We have no idea who's choosing to incarnate with us. I hope he or she will find room enough to become whom he or she needs to be with us. But I'll have feelings about his or her choices, too.
Reading the blog of Bernstein & Aronowitz, women just a little older than my students, I feel a kind of paternal wishfulness. That is to say, I hope that my daughter grows up to be like them. Or that my son is wise and strong enough to attract the company of women like them.
I am changing right in front of my own eyes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
This is gonna be a loooooong post. What follows is a freely edited transcription of my notes from the Zukofsky/100 conference at Columbia t...
-
Midway through my life's journey comes a long moment of reflection and redefinition regarding poetics (this comes in place of the conver...
-
Will be blogging more or less permanently now at http://www.joshua-corey.com/blog/ . Or follow me on Twitter: @joshcorey
-
My title is taken from the comments stream of an article recently published by The Chronicle of Higher Education , David Alpaugh's ...
-
Elif Batuman has amplified her criticism of the discipline of creative writing (which I've written about before ) in a review-essay that...
-
Thursday, September 29, 2011 Berlin. Fog of sleep deprivation coloring an otherwise perfect blue autumn day a sort of miasmic yellow i...
-
Trained it down to DePaul's Loop campus this morning to take part in a panel, "Why Writers Should Blog," alongside Tony Trigil...
-
In one week Lake Forest will hold its commencement and I'll take off my professor's hat for the summer. A few weeks later, in June, ...
-
Farewell, Barbara Guest .
-
That's one of my own lines. From an untitled (they're all untitled) severance song: After form fails a furling, reports dying away, ...
No comments:
Post a Comment