Today I'm grading papers on Held -- she's a feminist philosopher from the 1990s who writes about the feminist idea of the ethics of care.
So far I've seen an amazing amount of sexism from my students... Out of four papers, I've been told that "these feminists are ruining philosophy", that "men are more logical than women and thus men should be in charge" and that "if a woman were elected president, she'd look out for women and not for the whole of the country." The fourth paper doesn't even understand the theory at all, so his objection doesn't make any sense.
This pile of papers is really making me ill...
Please, internet feminists -- grant me the strength and wisdom to deal with this crap -- and the professionalism to refrain from writing "go to hell you little sexist asshole" on their papers...
Today could be a long, long, long day. I have 14 more to grade-- and some of my favorite students are in the pile -- maybe it will get better.
Edited to add...
The papers actually did get better -- after the first few rants, in which feminists were blamed for the woes of the world, the papers turned into the usual mix of brilliance and misunderstanding... which was a relief.
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6 comments:
I love this phrase: "the usual mix of brilliance and misunderstanding." I'm stealing it, pal.
Wow. Those are some bold, stupid statements!
Hang on, if feminists really ARE ruining philosophy, there is some hope... we have a department that is 4/5th feminist (and 3/5 female). If we are concentrated enough to implode philosophy--- then we can get jobs with lower teaching loads :).
Early in my teaching career, I was a party to writing a paper assignment for a core humanities course. The writing prompt was something like, "Discuss the perception of women in the ancient Greek and Hebrew cultures, as seen through Hesiod's Theogony (Pandora) and in Genesis (Eve)?"
If I had a nickel for every paper that began, "Throughout the ages, women have been the cause of all of the trouble that men have had to deal with..." - well, I'd have a pretty fair amount of money!
(Hi, medium-term reader, first time commenter.)
It's not just feminism. I've received similarly idiotic and reactionary responses to just about every concept I've to presented my students that differed with what they had learned about the world before age 12.
This past spring, I assigned my (art) students an essay that ruminated on models for learning art and aspects of the master/apprentice system. One student took issue, likening the ideas to "creating a master race", accusing the author of being a Nazi sympathizer. I wish he had taken the time to learn that the author was Jewish.
So, my take on things is that all the mess, chaos, ignorance, and sexism surrounding feminism, women in politics, etc., puts women about 10 light years ahead of men in individually taking control of their own relation to gender. Perhaps men have been able to avoid it because we spent so long hogging all the power for ourselves. Perhaps a disinclination toward self analysis is a big weak spot in our gender construction. Either way, better to have the storm now than to bottle it up and wait to see what happens.
"go to hell you little sexist asshole"
If you ever do write this comment please, please photocopy the paper and post it here. That would be hysterical.
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