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What Fresh Hell Is This? A Guy Marooned in Women's Studies

Adler, Eric

The women's quarterly (Arlington, Va.), 2001-03 (27), p.7

Arlington: Independent Women's Forum

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  • Título:
    What Fresh Hell Is This? A Guy Marooned in Women's Studies
  • Autor: Adler, Eric
  • Assuntos: Civil rights ; Criticism and interpretation ; Curricula ; Curriculum evaluation ; Education ; Feminism ; Feminism and literature ; Feminist literature ; Social aspects ; Social conditions & trends ; Society ; Study and teaching ; Women ; Women's studies ; Womens rights movements
  • É parte de: The women's quarterly (Arlington, Va.), 2001-03 (27), p.7
  • Notas: content type line 24
    ObjectType-Feature-1
    SourceType-Magazines-1
  • Descrição: The intent of the course was to examine the nature of" second-wave" feminism through the lens of race. The syllabus divided the semester into three units: Chicana feminism, black feminism, and white feminism. This all struck me as fairly harmless. But matters turned sour -- and quickly. Our readings proved to be chock-a-block with militant palaver and rebarbative nonsense. Chicana lesbian feminist Gloria Anzaldua, for instance, opined that "[Catholicism] and other institutionalized religions impoverish all life, beauty, pleasure." Her colleague Cherríe Moraga, in one of her more subtle poetic efforts, noted: "I hate white people"; elsewhere in her oeuvre she hoped for the dissolution of the United States, castigated "Anglo misogynist culture" for its "rape" of minorities, denounced the "`advances' of Western `civilization,'" and related her dreams of killing white men. Kathleen Cleaver -- former wife of the late Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver -- offered a disquisition on the history of civilization, in which she charged Europe with culpability for all the world's problems. "Masculine intellectual systems are inadequate because they lack the wholeness that female consciousness, excluded from contributing to them, could provide," we learned from cultural feminist and award-winning poet Adrienne Rich. In short, we were treated to a treasure trove o f cant. Luckily for her, she had another plan of attack -- a Plan B. The week after a particularly animated debate on Chicana feminism, she stepped out of the role of mere conversation "facilitator" and, almost halfway through the semester, got down to brass tacks, revealing the raison d'être of the course. After Stating that America was a country awash in "aversive racism," she informed us that the goal of the course had nothing to do with critical engagement of the texts. Rather, we were to abandon what we "know about the world," "let go of defensive criticism," and stand in the shoes of the feminists we were reading, full of sympathy for their project. She bolstered this with a misinterpretation of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgement. If this "Kantian visiting" is done correctly, she told us, "part of what you think will have to change." The crucial task assigned to us was "to empathize" with the writers, and not to be so darned rational, critical, or -- dare I say it! -- objective. As Tom Wolfe wrote in his essay "In the Land of the Rococo Marxists," students have learned to abide by the diktats of political correctness "because they know that to oppose it out loud is in poor taste." Consequently, I was deserted, as my fellow students adopted a policy of empathy. I was called in for a private meeting, in which the professor went on at length and with some energy about my inability to "empathize." I was a defeated man: We turned to the work of Audre Lorde, which characterized America as a "racist sexist cauldron," and there was nary a peep of dissension. If anyone had the slightest concern about Lorde's message, it was tactfully couched: "I completely agree with Audre Lorde, but..."or "I am utterly sympathetic to Lorde's description of patriarchy and racism, but... "The class dynamic had changed dramatically, and our professor was certainly gratified with the nods that indicated a touching ability to empathize.
  • Editor: Arlington: Independent Women's Forum
  • Idioma: Inglês
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