Rhapsodica's blog

Who Are We? And Why Do We Care?

Sandra Cisneros seems to have a way of creeping up on me… of finding me over and over again. Her short stories popped up when I attended Bryn Mawr’s Writing for College program, and when I tutored students in English over the summer. The week before we looked at selections from A House on Mango Street in this class, I went to my education field placement and observed a seventh grade class who was reading the same book. She always finds her way into my life, and she always inspires me to keep writing when she does. For years, I have struggled to find my voice both as a writer, and as a woman in today’s society. I admire Cisneros because she writes about what she knows – her family, living in poverty, being a woman

Obviously, this draft isn’t quite six pages long, as it should have been by this point. This is because I had originally started with a completely different topic, but eventually realized it was not what I wanted to do (for a number of reasons, it was just not the right time or place for me to explore the questions I was posing for myself in the way I was hoping to do so). I’m certainly going to read more and expand on the ideas I’m talking about here, so this draft is really more of a second proposal than a draft… but well, this is what I have at the moment, and I figure I should at least post that much...

When we read Helene Cixous’ Laugh of the Medusa, I felt more inspired than I had in a very long time. Since then, I have been trying to figure out exactly what about her writing speaks to me so deeply. In a sense, I can see why I so strongly identify with the things she says; yet, at the same time, the more I manage to unravel, the more complex it all seems.

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you to Gail for sharing your sculptures with us -- they're wonderful! I think it's interesting to see a visual representation of how ideas can change and grow over the course of just a month. I'm really glad you took the risk of showing us. :)

    When I first walked into this class, I felt intimidated by the fact that I knew so little about feminism. As I listened to the intelligent, composed women around me analyze and challenge the ideas of writers such as Schweickart and Sosnoski, I felt terribly out of place. I even considered dropping the class, simply because I felt afraid to speak up, concerned that my thoughts were too immature, too incomplete, or simply not important enough to interject into the fast-paced conversation. However, being in this course over the past month has proven to be an amazing experience, one worth every bit of frustration I initially felt. Sitting down to write this paper, I find it hard to put my