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    I am thankful, Mary Clurman, for what you shared this week in your above post.  The experience you describe of leaving Bryn Mawr because of a resistance to that which is "too intelectual, too abstract, too self-consciously rigorous...Unreal" reminds me of some of my own struggles when I first came to this college.  I think many must share your experience, if not completely, at least in part.  I guess your words inspired me to forgo an attempt at "appropriate" academic analysis of this weeks readings and just talk about what turned me on.

  I might as well come out and confess:  I'm a sucker for a good sex metaphor.  Cisoux's comparison of the woman ashamed of her private erotic pleasure and the woman ashamed of her writing drew me in from the start.  Perhaps it's because I study literature that I find the connection between words and erotics so appleaing; because I've spent the past three years flirting with authors instead of athletes, staying up all night with books instead of boyfriends.  Who knows?  All I do know is that orgasms are powerful, and so are words.

  I think that's at the heart of Cisoux's piece. She's encouraging us to let it out: to write, speak, scream, EXPRESS.  Our drives and desires have huge implications: they can create!  People, perhaps especially women, are creative creatures.  We make ideas, books, poems, songs, paintings, orgasms, babies, families, you name it!  Put aside all the jargon and politics and what it comes down to is this: we've got a lot to give.  That's not to say that every woman should feel as though she must give, must express or must make her expression public; certainly not.  I think the point is this: don't be ashamed of the sounds you make.  Our voices are valuable; just as valuable as our wombs.  There's no need to be silent, if you don't want to be.  That which we give birth to is a contribution to the continuous project of world-making, whether it be children, theories, art, protests or some crazy mix of all those things.  We have the potential to envision new worlds.  We might as well take a shot at actually building them. 

"And I sing sometimes like my life is at stake

 because you're only as loud as the noises you make."

                                   - Ani  DiFranco

(Sorry, had to quote the woman at least partially responsible for my foray into the feminist world)