Overall I really liked McIntosh's essay. I think she had some really good points about the pyramid and she pointed out some things that I never really thought of. For example, in Phase 2 "it conveys to the student the impression that women don't really exist unless they are exceptional by men's standards." When I think of all the important women, they all do fit that notion she claims. For example, the new president of Harvard University, she was seen as a woman who broke the glass ceiling in education. She's on the same level with men. There aren't really any women who excel by women's standards, but then again I feel like women have always been competing with men and proving they are equal, so i guess there wouldnt really be a woman's standards. Also in phase 2, she mentions that only the very important women who have excelled/ are at the top of the pyramid are mentioned and not women who have done great things but in a more ordinary lifestyle. It's true, in history one only gets the recap of the best but then again aren't people only really interested in the best? People look up to others who are on the top and sometimes think of them as role models/mentors. 

 and i got Gloria Steinem 

I feel confused as to what to do. In reading this week's set of readings I understand that there is a problem in current social structures or current value structures, but do not see a way to change this. How does one change a value system? I think it was interesting when McIntosh sums up the women's experiences, she describes the education *being done to* the women.

Perhaps I do not understand the problem (problems?) clearly enough to see a way around them. 

I think my education has mostly been phase 1, occasionally phase 2 in terms of women.  I disagree with skumar (Sonal?) that a math class cannot be in phase 5. If there is no way to include women or people of color in math then there must be no way to include any people at all in math, but some groups of people do feel included in math. At times I have felt included and at others excluded by math classes. 

How does one apply this theory? Is there a way to value diversity? If we say our main goal is to value diversity haven't we failed already?

http://www.gotoquiz.com/are_you_a_feminist

Thinking now about our discussion about the word "feminism" and "essence" of feminism and coming up against being categorized as a "man-hater," I can't help but think, "So what?"

Someone might think that I'm a "man-hater," but so what? That won't keep me from living my life as a feminist, and "valuing the devalued" as a professor of mine said so eloquently last night at a Women in Action meeting at Haverford.  If someone says that to me, and doesn't respect me enough to listen to my personal definition and listen to the fact that there are so many different levels to "feminisms," then I don't need to be spending my time with them anymore.

Why should feminists try to change the word "feminism", why alter it, for those who don't identify as feminists, and that probably never will identify as feminists? Why try to create an "essence" so that we can be easily identifiable?

Shouldn't a "goal" for feminism be to remain ambiguous, to be flexible, or as the Quakers say, be subject to "continuing revelation?" Feminism is something different for everyone, and even individual definitions will change over time. Why try to narrow it down? Isn't the beauty of feminism that it subverts the idea of a rigidly (traditionally male) academic definition process?

Thoughts?

And what do we really think about the gen & sex  program in the bi-co? Are we creating just another cell? I'm curious to hear what other people think; I personally don't think we are. I like that fact that the two classes I'm taking this semester for the gen&sex concentration (Quaker Social Witness @ HC, and Critical Feminist Studies @ BMC) have both been almost seeping into one another.  I feel like they have been feeding into each other all semester for me, and it's really freakin' cool!

QSW is about social justice: creating a definition, discerning our own definition, identifying our own issues of concern, learning about Quakerism's historic and contemporary issues of social concern, etc. 

I feel like our class has a similar theme. We are trying to "discern" our own definition of feminism (if one is a feminist... or not?), identifying our own areas of concern within feminism (our papers were about all kinds of neat-o things), and learning about feminism's attention to specific issues historically (1st, 2nd wave) and contemporarily ("3rd wave").

The gen&sex program is superbly interdisciplinary. There are classes from nearly every department that will fit into the requirements, and the requirements themselves are relatively flexible. That feels really progressive to me; it feels like  it isn't limited to a really specific curriculum or subject matter, so I don't think that it's re-creating "the law" -- in the same channels of the traditional patriarchal structure for academia.

Are there other gen&sex people in the class or people that know about it/have an opinion about it? I'm really just curious to see what other people think.

Hi skumar, 

I know we've talked about this before, but I wanted to respond to this post because this is something I feel strongly about.  

I think I might attempt to tackle Anne to the ground if she started to "explain what it is to be a feminist". The whole process you've been going through this semester, between thinking you have a definition, then totally contradicting that definition, then finding new ones and questioning definitions themselves... is totally awesome, and I would hate to see that ruined or invalidated by someone "EXPLAINING" to you what feminism is.

I don't think Anne can, or should, explain to us what feminism is. And I think looking at the way that Mcintosh approaches Phase 5 curriculums, she would agree. It's not a topdown, authority from the professor, kind of situation.

I do agree that we should not assume that everyone is a feminist, and should wait to hear how they describe themselves. And part of being able to describe yourself, in a meaningful way, is arriving at that understanding through your own reflection, not because someone gave you the answers. 

Would you let Anne "explain" to you what it meant to be a woman? or patriotic? or liberal? These things all used to seem easily defined to me too, but I think part of education is coming to question those very foundational aspects of our lives - of examining our previously unexamined assumptions.

Dearest Anne (or those who wish to defend Anne on this one...),

We seem to be talking quite a bit about cirriculum revision and about education as a means of empowerment. So, I thought it be productive if I post my thoughts on one of the few ways I feel disempowered in this class in particular. It is, in fact, what we will be discussing in class today: about selecting future texts.

In class Tuesday and in your class notes for today you ask "How do feminists make decisions?" While I respect the fact that you as well as numerous others in the class identify as feminists, I am not entirely sure this was the best way to ask "How will we all--as a group of undecided and declared feminists-- decide on texts to read?" I distinctly remember you saying, Anne, that your goal in this course is not to "...make [us] all feminists." Why, then, did you/ do you continue to make the generalization that we are all feminists? This disempowers me especially because I am an undecided feminist...so, that makes me question my authority. I wonder: Is my way of voting, of deciding not the right way? It makes me feel like my voice doesn't matter...although my post (my "e-voice") is put up on today's class notes... I am not quite sure you are "empowering [me]," as you said you seek to do.

And another thing, the question "How do feminists vote" is a puzzling one...especially since we have not discussed what feminism is. I agree with Allie in that I find the class puzzling because we have seen several lens to feminism, several subsections of feminism....so is that feminism? Is feminism all-encompassing? I am unsure of how to answer the question that you propose. Please do enlighten me (us?), and explain to me what it is to be a feminist.

Sincerely,

A Feminist..?

When Derrida says:

We have to negotiate. To maintain, for instance, Women's Studies as a classical program, a now classical program, and at the same time to ask radical questions which may endanger the program itself. (202). 

I think of Judith Butler, and how she says: 

"Within feminist debate, an increasing problem has been to reconcile the apparent need to formulate a politics which assumes the category of "women" with the demand, often politically articulated, to problematize the category, interrogate its incoherence, its internal dissonance, its constitutive exclusions." 

The selection from Derrida reminded me of my first introduction to Three Guineas.  It was in Methods, and though we didn't read it formally, the professor encouraged us to read it on our own because it is, in his opinion, both birlliant and devastating.  He summed up Woolf's argument as saying that disempowered, marginalized women absolutely need to gain power and recognition in the dominant power systems of their society; but—and this is the devastating part—in order to not become patriarchal oppressors themselves, they must maintain their outsider status.  This argument is especially apparent when Derrida says things like "if the success of women's studies would be to constitute men as an object of study, and women as mastering subjects, nothing will have happened.  It is necessary not to reproduce the same structure" and asks, "What are the risks and stakes of the institution of women's studies?  Do the women who manage these programs, do they not become, in turn, the guardians of the Law...?" (203, 190). 

Why I've been having so much trouble this semester—or, at least, in the first third of this semester—defining this course as feminist seems precisely to go along with Derrida's insistence that women's studies not become an oppositely-sided but identitcal version of the current system of academia.  That is, this course has not perpetuated the objectification or subjectification of women only; instead, it has pushed at the bounds of sex, gender, and identity in a way that makes it about far more than "women's studies."  

In our class, we've talked about gender, sex, and sexual preference; we've read texts about and/or met people who are classified or classify themselves in different categories of these identity-determiners.  Despite efforts to be multicultural and to pull groups from the margins, much has been excluded; this is inevitable, given time constraints.  On Tuesday, I voted for Becky's poem idea, and I maintain that vote.  It allows the greatest number of voices to enter the classroom without assigning special importance to one over another, and it further means that each of us contributes to constructing the curriculum.  Unless everyone absolutely agrees, a democractic vote still means that some people lose while others win, that some have to settle.  I believe it was Kendolyn who expressed concern about silencing the minority groups; selecting one majority-determined text does not seem a particularly empowering end to our class.

As I'm writing about exclusion, I'm thinking more about how Bryn Mawr is such an interesting location from which to consider women's studies.  I was worried when I applied, but I really like that Bryn Mawr is a women's college.  I like the environment that it fosters and the sense of community that I didn't feel when I was a freshman at NYU.  You could argue that it's a matter of size difference, but I inherently know that it's not entirely.  But in our post-modern world, how can Bryn Mawr justify discriminating on the basis of sex/gender?  How can we, in a (western) feminist studies class, work at breaking down the barriers between identities while our mother institution rigidly upholds them?  Is our class pioneering the future of Bryn Mawr?  And how will I feel if, fifty years from now, there are no more women's colleges, no where for women to go to find the environment and experiences I have right now?

As a means to take initiatative and to re-empower ourselves, I would like to post here what Janet and I had originally planned to do in class on Tuesday. Our first activity, as you all experienced, was a way to get the discussion rolling. We thought McIntosh's argument was personable because it would be quite the challenge to divorce our own educational experiences from the abstractations of the cirriculum phases and cirriculum revisions that are of the essence to McIntosh's claim. Therefore, we asked the class to write up on the board an educational experience that was either empowering or disempowering. The results, as we discussed, were fascinating. Some felt empowerment in particular classes, some felt empowerment in particular assignments; there really was no way we could effectively synthesize or generalize the experiences within the class population,a  small data set.

As a way to continue the discussion, we planned to get everyone talking! We made an envelope with slips of papers with quotes, questions, or food for thought. These were drawn from the reading and the posts about McIntosh. Below you will find a few (I threw out, by accident) of what was written on those pieces of paper:

Blank: Talk about whatever you want in relation to your education, but be sure to relate it to our reading of McIntosh.

Blank: Talk about how your educational experience at Bryn Mawr/haverford/Swarthmore...and beyond? What did you think were McIntosh's claims for college education? How does your experience differ or not differ from McIntosh's experience as a college student?

"In McIntosh's discussion of the phases of education, it struck me just how stuck in Phase 2 I was in all throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school, and just how stuck in Phase 3 and most of my courses at Bryn Maw have been."(post by Sarah K) Please talk about your reaction to this post and/or discuss the phases you have been.  What is your ideal phase to be in? The most empowering phrase? the most disempowering phase?

"When a professor relies on her students to learn something new, my first tendency is to think that the class is less formal or that the professor in reality is never learning something new." (post by Sarah K) How do you feel that relates to this class, Critical Feminist Studies?  Talk about your experience when in a class where a professor actually learning something/said they were learning but never did. How does empower/disempower you as a student when a Professor is "learning" too?

"It seems to me that most women in the world today, at least women over 40, are megs. And most women's hopes and dreams are not shattered when they divorce from their husbands. Is McIntosh belittling the efforts of Phase 1 education and assuming negative outcomes that are not always true?" (post by Sarah K) Answer the question that Sarah has rasied in her post. Or raise a new question.

Blank: Talk about in what context you disagree with McIntosh.

Blank: Talk about in what context you agree with McIntosh.

"The result of phases of education...even though it seems [to be studying oppresion] and learning from power structures, it is actually just perpetuating thsoe structures and reinforcing the "win or lose" and "making it syndrome." (post by Sarah K) Do you agree? disagree? Why or why not?

"Years later, I began to realize that all teachers are trained to isolate bits of knowledge and that this very training keeps their students in turn oblivious of the larger systems which hold pyramids of power in place." (McIntosh 13) What is McIntosh saying here? What is your reaction to this quote?

"And that has meant that we have developed skills in keeping the human race alive which are the basic indispensable skills in an age of nuclear weapons (McIntosh 17)."  Decode McIntosh's statement and extrapolate something from this to bring to the larger group discussion.

"It is traumatically shocking to white women teachers in particular to realize that we were not only trained but were as teachers unwittingly training other to overlook, reject, exploit, disregard, or be at war with most people in the world (McIntosh 9)." Hmm.. Race in education! Share an experience where race has affected yours or someone else's educational experience...either positive or negative.

Blank: Talk about what interested you about the McIntosh reading.

"McIntosh also writes that the language used by college admissions "masks...the actual liberal arts function, which is, at present to train a few students to climb up to pinnacles and to seize them so as to have a position from which power can be felt, enjoyed, exericised, and imposed on others. "(Melissa Pottah post). *For this question, we had a photocopies of select section of admissions manuals from 5 renowned women's colleges: Barnard, bryn mawr, wellesley, smith, mt. holyoke.

Blank: Talk about what bothered you in the reading.

"The liberal arts cirriculum has been particularly concerned with passing on to students the image of what the 'top' has been." (McIntosh 5). As students of a liberal arts college who experience the sort of l.a. cirriculum McIntosh refers to here, tell us when the cirriculum has NOT showed you 'what the top is like'. 

"While the actual structures may be social constructed, the need for such hierarchies may be innate. Thus, the more challenging issue is how to address this need without empowering some groups and dienfranching others." (Julia Lustick post) Do you even think this is a challenge? Why/Why Not? Either way, do you have any suggestions on how to address this "need" Julia refers to?

"That's the truoble with Phase 2 History. It conveys to the student the impression that women don't really exist unless they are exceptional by men's standards." (McIntosh 8) Reactions?

"It seems like [bryn mawr] is constantly moving between phases 3,4,5." (Julia Lustick post). Do you agree with Julia? What is the ideal phase for BMC? Would this be a univeral ideal...for all colleges not just woman's colleges? In answering this question, reflect on Alex Tisman's "ideal admissions policy." How would this change in admission (change in college community) influence the phase we want to/should be in?

"McIntosh's discussion of Phase 2 cirriculum development was very intriguing tome. It all made sense as I read it, and itshould have occured to me before, but somehow it failed to. [This] reminds me of my AP US history class in high school...majority of the class was focused on people with the best access to political power: men." (Dawn's post) Where your experiences similar or different to Dawn's in high school? What would McIntosh say about the phases your high school was in?

_end questions_

Lastly, we wanted to know if anyone went to the McIntosh lecture. Was it interesting? After her talk, did her argument seem more convincing? less convincing? We would be interested to know what you thought, so please post your comments/thoughts/reactions to either our "kick off" or McIntosh's talk on Tuesday night.

McIntosh's essay shed so much light on the different types of education I have been receiving even in my different courses at Bryn Mawr and throughout my entire educational career. In APUS History, I wrote many essays I will never forget, but in the end they were really about key terms that treat the other as just that: an other. I wrote about the co-optation of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, which is pertinent, but only so pertinent UNTIL we move beyond Phase 2 Education and stop considering the history of African Americans as the history of an oppressed other - without the other, the term co-optation would be irrelevant. 

In McIntosh's discussion of the phases of education, it struck me just how stuck in Phase 2 I was all throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school, and just how stuck in Phase 3 most of my courses at Bryn Mawr have been. There is a tendency, because of the traditional pyramid structures of "winning" and "losing," as McIntosh would say, to consider discussions in class that are based on non-traditional texts, or texts that students know just as much or even more about than Professors, as unimportant discussions or unofficial discussions. I still think to myself that when I am discussing in class a work by a famous classic author, such as those books Meg read in her college career, that discussion is for some reason more important than a discussion in which immigrants share their personal literature about their histories (Phase 5). When a Professor relies on her students to learn something new, my first tendency is to think that the class is less formal or that the Professor in reality is never learning something new. I am afraid this says I am still stuck in Phase 3.

The only qualm I had with McIntosh's essay is, in the end she describes the outcome of the different women's lives, and Meg is absolutely miserable. Are the Megs of the world miserable? It seems to me that most women in the world today, at least women over 40, are Megs. And most women's hopes and dreams are not shattered when they divorce from their husbands. Is McIntosh belittling the efforts of Phase 1 education and assuming negative outcomes that are not always true?

The type of education that most spoke to me was the one that Amy received. Amy tries to "make it" as an artist, because she believes firmly in the pyramid structures of power. She thinks life is about winning. "She thinks if you're good enough you'll get recognized and that if women would only pull 'their' act together and stop bitching, her chances for recognition would improve." The result of this phase of education, even though it seems to be based on studying oppression and LEARNING from power structures, it is actually just perpetuating those structures and reenforcing the "win or lose" and "making it" syndrome. Most importantly, it causes Amy to lose faith in even her own group of "others," - women.  

McIntosh's essay led me to reflect on my Bryn Mawr education, and the kind of ideas that Bryn Mawr does and does not enforce or try to teach its students.  McIntosh writes that "the liberal arts curriculum has ben particularly concerned with passing on to students the image of what the 'top' has been" (5).  Is this the case for Bryn Mawr, or to Bryn Mawr classes try to encourage us not only to look at the construction of the 'top', but also at the what forms the 'bottom'?  I feel that many of my Bryn Mawr classes ( this class included) have encouraged me to look at society, and that way in which it is built, in new ways, often paying close attention to those that are left out of the dominant narratives or hegemonic structures.  The fact that I have been taught that these structures and cultural norms are socially constructed speaks to the degree to which the Bryn Mawr curriculum has attempted to dissemble this pyramid.

McIntosh also write that the language used by college admissions "masks...the actual liberal arts function, which is, at present, to train a few students to climb up to pinacles and to seize them so as to have a position from which power can be felt, enjoyed, exercised, and imposed on others" (6).  This statement, I think, is partially true of Bryn Mawr, and so many other colleges.  What stuck out to me when reading this was the focus that so many schools have, Bryn Mawr included, on famous alums (think of how visible Katherine Hepburn is in BMC's culture).  I think that this emphasis on success is due in part to the fact that whether or not we are taught to dissemble the pyramid, and the extent to which we learn about those on the bottom, we are still forced to live in a society that accepts this hierarchical structure.

As a history major, I was also interested in McIntosh's discussion of the ways in which history is taught.  She writes that "history is usually constructed...to exclude those who didn't possess a good deal of public power." (7).  This is true in some history classes.  Often, history focuses on the "great man theory, the idea that a select few, the powerful men in society, have shaped history.  However, many history classes take a bottom-up approach, looking at the ways in which the people, those on the ground, have shaped history.  This is often the case in cultural history.   

In terms of another suggestion for a text to read: I was recently at a used bookstore and bought a book called Woman's World, by Graham Rawle.  The author has written the book entirely out of cut-out words from British women's magazines.