It’s an unusually busy Friday, and I have little time to blog. I came to campus for still another meeting on the consensual relationships policy I am helping to draft. Little progress was made.
I’ve got 13 journals from my women’s studies class to grade. I ask my students each semester, at the beginning of the course, if they consider themselves to be feminists. 2/3rds usually say “no”, they aren’t. Of course, we don’t define “feminist” until much later in the course! But something seems to be turning. This year, over half of my students said “yes”, they were — the first time in the nine years I’ve taught the course that I’ve gotten that high a number of positive responses. I’ll be interested to see how this semester plays out. Here’s one response I really liked, and which seems to sum up the theme of this year’s class:
…am I a feminist? To put it simply, yes I am. I am a strong believer in sisterhood. I want to be seen and not just looked at. I want people in general and men in particular to start looking past women’s exteriors and just glimpse for once what’s inside…
I always make that looked at/being seen distinction on the first day of class. I’m glad it seems to be resonating this semester more than usual.
Back to work.
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