Leah MacLaren wrote a piece last week encouraging undergraduates to steer clear of gender studies, and to stick to the classics. Her argument (I think) is that, in the end, women’s studies (or the new studies of masculinity) are facile, while classical literature and philosophy, which just happens to be mainly by men, contains real revelations about humanity that these theories can’t even come close to elucidating.
Now, I’ll agree with Leah that Shakespeare knew a thing or two about human nature and that we don’t necessarily do students of literature any favours by inserting random female writer here just to make sure we have a woman’s voice in our Elizabethan literature class, if the woman in question couldn’t really write (I once took a class entitled literature and social change, which ended up being exclusively on suffragist literature …. while it would have made a fascinating unit in a larger class, there really weren’t enough suffragists who could write well to, in my opinion, warrant an entire class to their work – I had been hoping for Voltaire, Swift, Martin Luther King Junior’s speech, and maybe some Bob Dylan.)
Gender, whether you believe it’s biologically determined or socially constructed, effectively divides the world’s population into two halves (yes, I know that I am ignoring middle-sex, transgender, gender-queer …. but that’s outside of the scope of what I’m trying to say, so work with me …) and which half you fit into has such a profound effect of your life, no matter what culture you live in, that I can’t agree with Leah that the study of gender is facile. Maybe some of the theories that emerged in the early days of the second wave of feminism are, but all the more reason for a continued academic dialogue on the topic, an antithesis to these early theses from which new understandings of how the gender assigned to us affects the choices we have and, ultimately, the quality of the lives we live.
Monday, September 20, 2010
liberal guilt
It’s always strange to return to the blog after a bit of a hiatus – I feel like my first post back has to be somehow momentous, but I don’t always have momentous thoughts …. so it can delay the post even further. This is not a momentous post, but I’m getting back on the horse.
One of the many things I’ve been doing while not blogging for the past few months is organizing the One World Film Festival . This means I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries about people from all over the world. For a fundraiser for the festival last week, we showed Remnants of a War, a movie about de-miners who are working to clear up cluster bombs in South Lebanon. Most of these people are locals who go every day out into the fields and orchards of their homeland to find and remove bombs. I’ve also been watching films about Afghani-Canadians who broadcast a radio station to Kandahar from Ontario and American honey farmers who are trying to deal with colony collapse syndrome (among others).
And seriously, the world is so much bigger than my little corner of Ottawa, and there are so many problems that are so much bigger than whether I have a functional iPod for when I work out or time to wax my legs. And I know that, by watching the films and reading the books, I am aware these problems exist, and I can put faces to them, and that’s something. But even though I watch the films and read the books, I still put the vast majority of my energy into things that, in the end, will really only serve to make my life more pleasant. But how do I get beyond that, and how do I get beyond knowing what’s going out there, but actually doing something about it, rather than just wallowing in liberal guilt?
One of the many things I’ve been doing while not blogging for the past few months is organizing the One World Film Festival . This means I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries about people from all over the world. For a fundraiser for the festival last week, we showed Remnants of a War, a movie about de-miners who are working to clear up cluster bombs in South Lebanon. Most of these people are locals who go every day out into the fields and orchards of their homeland to find and remove bombs. I’ve also been watching films about Afghani-Canadians who broadcast a radio station to Kandahar from Ontario and American honey farmers who are trying to deal with colony collapse syndrome (among others).
And seriously, the world is so much bigger than my little corner of Ottawa, and there are so many problems that are so much bigger than whether I have a functional iPod for when I work out or time to wax my legs. And I know that, by watching the films and reading the books, I am aware these problems exist, and I can put faces to them, and that’s something. But even though I watch the films and read the books, I still put the vast majority of my energy into things that, in the end, will really only serve to make my life more pleasant. But how do I get beyond that, and how do I get beyond knowing what’s going out there, but actually doing something about it, rather than just wallowing in liberal guilt?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
histories and apologies
In the news this week, the PM of the United Kingdom has given an unqualified apology for Bloody Sunday. I’ve also been reading about apologies for civilian massacres in Guatemala during the civil war. Both stories talk about how much it meant for the survivors to have the government stand up and say that what happened was wrong, and that the victims were innocent.
These stories caught my attention because we were talking about apologies for past wrongs at our Jean Vanier talk the other day. Jean Vanier spoke in his lecture about forgiveness: he said that to forgive a group, you had to start with an individual, so that you had a real human to deal with, instead of just considering the whole group as a faceless mass. As an illustration, Vanier talked about a young black woman who had hated all whites for all the oppression they had caused, and continue to cause, until she made a white friend in high school and realized that that individual, at least, was a person just like her.
And, while I hesitate to weigh in at all, from my position of privilege, I couldn’t help but wonder – while there are many things that we privileged whites have to own up to and apologize for here and now, is it fair, or productive, to hold me responsible for the abuses of generations past? Is there a statute of limitations on apologies, or is it better late than never, even if 200 years have passed? Our histories are important, especially in a multi-cultural experiment like Canada, and I don’t doubt that we have to name our mistakes, and accept them as part of our communal story, but how do we strike the balance so that we can do that, without forever looking back?
These stories caught my attention because we were talking about apologies for past wrongs at our Jean Vanier talk the other day. Jean Vanier spoke in his lecture about forgiveness: he said that to forgive a group, you had to start with an individual, so that you had a real human to deal with, instead of just considering the whole group as a faceless mass. As an illustration, Vanier talked about a young black woman who had hated all whites for all the oppression they had caused, and continue to cause, until she made a white friend in high school and realized that that individual, at least, was a person just like her.
And, while I hesitate to weigh in at all, from my position of privilege, I couldn’t help but wonder – while there are many things that we privileged whites have to own up to and apologize for here and now, is it fair, or productive, to hold me responsible for the abuses of generations past? Is there a statute of limitations on apologies, or is it better late than never, even if 200 years have passed? Our histories are important, especially in a multi-cultural experiment like Canada, and I don’t doubt that we have to name our mistakes, and accept them as part of our communal story, but how do we strike the balance so that we can do that, without forever looking back?
where we live and how we live
I haven’t been writing much over the past few months. So, what have I been doing? Well, among other things, buying a house and going to Spain ….
PJ and I got talking at Easter about the fact that it might be time to move. We like our condo, but we’d like a bit more space, and a yard so we can have a garden. So, the search began, and we finally found the perfect place – it’s a middle of 3 row-houses in Chinatown with a little space out back to do some planting and put up a clothesline, a 3rd bedroom, so we can separate our office/sewing room from the guest room, and a basement for storage.
The whole process was, of course, fraught with anxiety. Should we be buying a bigger place? Paying more? Giving up location for yard? Giving up yard for location? The bank would have given us a lot more money if we’d wanted it, and the house inspector definitely found a few flaws in the 100-year-old property that we’ve chosen. So, even though we’re excited, there’s been an undercurrent of questioning whether we made the right decision.
But then, we spent a week in Spain. The trip was a total reality check re. the North American expectations around housing. In Spanish cities, most people, whether they own or rent, live in apartments. And in a city like Barcelona, which has been inhabited since the Roman empire, 100-year-old properties are just like new! Seeing how the Spanish live has reinforced the reasons that we chose our new place, shared drainage aside: we’re going to be able to store some things, but we’ll have to continue to be smart about what we accumulate; we’re going to be right downtown in a mixed neighbourhood close to work and friends; and we’re going to be able to entertain people, without being lost in our rooms when it’s just the two of us at home.
PJ and I got talking at Easter about the fact that it might be time to move. We like our condo, but we’d like a bit more space, and a yard so we can have a garden. So, the search began, and we finally found the perfect place – it’s a middle of 3 row-houses in Chinatown with a little space out back to do some planting and put up a clothesline, a 3rd bedroom, so we can separate our office/sewing room from the guest room, and a basement for storage.
The whole process was, of course, fraught with anxiety. Should we be buying a bigger place? Paying more? Giving up location for yard? Giving up yard for location? The bank would have given us a lot more money if we’d wanted it, and the house inspector definitely found a few flaws in the 100-year-old property that we’ve chosen. So, even though we’re excited, there’s been an undercurrent of questioning whether we made the right decision.
But then, we spent a week in Spain. The trip was a total reality check re. the North American expectations around housing. In Spanish cities, most people, whether they own or rent, live in apartments. And in a city like Barcelona, which has been inhabited since the Roman empire, 100-year-old properties are just like new! Seeing how the Spanish live has reinforced the reasons that we chose our new place, shared drainage aside: we’re going to be able to store some things, but we’ll have to continue to be smart about what we accumulate; we’re going to be right downtown in a mixed neighbourhood close to work and friends; and we’re going to be able to entertain people, without being lost in our rooms when it’s just the two of us at home.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Becoming Human
For the last 2 Mondays, I've met with a few friends to listen to audio recordings of Jean Vanier's 1998 Massey Lecture "On Becoming Human" . The thesis (from what I've heard so far, we're not done the series yet ...) is that we all need to be in deep community to really experience life the way it's meant to be. That we need to be loved for our individuality. At Ecclesiax, we've always talked about community - about how the idea of the church is to be really, caringly, involved in each others' lives. But I don't think we've ever really done it. And I don't know if we can - can you actually bring together a random assortment of people and really create a family? Most communities, as Vanier says, are based on commonalities or, more specifically, on common strengths. This is equally true of churches - but then how do you create a church that is actually inclusive of, and encourages, difference, when it's the common ties that bind? And it doesn't have to be church - whatever groups you are in, how do you make them a "community"? To be honest, there's people that I don't want to be in community with, people whose company I don't enjoy. It's easy to say that I should still be nice to them and treat them with dignity and respect, but Vanier's call is to enter into relationship with them. Blech. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if anyone can. I feel like I'm I long way from becoming human.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Helping those who help themselves
Last week, I attended a workshop on security sector reform (known as SSR in the biz – and I am talking about working with developing countries to reform their police and justice systems, etc, rather than financial markets ….). Of course, one of the big issues in undertaking this kind of exercise is local engagement – we shouldn’t just be importing “our” system into someone else’s context, so the idea is that the locals should be the ones driving the process. This seems like a no-brainer in a supposedly post-colonial world, and echoes some of what I have recently read about the need to integrate traditional justice in Afghanistan.
But, it gets tricky in practice. First of all – which locals are we engaging? The government and the people could have very different interests. In a simulation that we did as part of the workshop, the representative for civil society was pushing for transitional justice, while everyone in the government, who would be implicated by any kind of truth-telling process, were resisting. Or, there may be a rural/ urban split in which a few elites want one thing, and everyone else wants something else. Traditional justice, while widely-used, could be based on a gender or class hierarchy that doesn’t respect human rights. Can we, as a country that supports universal equality, help to develop a system somewhere else that undermines it?
Next, as well as our responsibility to support local direction, we also have a responsibility to spend our money well. In the simulation, the Minister of Justice for the host country was pushing for assistance to build more courthouses. I am not convinced that, as a starting point, that is the best way to improve access to justice. But I was supposed to be supporting local ownership. It was hard not to feel like an imperial baddie when I was saying that perhaps our resources would go farther doing something less focused on physical plant, and more on human capacity.
We didn’t come out of the workshop with answers to any of these questions, but we at least came out being aware that they have to be asked. Development is hard, and there is never going to be a one-size fits all solution. We need to be smart about what kind of help we offer (I recently heard about an initiative to send wheelchairs to Afghanistan – very thoughtful, but not particularly practical in a country with a serious shortage of pavement ….), but we can’t give up either.
But, it gets tricky in practice. First of all – which locals are we engaging? The government and the people could have very different interests. In a simulation that we did as part of the workshop, the representative for civil society was pushing for transitional justice, while everyone in the government, who would be implicated by any kind of truth-telling process, were resisting. Or, there may be a rural/ urban split in which a few elites want one thing, and everyone else wants something else. Traditional justice, while widely-used, could be based on a gender or class hierarchy that doesn’t respect human rights. Can we, as a country that supports universal equality, help to develop a system somewhere else that undermines it?
Next, as well as our responsibility to support local direction, we also have a responsibility to spend our money well. In the simulation, the Minister of Justice for the host country was pushing for assistance to build more courthouses. I am not convinced that, as a starting point, that is the best way to improve access to justice. But I was supposed to be supporting local ownership. It was hard not to feel like an imperial baddie when I was saying that perhaps our resources would go farther doing something less focused on physical plant, and more on human capacity.
We didn’t come out of the workshop with answers to any of these questions, but we at least came out being aware that they have to be asked. Development is hard, and there is never going to be a one-size fits all solution. We need to be smart about what kind of help we offer (I recently heard about an initiative to send wheelchairs to Afghanistan – very thoughtful, but not particularly practical in a country with a serious shortage of pavement ….), but we can’t give up either.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Biographia
My parents’ copy of Sisters in the Wilderness (the biography of early Canadian authors Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill) has been on my bookshelf for around 7 years now. It made it onto the back layer of the top shelf at some point, so it didn’t exactly leap out when I’d go looking for something to read, until a recent re-org brought all my unread books to one place, at eye-level. And, to be honest, I was expecting it to be a bit dull – something that I kind of felt like I should read as a good female Canadian English major, but not something that I was really going to be dying to pick up.
But, after my most recent dose of Twilight, I was ready for something a bit weightier, so I decided to give it a go: and it’s been incredibly interesting. The story of these two sisters touches on everything from survival as pioneer homesteaders, to the challenges facing female authors, to old-world prejudices against uncouth colonials, to the influence of the Orange Order, all the way to spiritualism and table-rapping. And it’s reminded me that good biography is history through the lens of a life. And really, that’s what history is. It isn’t dates or artefacts – it’s the lives of people who, like ourselves, have fractured identities, and make choices based on circumstance and necessity, but nevertheless build things up and tear things down, and in doing so lay the foundation for the world as we know it.
But, after my most recent dose of Twilight, I was ready for something a bit weightier, so I decided to give it a go: and it’s been incredibly interesting. The story of these two sisters touches on everything from survival as pioneer homesteaders, to the challenges facing female authors, to old-world prejudices against uncouth colonials, to the influence of the Orange Order, all the way to spiritualism and table-rapping. And it’s reminded me that good biography is history through the lens of a life. And really, that’s what history is. It isn’t dates or artefacts – it’s the lives of people who, like ourselves, have fractured identities, and make choices based on circumstance and necessity, but nevertheless build things up and tear things down, and in doing so lay the foundation for the world as we know it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)