According to this article, gender roles in Kenya are changing for the better. Via Mary Otieno.

Seeing as how I talked about writing this piece a few days ago, thought you might want to see how it turned out. I don't have full bibliographical citations here--I might include a list later today or tonight. But if you want any of the citations in particular, email me at ratli008@umn.edu.

Research that is classified as “feminist” usually meets one or both of the following broad criteria: It takes gender or a specific group of women as its object of analysis, and it is designed in the service of an emancipatory political agenda. In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist standpoint theory, the theory that the feminist standpoint has epistemological privilege because the perspective of the oppressed provides a more accurate view of reality than that of the ruling class, who only sees the world in ways that legitimate their power, was considered a favorable approach to feminist research. In the 1990s, however, the influence of poststructuralist and postmodern theory, which is marked by the rejection of universality, truth, totalizing top-down structures of power, and essentialism in favor of the view that society, identities, and ideologies are discursively constructed and that power is multiplicitous and malleable, became evident in feminist research. The following essay is an attempt to review systematically the problematics in feminist standpoint theory and its knowledge claims that the postmodernist and poststructuralist critique brought to the fore.

Misogyny:

SIOUX FALLS, SD – The South Dakota House of Representatives today passed a broad ban that would outlaw abortion, with no safeguards for women’s health or exceptions for women who are the victims of rape or incest. Planned Parenthood of Minnesota/South Dakota strongly opposes the legislation, which will now be considered by the South Dakota Senate.

In her book Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation, Sonia Johnson suggests that we (women, I mean) really shouldn't care one way or the other whether abortion is legal or not. What we need, she argues, is a woman on every block who knows how to perform a safe abortion. Vigilante midwives. Inga Muscio in Cunt: A Declaration of Independence agrees, saying that we need to learn more about concoctions of herbs and massage techniques that induce miscarriage. A controversial stance, I know, but one that appeals to me more every day.



Ignorance (a whites-only scholarship):

"If you are a white student on campus, you don't have anyone helping you, there is no one compiling a list of scholarships just for you," [Jason J. Mattera] said. "Why is it that only students of color have this?"

Where to start? Here, perhaps.

I've been reading a lot of responses to Bush's homophobic, hate-filled spew, including one from Lauren, but Flea's 24 February post is the by far the best, most eloquent. I command you all to read it.

I'm afraid I don't have anything insightful to say about either of these articles. All I can say is that I am saddened by both, and you need to read them.

An "Uppity" Memoir and some "Cheeky" tips: On what it is like for me to be a woman of colour at a university whose structure is still predominantly white and Eurocentric in its focus

Sex and Silence at Yale

How very cool. I might have to do a little weekend trip to Moorhead for this!

First Woman President Symposium

September 24-25, 2004 - Minnesota State University Moorhead, Moorhead, MN (USA)

MSU Moorhead will hold an interdisciplinary conference that unites leaders in politics, media, and academia to explore the history, culture, and future possibilities of electing a female president of the United States of America. This two-day conference will feature special invited guests who are active in national and international politics and media as well as prominent academics in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who have substantially contributed to our knowledge of women in politics. Laura Liswood, Secretary-General of the Council of World Women Leaders at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, is the keynote speaker. Paper proposals are invited in the following categories: the history of women in politics, analysis of party platforms, creation of candidates, missed opportunities, mechanisms and forces of exclusion, international examples of women in politics, media and cultural representations of women in power, the demonization of women in politics, and the role of the 'First Lady,' among others. The conference organizers especially encourage paper proposals from all levels of academics in American Studies, Economics, History, Mass Communication and Journalism, Multicultural Studies and Humanities, Political Science, Sociology, Speech Communications, and Women's Studies.

Required: Submit an abstract of 250 words and a c.v. (including phone, fax, and e-mail addresses) to contact below.

Deadline: March 1, 2004

Contact: Dr. Christopher Corley, c/o Dean of Arts and Humanities, 250 Bridges Hall, Minnesota State University Moorhead, Moorhead, MN 56563 USA

ATTN: First Woman President Symposium

E-Mail: corley@mnstate.edu

Via thirdspace chora.

Timothy Burke has a righteous rant on why we need to move scholarly publishing to an electronic form. It's all spot-on, but the following paragraphs are really producing the stand up and cheer! feeling I'm having right now:

My task: Well, my first task is to finish up a recommendation letter for a former student. THEN, what I have to do is figure out how we go about producing knowledge anyway, despite the postmodern critiques of truth and of knowledge claims, and write a 1500-word paper about it. One of the issues I must engage is feminist standpoint theory, particularly in Susan Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited," and the subsequent response essays by Nancy Hartsock, Patricia Hill Collins, Sandra Harding, and Dorothy Smith. Big job...as an aside, I was talking to my Women's Studies professor about what topic I'd choose for this paper--the choices were situatedness in research, the challenge of interdisciplinarity, and the postmodern critique of knowledge (or, post-postmodernism). I said that I felt a little more confident doing my paper on situatedness, but I know I'll have to deal with the issues presented in the readings on postmodernism too. She said, "If you're not as confident about postmodernism, that's what you should write about." I grinned and said, "Yeah, that's what I was thinking too."