[Xmca-l] Re: Analysis of Gender in early xmca discourse

Tue Nov 1 06:53:14 PDT 2016

Hello, Maria Christina Migliore and hello again to other xmca folk:
I am happy to learn from your experience based suggestions of causes about women's participation in the list.
I want to pick up the thread of time.  I'm old and loving it (and not just because of not particularly wanting the alternative to growing older, to use an old joke)!
I like the expression "taking time."  Old folks can take more time -- yes, there are still demands on it many related to gender by habit and choice, but many of us find more expertise and equanimity as we work through/with the demands.

I have read and heard about bucket lists -- things people want to do before they die.
Me?  Not so much.  I think the bucket list is like the notion "scaffolding."  People use that metaphor about teaching/learning and I have objected to it because a scaffold is built to suit a particular KNOWN building.  I don't believe teaching and learning are like that on their best appearances.
Instead, I like the Zo-Ped (ZPD, Zone of Proximal development), better exactly because we don't know where it's going to go. I don't want people to be stuck ONLY with the thought or physical structures I know about/live with.  In fact, I get great solace from knowing I can contribute to the future without it being stuck with only what I can imagine. 
Instead of a bucket list, I have things I want to leave behind that aren't finished when I die but that have enough threads (like those on a tea bag) that folks might later trip over it or pull on it and do something with that I do not know and cannot imagine.  
I know enough of the fine and horrible that have happened and might happen so that I want to contribute to enough variation in the future so that there will be a chance to support the fine in the future.
So, when I just had a meeting in which educators talked about fostering critical thinking among youngsters and almost immediately after I saw a TV advertisement -- very polished, very expensive, clearly very planned -- that used correlation to imply causation to support a political candidate that I am spending time to defeat.  Luckily(?), I was waiting in a bar where the TV ad was playing so I had a good martini while I waited for a tardy friend!
I don't know how understanding this is gender related, but suspect there might be some relations.

Peg Griffin 

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Maria Cristina Migliore
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2016 12:11 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Analysis of Gender in early xmca discourse

Hello to everyone,

I am a woman who likes following the discussion on xmca, but has intervened into xmca discussions only once, even if I enrolled five or six years ago.

I thank Mike Cole to have raised the issue of few female voices on this listserv.

This is a very complex issue. I would approach this topic by referring to my own experience in this listserv. This is a typical feminist approach:
starting from our own experience and avoiding generalization.

I think that one of the reasons that keeps me out from contributing to the interesting debates here in this listserv is time. When I read so many posts from the same people, and some very long posts, I wonder whether these people, all men, have family responsibilities, whether they have to go shopping, cooking, cleaning, dealing with the increasing bureaucracy in our lives. I am an Italian woman, and one could learn from Italian statistics that we Italian women work for the well-being at home much longer hours than our men.

I am also wondering whether the knowledge cumulated by these men can be explained by this different social division of labour between men and women.

These elements, less time and less erudition, create an unbalance and some difficulties in participation.

So this is my main explanation for my own rare appearance in this listserv.
But of course, this adds up to the other factors already mentioned in this thread.

I conclude with noticing that my feminist approach, talking about myself, seems quite the opposite to the dominant approach in this listserv, so focused on theories and abstraction. Could this be another reason to keep silent the women’s and other socially marginalized voices in this listserv, for they/we feel this terrain as foreign?

I guess that if we want to hear more of these voices, we should accept a higher mixture of practice and theory thinking, and also emotions and tensions toward transformation and change, in our discussions.

And I also need to learn how to write short posts!

Maria-Cristina Migliore, Ph.D

Senior researcher

IRES-Piemonte

Torino (Italia)

2016-10-31 14:49 GMT+01:00 <lpscholar2@gmail.com>:

> I was looking through Louis Menand’s (The Metaphysical Club: A Story 
> of Ideas in America) and this paragraph struck a cord in this moment 
> of the election dynamics unfolding and the place of gender in earlier times.
>
> Abolitioism arose out of the *Second Great Awakening* the evangelical 
> revival that swept through New England and then upstate New York 
> between
> 1800 and 1840, and that also spawned temperance, women’s rights, and 
> other social reform movements, along with a number of utopian and 
> religious sects, most famously the Mormons.  The *foundations* of the 
> abolitionalist movement were therefore spiritual and 
> anti-institutional. Abolitionism was a party for people who did not 
> believe in parties – a paradoxical law of attraction that turned out 
> to be ideally suited to Unitarian, Transcendentalist, and generally 
> post-Calvanist culture like New England, a culture increasingly 
> obsessed with the moral authority of the individual conscience.  The 
> American Anti-Slavery Society, the movement’s organizational arm, had 
> relatively few members, membership in an organization being the sort 
> of thing that tends to compromise the *inner vision*. BUT it had many followers.
>
> I was struck that between 1800 and 1840 in this locale (Boston  and 
> upstate New York) how many social reform movents (post Calvanism) 
> originated and unfolded to permeate American culture. Then to return 
> to the current election with this historical*ity in awareness. Back 
> and forth living presence, including women’s rights.
>
> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>
> From: Annalisa Aguilar
> Sent: October 28, 2016 2:04 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Analysis of Gender in early xmca discourse
>
> I would like to post something historic that I don't think has ever 
> been declared by the New York times prior to a US Election:
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/
> presidential-polls-forecast.html
>
>
> It feels highly relevant to this thread, because it may shine a light 
> on what it feels like to see a story of a woman prevailing in very 
> neutral language. You will note, there is nothing about her hair, nor 
> her appearance, nor mention of her husband.
>
>
> And, to Huw's (probable) liking, there's a lot of statistics that show 
> (I
> hope) the inevitable.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> Annalisa
>
>

-- 

Maria Cristina Migliore, Ph.D.

Senior Researcher

IRES Istituto Ricerche Economico Sociali del Piemonte

Via Nizza, 18

10125 Torino – Italia

Tel. +39 011 6666463

cell. 348 0454272

Fax.  +39 011 6696012

e-mail   migliore@ires.piemonte.it

skype mariacristinamigliore

IRES web www.ires.piemonte.it

LinkedIn Maria Cristina Migliore

personal web www.mariacristinamigliore.it (Italiano)

personal web www.mariacristinamigliore.it/index_e.htm (English)

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