Re: early 20th-C Russian women

Diane HODGES (dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca)
Tue, 6 Apr 1999 09:57:20 -0800

At 14:29 4/6/99, Katherine Brown wrote:
>...Or, for one last example of an option. look at the
>interplay of constructions of gender, race, class, age, and sexual orientation
>always shaping the impact of each other. Diane and Mary are both asking
>about this lack of presence or interest in non-male generated theory.
>Anyone else have an idea of how, say , to structure a reading list that
>would bring major texts of sociocultural thery into converasation with
>feminist theory? I may just have to develop the course myself!
>Katherine Brown

thanks for the thoughts Katherine - i hope you do.
i guess i wasn't thinking of "feminism" in
terms of options or tag-on seminar discussions, so much as i was questioning
the substance of a theory that originates in presumed/privileged/
"gender-neutral" contexts -

in terms of the historical character of AT, that is, there is a
context of paternalism that produced AT and which maintains AT:
does this not require some kind of reformulation, deep structural
analysis...? i am thinking of Dorothy Smith here:

"Institutional ideologies are acquired by members as methods of analysing
experiences located in the work process of the institution." (1988, p. 67)

...the absence of women, of difference, in theory remains a structural
absence that can still only be addressed through a special-topic seminars,
a chapter;
against the overwhelming
repetition, & persistance of this absence; (and more substantially, there
is always the backlash that a mention of the absence incurs;)
and the certainty
that this must be
someone else's "domain"
or "problem" or...
i mean, i hate to be reductive,
but it seems like the dis/advantage,
in terms of credibility and authority,
is about needing tits (pref white ones) to see what's missing.
.
diane, crabbing rhetorically...

When she walks,
the revolution's coming.
In her hips, there's revolution.
When she talks, I hear revolution.
In her kiss, I taste the revolution.
(poem by Kathleen Hanna: Riot Grrl)
******************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia
centre for the study of curriculum and knowledge
vancouver, british columbia, canada