Sep. 27th, 2009
So my goal in giving this talk was to get through a coherent arc explaining gender theory and why you should care in 12 minutes and then have time for discussion. (KFA time slots are 20 minutes long.) I left out roughly a zillion things, which is OK, because that was sort of the point; I also think I actually did a good job, and got people thinking, and sparked interesting discussion, and hopefully encouraged people to do some further reading and/or conversing.
In giving the talk, I set myself the challenge of not using the words "discourse," "problematic," or "deconstruct." Obviously (or at least obviously if you talk to me a lot) this is not because I think those words have no value; I find them important in how I understand the world around me and if anything overuse them. Arguably, though, theorists and genderheads as a whole if anything overuse them, and it's something people have explicitly said turns them off to thinking about theory at all, and so I figured in a basic brief talk, I should avoid them. Another word I've been told is a major turn-off, although I didn't explicitly set out not to use it in this talk, is "oppression;" I've as a result been trying to think twice before using it. Unlike the others, which generally have less loaded (if also less usefully loaded) synonyms, not using "oppression" makes me nervous for calling-a-spade-a-spade issues. I'm torn, and I figure "thinking about it" is the right place for now.
You can watch the presentation video by clicking on this link. I'd embed it but I'm pretty sure LJ won't let me do that due to the recent security issue; just in case, here it is:
I'd really love to know what people think. I'd especially love to hear from people about what you think the most important things missing are; I have some thoughts but I want to hear other perspectives before I share them all. A bit of explanation (not that it necessarily negates potential criticism) --- I wasn't sure how to introduce myself because I wanted to avoid using identity labels but also wanted to express that it was worth spending twenty minutes listening to me talk about this topic. In general (and I blame![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
circuit_four in part for this, as well as the whole ##crawl-offtopic gang) I've been trying to hold both "identity affiliations are powerful" and "identity affiliations reinforce things I don't like" in my head at the same time lately. It takes a lot of energy, but they do interesting things when put in the same place; I think that the end of this talk is one of them. If you have suggestions for things I should go read by other people who have been holding those ideas in their head together for much longer than I have, I'd love them; in particular I recently read Covering by Kenji Yoshino (Amazon link) and while he doesn't focus on that duality, he does touch on it. Really, though, that book should be its own post...
Anyway, I'd love criticism, and I'm also in a mood where I could really go for any praise you've got lying around, too. :)
In giving the talk, I set myself the challenge of not using the words "discourse," "problematic," or "deconstruct." Obviously (or at least obviously if you talk to me a lot) this is not because I think those words have no value; I find them important in how I understand the world around me and if anything overuse them. Arguably, though, theorists and genderheads as a whole if anything overuse them, and it's something people have explicitly said turns them off to thinking about theory at all, and so I figured in a basic brief talk, I should avoid them. Another word I've been told is a major turn-off, although I didn't explicitly set out not to use it in this talk, is "oppression;" I've as a result been trying to think twice before using it. Unlike the others, which generally have less loaded (if also less usefully loaded) synonyms, not using "oppression" makes me nervous for calling-a-spade-a-spade issues. I'm torn, and I figure "thinking about it" is the right place for now.
You can watch the presentation video by clicking on this link. I'd embed it but I'm pretty sure LJ won't let me do that due to the recent security issue; just in case, here it is:
Gender Theory and Why You Should Care from maymay on Vimeo.
I'd really love to know what people think. I'd especially love to hear from people about what you think the most important things missing are; I have some thoughts but I want to hear other perspectives before I share them all. A bit of explanation (not that it necessarily negates potential criticism) --- I wasn't sure how to introduce myself because I wanted to avoid using identity labels but also wanted to express that it was worth spending twenty minutes listening to me talk about this topic. In general (and I blame
circuit_four in part for this, as well as the whole ##crawl-offtopic gang) I've been trying to hold both "identity affiliations are powerful" and "identity affiliations reinforce things I don't like" in my head at the same time lately. It takes a lot of energy, but they do interesting things when put in the same place; I think that the end of this talk is one of them. If you have suggestions for things I should go read by other people who have been holding those ideas in their head together for much longer than I have, I'd love them; in particular I recently read Covering by Kenji Yoshino (Amazon link) and while he doesn't focus on that duality, he does touch on it. Really, though, that book should be its own post... Anyway, I'd love criticism, and I'm also in a mood where I could really go for any praise you've got lying around, too. :)
(no subject)
Sep. 27th, 2009 08:51 pmYesterday I attended and presented at the MIT Women's and Gender Studies 25th anniversary conference, "Futures of Science, Race, and Gender." There were some introductory remarks, three panels, and then a reception for faculty and presenters with a celebration of the department's 25th anniversary. I'm going to talk primarily about the three panels, although I have a couple of things from the reception I want to share as well.
The first panel was called "Mentoring Women: Four Generations of Women Scientists at MIT" and featured Molly Potter, Nancy Kanwisher, Rebecca Saxe, and Liane Young. All four of them do Brain and Cognitive Sciences work, though it seems like there was some variance in the amount of psychological versus neuroscientific focus between them; I'm sufficiently ignorant in the field as to have basically nothing useful to say about their research, unfortunately. They all seemed to be, at least to some extent, rock stars in their field, and the reason they were brought together for this conference is that each was the advisor of the next youngest either as a graduate student or as a postdoc. ( Details, talk about mentoring, audience members talking about race. )
The next panel was called "Racialized Bodies" and featured Pilar Ossorio (University of Wisconsin, Law School), with respondents David Jones (STS), and Amy Marshall (MIT Alum). The one sentence summary of Ossario's talk is "The way race is used as a categorizer when doing scientific studies is a problem, and not only that, the conversation surrounding it is a problem; instead of using race as a standin for genes, which is not terribly effective, we should be keeping track of it in cases where it may reflect population differences we don't know about to consider." ( Details, some links, a couple of examples. )
The third and final panel, "Race, Gender, and IVF in Ecuador: A Reproductive Economy," featured Elizabeth Roberts (University of Michigan, Anthropology), Corrine Williams (MIT Alum), and Rachel Dillon (ESG, MIT Alum, me). I don't have good notes at all, because I was noting things to talk about, not things to write about here; I had also read her paper in advance, although I am pretty sure I am not supposed to share it, or I would. The one sentence explanation is "In Ecuador, in vitro fertilization is used by people of various classes and races as a way to economically obtain whiteness through the act of childbirth, in ways not limited to but sometimes including actually having whiter children."
( Mostly about my presentation, because that's sort of where my head was. )
( Extra, footnotes. )
The first panel was called "Mentoring Women: Four Generations of Women Scientists at MIT" and featured Molly Potter, Nancy Kanwisher, Rebecca Saxe, and Liane Young. All four of them do Brain and Cognitive Sciences work, though it seems like there was some variance in the amount of psychological versus neuroscientific focus between them; I'm sufficiently ignorant in the field as to have basically nothing useful to say about their research, unfortunately. They all seemed to be, at least to some extent, rock stars in their field, and the reason they were brought together for this conference is that each was the advisor of the next youngest either as a graduate student or as a postdoc. ( Details, talk about mentoring, audience members talking about race. )
The next panel was called "Racialized Bodies" and featured Pilar Ossorio (University of Wisconsin, Law School), with respondents David Jones (STS), and Amy Marshall (MIT Alum). The one sentence summary of Ossario's talk is "The way race is used as a categorizer when doing scientific studies is a problem, and not only that, the conversation surrounding it is a problem; instead of using race as a standin for genes, which is not terribly effective, we should be keeping track of it in cases where it may reflect population differences we don't know about to consider." ( Details, some links, a couple of examples. )
The third and final panel, "Race, Gender, and IVF in Ecuador: A Reproductive Economy," featured Elizabeth Roberts (University of Michigan, Anthropology), Corrine Williams (MIT Alum), and Rachel Dillon (ESG, MIT Alum, me). I don't have good notes at all, because I was noting things to talk about, not things to write about here; I had also read her paper in advance, although I am pretty sure I am not supposed to share it, or I would. The one sentence explanation is "In Ecuador, in vitro fertilization is used by people of various classes and races as a way to economically obtain whiteness through the act of childbirth, in ways not limited to but sometimes including actually having whiter children."
( Mostly about my presentation, because that's sort of where my head was. )
( Extra, footnotes. )