In my Fall 2011 Feminist Debates course, we ended the semester by reading Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism.
Here is a storify for archiving the live-tweet that I created while reading Jessica Yee’s introduction to Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism:
And here are my lecture notes:
Day One, December 1, 2011
Lee. Introduction
1. on “not hating-on” feminism, but encouraging discomfort and redefinition
“There needs to be struggle in order to lay out a path to co-existence, and that the process of being uncomfortable is essential for non-Indigenous peoples to move from being enemy, to adversary, to ally” (11).
I want to say that I don’t think we need to reject feminism though — I think we need to redefine it, find common points and common ground and involve Indigenous peoples and other com- munities of colour. As long as there is mutual respect and all of our cultural and historic realities are brought into the mix, we can create cross-cultural human movements (18).
2. on being “equal”
(How) does our understanding of the goals of feminism change when we shift away from the language of choice and towards the right to self-determination?
Williams/Konsmo. Resistance to Indigenous Feminism
3. on independent women and expressing emotion:
I also think that feminism sets this bar of “independent, strong women” that are supposed to be able to “handle our emotions”. But the Elders I know tell me that laughter and tears are medicine (Krysta 24).
I don’t even know what “independent” means anymore. I think for a lot of folks it’s impossible to not be dependent on someone (a partner, family member) or something, financially or otherwise in order to survive. This especially doesn’t speak to our communities, where people are depend on each other and share a lot for survival! We understand that things are connected and interdependent and this does NOT mean weakness (Krysta 25).
4. on the feminist unification project:
the words we use to describe the mentality of mainstream feminists needing to hold hands, learn from each other and be sisters, in one unified circle of feminism, in order to win the fight against partriarchy. But this denies our sovereignty as distinct Indigenous nations, each with our own language, culture, history and experience of colonization (26).
Tagore. A Slam on Feminism in Academia.
5. on the need/urge for feminist theory, thinking, acting:
some of us need to engage with feminist theory
so we can ground it in our community activist work
our creative works
our personal relationships
for our families, communities and histories
for our own fucking deserved peace of minds
maybe we need to know how to make sense of oppression
because we’re so heartbrokenwe don’t want to end up being locked away in psychiatric institutions
or in a hospital overdosed on pills, getting our stomachs pumped
because we don’t know WHY all this shit is constantly driving us CRAZY (40)
Peterson. The Feminist Existential Crisis (Dark Child Remix)
6. on the “proper” way to practice feminism:
I had started to feel significantly less invested in the endless, circular discussions about the proper way to practice feminism, the who’s who list, the removal of my rough ideas on feminism from everyday life (46).
Day Two: December 8, 2011
Check out Jessica Yee’s tweets to our class/about our posts:
And here are students’ posts about the reading.