|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Where is feminism now?I had an
enlightening and frustrating experience this week that I thought I'd
share with you. Last Wednesday was Thomas Friedman's visit (three-time
Pulitzer prize winner and author of The World is Flat),
and as some of you know, I was very involved with it. Following the
President's breakfast, we had a planned photo session in the Doubletree
Hotel, when local newspapers could photograph a few students and
faculty members with Mr. Friedman. One (older female) photographer from
the Newspress mentioned that she wanted a photo with the "Westmont
faculty and president." Dr. Rogers, Dr. Penksa, Dr. Winter, Dr.
Mallampalli, Dr. Dunn, and a trustee member all lined up together. When
she saw the six of them standing there, she clarified: "Oh no, just the men, please." In the confusion of the moment, the female professors, Dr. Penksa and Dr. Dunn,
left the group and the men did nothing to defend their colleagues.
Being
in the wake of the sixties and seventies feminist movement (and trying
to swim after the boat, in my case!) is much like this, I think. Both
Dr. Dunn and Dr. Penksa are very intelligent and very socially aware
women. They moved out of the picture, but not without knowing that it
was inappropriate for the photographer to ask them to, and for their
colleagues not to have asked them to stay. Both, however, are single
women that most likely made life choices that propelled them towards
teaching at the college level at very young ages.
I sense, in
the wake of my mother's generation's feminist movement, that to be
considered valid, I am asked to give up being a mother for a dream of
success that CEOs and Newspress photographers are not willing to offer
to me. Through the lens of the Newspress, readers will assume that
professors are male, not female. Through the lens of a CEO, women do
not have the tools or the experience to be promoted in the business
world. When I hear the cliche phrase that Christians must be "in the
world, but not of the world," I think to myself that it would be easy
to not be in the world--the world already excludes me. Where is my
place in a world that leaves my role so uncertain and undefined?
I hope this is food for thought, or at least
an after-dinner mint for thought.
| | |
| Morning... like a picture without a frameMornings are raw. I think that's why I like them so much. Every blessing is a surprise, every glimpse an insight. Hummingbirds come to the feeder we've set up outside of our kitchen window while my sleepy hands grasp tightly the cup of coffee I poured only minutes earlier. Both craving nourishment, but the difference is that one's found its wings.
This whole year has been one long morning.
Being an RA this year has been much different than I expected it to be. But then again, I can't articulate what exactly I was expecting. Perhaps I anticipated a life-change, but here I am, still the same person, interested in the same things. Maybe it was a season of growth that I wanted. But my growth has been incremental, thwarted by frustrating conversations and discouraging events. I think mostly I just hoped that all of my insecurities, fears, masks, and defense mechanisms would just melt away. But that hasn't really happened.
But it has been a worthwhile experience, albeit short and intense thus far. There are days I feel as if my heart will break from all of the strain it takes, and days my heart soars from the joy of living with people that I care so much about.
I have great peace and great blessings.
| | |
| Reality TVI watched a reality TV show today, and it quickly became my favorite television entertainment. It's not like it was up against much; my knowledge of television is pretty much Friends and the first season of Alias. Usually, I don't watch much.
Anyway, it was this show called Project Runway, where they get together a bunch of small-time designers and eliminate them show by show. Eventually there's one left. The final designer basically gets an automatic ticket to to the fashion design world.
This is different than my normal posts, I know, but wouldn't it be funny if there were an academic reality show? It would have challenges like you have to write an eight page research paper in two hours, or you would have ten assignments to complete but only had enough time for one and you had to choose the right one.
I was just thinking, how is it fair that these small-time designers get to skip all of the stuff in the middle, when to get into the academic community you have years and years and years of school? If I want to become accomplished in my area, I have at least eight more years left of studying. I'll be over thirty before I have a doctorate. That's only if I don't take any breaks.
It's ironic how something that takes so long to complete is so unfashionable.
| | |
| Lost opportunites never returnThe other day, as Shane and I were leaving church, a man approached us and introduced himself. He wore thick-lensed glasses and an early-nineties buzz cut, a plaid button-down shirt and a clashing-patterned pair of tennis shoes. Trying to stand confident, he told us his name, we told him ours. He asked what we thought about the sermon, we reciporicated. He wondered where we grew up, we inquired the same.
Our exchange, however, was anything but "normal." Shane and I allowed an uncomfortable silence to follow each question, as if we were hesitant to allow this man to know too much. When we asked him questions in return, we refused to ask any further than he had asked us. Our shifting feet must have given the impression that we needed to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else.
According to the man, he had grown up near Chicago, surprisingly close to where I grew up. I took this to indicate that, being from the midwest, he and I shared a common background. His father worked as a scientist at Fermilab, a particle accelerator near my house. I took this to mean that he came from a brilliant family and must be brilliant himself. When his family moved to Denver, he tried to stay in Chicago and make a living. I took this to mean that he must have had a lot of friends to help him in the city. His money ran out, and he moved back in with his parents at age 30.
And then I realized that our new thick-lensed friend was a loser.
We had nothing in common. He wasn't smart, or at least hadn't finished college. He seemed to have very few friends. And he was still living with his parents.
"What are you guys doing this afternoon?" he asked us.
"Uh... we've got stuff that we have to do," we stammered.
"Oh. I was thinking about taking a walk around the reservoir." His tone indicated that he very much wanted company for his walk.
Instead of inviting him to accompany us on our "stuff" (of which we had very little), we let his statement hang uncomfortably in the air.
"Well, I think we're going to get going," Shane said. "It was nice to meet you."
"Yea, you too," he returned. He turned slowly to the door and walked away from us, as we turned our backs and went the other direction.
A few minutes later, we realized our mistake. We should have invited him to Shane's grandmother's house for brunch, or taken him up on his half-offer to walk around the reservoir with us, or invited him to go see the new superman movie, or we should have just been interested in him as a person rather than judging him.
With no better ideas, we ran around the parking lot trying to find him. We looked near the reservoir just in case he had begun his walk. We searched the church for him, but to no avail.
While many consider the "Church" to be an institution, it is really made up of a bunch of individuals. Of which I am one. By half-heartedly rejecting a person, even one with thick-lensed glasses, I whole-heartedly demonstrated that the church is not an accurate representation of Christ. I would not be surprised if I never saw my non-friend again. I will probably never have the chance to show him that I regret my insensitive reaction to his love and interest in me and my life.
Nothing on this earth can remove the guilt that I feel.
| | |
| Summer AdventuresI love summer with every part of my body. Hiking for two weeks through the Appalachian Mountains makes my arms and legs ache with the joy of being used to their limit. Chicago jazz clubs in the middle of the night fill my nostrils with the smell of hundreds of cigarette butts and countless years of raspy voices permeating the walls with their musical stories. Long evenings in thick summer air with friends tickle my skin with a thousand air kisses. I am alive! I am loved! I am real!
And now I'm up in the northwoods of Wisconsin, staying with my aunts, a friend, and my two sweet cousins. We are six women ranging in age from five to fifty, equally enjoying the sun-soaked dock that boldly suspends us yards out into the lake. Each day we bring a tray of bulging sandwiches and juicy watermellon out and nibble on our day-long lunch while the sun melts the ice in our glasses. In between comments about the weather, reflections on the previous days, and musings about the future, we devour cheap paperbacks--the kind Dan Brown and Danielle Steel would have smiled to know we secretly read when there's not much else to think about.
Each day I've woken up early and resolved to go for a run and quickly rolled over and fallen asleep. Each day I've sat on the floor for hours playing "Dora the Explorer" with my cousins. Each day I've spent long hours at the dinner table picking at a basket of chicken nuggets for those under ten and a sipping one of the glasses of wine for those over 21. This is the life.
School seems so long ago and so far away. Like a fairy tale. Except it seems that I am living the fairy tale.
| | |
|
