Academic attainment and feminism?

I mean, it's narrative because when we reconstruct what someone else might think or know, we have to effectively make up a little story that reminds us 'Oh, yes, mummy has been in the kitchen and that is why she doesn't know I have dropped my biscuit down the back of the sofa' or 'Tim is crying, because someone has hit hit'. We have to construct some kind of before-and-after narrative in order to put ourselves into a position when we can understand someone else's mind and relate to them as thinking beings.

Cross-post, Milly, sorry.

I don't know if bringing up autism helps or not, I just did because it's how I think about it. There's some kind of problem with making that imaginative/narrative reconstruction of someone else's mind, I think? The fact we and autistic children in this situation find this so hard to deal with, is because it's so important to our human-ness.

I am not implying you are intellectual inferior. I don't know where you got that from. I think you used the 'wank' first, for what it's worth, so no need to knock me for that. I didn't think you didn't know what a metaphor was, I thought you might not have meant my last post, which is why I asked precisely that.

I don't know why you are being so aggressive.

To try to explain: what I think is, humans know that other humans have interior lives, that they're 'real people'. We recognize that other people have just as much going on in their minds, just as much ability to feel and think, as we do, yes? Ie., they're not just things that walk around and yelp when you hit them.

I think in order to learn this, we have to make some kind of imaginative leap to predict or invent how other people might be thinking or feeling. I think this kind of mental narrative is something we are probably disposed to do by nature. Certainly children who struggle to do tend to have big social problems. So I think that the way we work as humans, is intrinsically narrative.

I hope that makes more sense.

LRD, can you explain what you mean by narrative in what you are saying?

I am not being critical I am just really poor at understanding more socially constructed subject areas.

I think with a lot of autistic children, the situation is more that they do know somebody thinks differently to them, but they don't know what that person is thinking or how to work out what the other person is thinking. They find that inability distressing.

No, I don't think culture has a consciousness.

Look, I don't know about you, but when I think I've misunderstood someone on here, I try to say so rather than assuming they're talking bollocks on purpose. It helps. No need to slate me because you don't understand what I'm getting at, ok? It's not complicated, nor is it a new idea. I may be saying it badly (I'm sure I am), but I'm not on the wind-up.

I remember saying "yes" I was a feminist, aged about ten, when asked by one of my mother's friends - a charming but pretty traditional old boyfriend of hers, married to one of her good friends (after my Mum introduced them). I think he asked in response to some observations and comments I was making, though I don't remember what they were.
Anyway, what I'm thinking is the interest in being a feminist, thinking I was equal to any boy, of course, why not ? went alongside the idea of learning being an interesting thing to do.
I have a science degree, a nursing qualification, and a teaching qualification. I'd be interested to learn more about counseling too. So, like my Mum who did an MA in her 70's, I probably haven't finished learning yet !

If you know someone else has a mind and experiences different from yours, you have to make some kind of imaginative, narrative leap, to do that. Most of us do it quite naturally. As I understand it, some autistic children really struggle and can't understand another person might feel differently from them, or might not know exactly what they know.

I don't see how you could argue that the capability to think of other people as having their own conscious mind, which is not yours, could be anything other than narrative? How is that not true?

swallowed, if you disagree, say why. Don't tell me it's trite.

Milly - exactly! It makes me so angry when people say it's somehow ok not to be shocked by violence against women when it's fictional - but people do say it.

swallowed - I'm sorry you feel it was 'wanky'. I don't know if you mean my post or not? I didn't mention a metaphor at all?

I understand, aye. I was just feeling fed up.

As to Freud - is he still referenced much in lit crit? I'm not a modernist (I imagine they must refer to him because he is after all a direct influence), but I've not seen Freud used in anything I've read since I was an undergrad. And then he was mentioned a couple of times in passing. But then, I didn't have much theory teaching so not the best person to ask.

I think the problem is what's already been said: Freud gets treated with respect as a massively influential, though somewhat discredited influence on culture and literature. That's fair enough because lots of 20th century thought is consciously based on his ideas.

Dworkin doesn't. Lots of people (arguably more importantly), don't seem to know she might have had some influence on culture and literature. They don't bother arguing (as lots of people arguing with Freud), they just ignore her.

I'd rather argue Dworkin should be more visible, than that Freud shouldn't be, if that makes sense?

I can't really articulate this well, but hopefully somebody else can. There is something about art, literature, media and so on being treated as if it isn't really representing humans and human suffering and can be talked about in some kind of amoral way that really disturbs me.

I read something a while ago by Georges Perec - The Truth of Literature - about how it is impossible to have a literary criticism of concentration camp literature, and about the difficulties of getting people to empathise through literature.

I think that applies to reading books about the torture or suffering of women. How can the initial approach to that with any student not firstly be an emotional reaction of horror and shock, and then a moral or political response? I don't see how it can be separated from politics and real human experience.

SAF - how I so wanted to say something about mental masturbation but I chickened out.

LRD, I want to be clear that my posts earlier were not about where lit is failing because I am not qualified to do so (although dittany is winning me over, I'm afraid), but more about lit being unevenly represented in discussions on academia and feminism. I think it might be simply because lit crit devotees like writing a lot. And discussing stuff at length on forums. I don't want to discredit the existence of the work of feminist lit crit types, I would just love to see an elevated profile of self-identified feminists and their work in other fields.

So, enlighten me on Freud. In layman's terms, why is his work still referenced so much in lit crit?