Academic attainment and feminism?

aye - you don't think men ever look to texts to sanction how they act? You don't think lit. graduates (who go into journalism in huge numbers) have any impact on how crime is viewed and reported?

Would that it were as simple as saying 'I'm practical and I stop men hitting and raping women'. But it's not, is it? We don't all go around with tazers seeking out unruly men, do we?

I don't think the main feminist work is being done in lit crit! Of course not. But that doesn't mean it's not important.

Aye Robot, a lot of practical things done that work with women will be in subject areas where the researchers work with women - Geography, Anthropologists like Dettwyler, Social Policy, Nursing, International Development and so on. Then there will be feminists fighting a tiny corner in disciplines like Economics and Medicine.

This is where I get a bit befuddled by all of this. I update the Victims of Violence thread on a regular basis (sadly). When I read the news on-line and see yet another murder of a woman by a man, my second thought is to record that fact on that thread.

If the main feminist work is being done in the field of lit crit, how the fuck does that help to stop men murdering their current or former partners? Or is there an unknown feminist hotbed in Criminology departments?

Aye, I don't agree. What you read can have a huge impact. I don't know what kind of person I would be without it. I'd probably still be with my wanker ex who thinks women are there to be domestic, or accepting like my mum that women are generally thicker and more useless than men. It may not seem that 'practical' to you but all I could say is, my experience tells me it's important.

x posted a lot there.

dittany - It was me that found the link to the Counting for Nothing doc and I still haven't watched it. Tut, tut. I will do it tomorrow.

I'm a journalist, Dittany. I write for all sorts of things from women's magazines to trade health publications. I write mainly about health but I have written about all kinds of things, from domestic violence to the problems faced by young people with learning disabilities when they are moving from child to adult services.

But in answer to your rhetorical question, no it is not why I am 'sneering' at Dworkin. I just don't feel like getting carped at for writing for mainstream publications.

From where I sit, as a woman who is a practical feminist, as AnyFucker once described herself, the time for pontificating about feminism in a literary sphere as a main focus of attention is not here yet. I am not saying that those doing the lit crit are not doing an interesting job, nor that it may not be productive in getting students to think in a different way about feminist issues or lots of other worthy stuff. But it just doesn't seem very effective in changing the status quo. And that's what will help rape victims, mothers who are hamstung in their life choices, trafficked women, women who are cat-called, women who are (or who are at risk from being) shunned from their families because of the decisions they make etc etc ad infinitum. So where in the academy do those people sit?

I really hope that I win the euromillions tonight. If I do, I hereby undertake to plough money into feminist research that can be used to force the patriarchy-colluders to sit up and take notice. Actually, I have a massive list of things feministy that I will do if I had that kind of cash. Vive la revolution!

It's not an insult, dittany - I said theorist you like (pl.) because I am planning to ask people on here to help me work out who might be best to read. I'm not implying you like them for any reason but the obvious.

Understood - sorry, I wasn't clear.

I think I ought to get off this thread as I'm tending towards hijacking to work out how to teach feminist theory in my lit. crit. lessons and it's quite right, it's a bit of a side issue (except in that there are lots of people who study lit. crit., so a big potential audience)

It's not, I should make clear, why I return always to the subject of the written word and the literary tradition. It's because I happen to think that words and writing are of central importance in our world. I fully appreciate that I have a warped and disproportionate take on this. It's also because that is my (long-distant) academic training, and I make my living these days putting words on the page (often for publications I wouldn't even dare to mention on these threads).

It is entirely possible, of course, that over the ensuing decades I have become a mere sniggering pawn of the patriarchy. But I really don't think my English degrees are instrumental in that.

Where do you think I should start with teaching Dworking (or other theorists you like) in lit crit? I'm thinking I will do the Chaucer story alongside something explicitly feminist theory next time, so that's a start.

Was that to me?

I think it'd be better for someone like me to teach Dworkin's ideas plus accurate/more detailed work on her textual subject-matter, if I were teaching fairy tales. Makes sense. I don't think it's fair to say someone shouldn't be taught at all because of inaccuracies in something that's not their main subject, of course.

(Sorry, that last was to dittany).

Aye - more people study lit. crit. than women's studies; more people teach it. I expect it's no more than that though I do think it makes it quite complicated, and I'm a lit. person myself.