"The most notable fact that culture imprints on women is the sense of our limits. The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate and expand her sense of actual possibilities." -Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
"If I could have one wish for my own sons, it is that they should have the courage of women. I mean by this something very concrete and precise: the courage I have seen in women who, in their private and public lives, both in the interior world of their dreaming, thinking, and creating, and the outer world of patriarchy, are taking greater and greater risks, both psychic and physical, in the evolution of a new vision. Sometimes this involves tiny acts of immense courage; sometimes public acts which can cost a woman her job or her life; often it involves moments, or long periods, of thinking the unthinkable, being labeled, or feeling, crazy; always a loss of traditional securities. Every woman who takes her life into her own hands does so knowing that she must expect enormous pain, inflicted both from within and without. I would like my sons not to shrink from this kind of pain, not to settle for the old male defenses, including that of a fatalistic self-hatred." --Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
i read this book over christmas break, but i keep coming back to it because she provides such well-articulated ideas that really resonate with me these days. i am pushing through this last semester as though it is the last thing i will ever do. it sort of feels as though it will be. i don't know what comes next. i do know that my only intentions for these next few months are to whip out and defend this piece of writing. the other day i realized that this thesis will be the one activity/goal/whatever you want to call it that i have spent the most of my time on. i have never worked on anything that i have felt so compelled and determined to finish. just looking at the proposal i can see all the days and nights of reading and research and work. i see all of my efforts fleshed out in this little document. i wonder what it might feel like to have it completed.
i do wonder about what i could have been doing besides writing this thesis. i do wonder some days about the uselessness of the document once it is finished. no one wants to hear about your research. not that it really matters. but, what else could i have been doing with this time? what else could i have been doing rather than isolating myself by holing up in my apartment or the library for days on end working to present something to this department. when it really comes down to it, i feel like my actual mastery of the subject will not have come from this thesis and its bureaucratic rules, regulations, and niceties. it will have come from the classroom time and the discussions both inside and outside of class. and it will come from my own passion for sociological theory.
so, while i will end up with this piece of paper that says i have mastered the subject of sociology, i can't help but think i've been doing the same thing by analyzing and documenting my social interactions for the past 12 years in my meticulously kept journals. and maybe those realizations have been more 'real' because they were enacted and lived through. don't get me wrong, i truly enjoy reading about what theorists have speculated and i do appreciate the classroom environment at this level. my problem lies within the structure of the education system--the isolation, the competition, (again) the rules and standards we are held to. they are not exactly conducive to learning. and many times i find them stifling and alienating.
these are all merely thoughts i am having this evening. my mind may very well change itself by morning.
on an unrelated note, i watched drive this weekend. i recommend it, even if only for the soundtrack.
sweeter dreams.
k
"If I could have one wish for my own sons, it is that they should have the courage of women. I mean by this something very concrete and precise: the courage I have seen in women who, in their private and public lives, both in the interior world of their dreaming, thinking, and creating, and the outer world of patriarchy, are taking greater and greater risks, both psychic and physical, in the evolution of a new vision. Sometimes this involves tiny acts of immense courage; sometimes public acts which can cost a woman her job or her life; often it involves moments, or long periods, of thinking the unthinkable, being labeled, or feeling, crazy; always a loss of traditional securities. Every woman who takes her life into her own hands does so knowing that she must expect enormous pain, inflicted both from within and without. I would like my sons not to shrink from this kind of pain, not to settle for the old male defenses, including that of a fatalistic self-hatred." --Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
i read this book over christmas break, but i keep coming back to it because she provides such well-articulated ideas that really resonate with me these days. i am pushing through this last semester as though it is the last thing i will ever do. it sort of feels as though it will be. i don't know what comes next. i do know that my only intentions for these next few months are to whip out and defend this piece of writing. the other day i realized that this thesis will be the one activity/goal/whatever you want to call it that i have spent the most of my time on. i have never worked on anything that i have felt so compelled and determined to finish. just looking at the proposal i can see all the days and nights of reading and research and work. i see all of my efforts fleshed out in this little document. i wonder what it might feel like to have it completed.
i do wonder about what i could have been doing besides writing this thesis. i do wonder some days about the uselessness of the document once it is finished. no one wants to hear about your research. not that it really matters. but, what else could i have been doing with this time? what else could i have been doing rather than isolating myself by holing up in my apartment or the library for days on end working to present something to this department. when it really comes down to it, i feel like my actual mastery of the subject will not have come from this thesis and its bureaucratic rules, regulations, and niceties. it will have come from the classroom time and the discussions both inside and outside of class. and it will come from my own passion for sociological theory.
so, while i will end up with this piece of paper that says i have mastered the subject of sociology, i can't help but think i've been doing the same thing by analyzing and documenting my social interactions for the past 12 years in my meticulously kept journals. and maybe those realizations have been more 'real' because they were enacted and lived through. don't get me wrong, i truly enjoy reading about what theorists have speculated and i do appreciate the classroom environment at this level. my problem lies within the structure of the education system--the isolation, the competition, (again) the rules and standards we are held to. they are not exactly conducive to learning. and many times i find them stifling and alienating.
these are all merely thoughts i am having this evening. my mind may very well change itself by morning.
on an unrelated note, i watched drive this weekend. i recommend it, even if only for the soundtrack.
sweeter dreams.
k
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