The Paris Project

A sixth cackling

In graduate school, I found it difficult to include women and people of color in my research at times, because the canon and the contemporary academy are so homogenous. I understand this issue. But after reading the canon, then read around your area of interest, and be vulnerable to it being shaped by the voices you encounter. I wasn’t interested in queer theory or sexual identity deconstruction or the anthropology of race when I started, but was by the time I finished. So there are women out there, but they may not be numerous in the canon or the privileged mouthpieces of the discipline (but a few are probably there, too).

Maggi Dawn asked for some literature written by women in a field outside her primary one, and look at the interesting comments. Just ask around, network in the literature, and you’ll find something. But it’s not just a matter of finding women who can speak to areas of conventional male concern, in voices and styles that are compatible with that body of knowledge. Women will succeed there when given an opening, but they will also open up new bodies of knowledge as well as new ways of knowing.

This is why I take sermon notes of citations only, or write book reviews of footnotes only (sometimes without even reading the text itself). Are you tacking on a single woman, and maybe Martin Luther King, Jr. for good measure, just to appear inclusive? Or are you really being shaped by people different than yourself?

What are the identity characteristics of the person who gave this sermon I heard a few weeks ago, citing only Billy Graham, Os Guiness, John Stott, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis? How about the one from two weeks ago, citing Mother Theresa, Ruby Bridges, Harriet Tubman, Nelson Mandela, John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. ?

First one was a white man preaching to a white audience, second one was a black woman preaching to a black audience (my white husband and my white self being the exceptions). The black woman’s sermon spoke to me – those people are my people, my fellow Americans and my fellow Christians. So are all the white guys. I can and should learn from them all, but I shouldn’t have to attend an African-American church to hear about Ruby Bridges. And white male speakers shouldn't be considered progressive or with-it for citing a fellow middle-aged American educated white male who leans left. (Don't get me wrong - I love Jim Wallis - but even he would probably prefer the speaker reference Vince Bacote, Catherine Clark Kroeger, or Sam Hines.)

I can see the difference in five minutes between a white male speaker who tacks on a quote from “I have a dream” and a white male speaker who has really learned from the likes of Nelson Mandela, Alice Walker, or Betty Friedan. Who are your teachers? Whose feet do you sit at, whose words do you record as quotes in your journal, whose patterns of life and speech do you imitate on your way to finding yourself?

If you just want to add a woman to your conference or edited volume to look good, fine by me. I’ll take what I can get. If you want to find a woman or two who is working in an area of interest already defined and developed by men, great - you'll probably find a few. But if you want to really make yourself vulnerable to people different than yourself, your learning, your writing, and your spirit can be transformed.