As I would for any member of the community, I have taken down the posting. I'm leaving the comments up in case anyone wants to continue the discussion. I think Cassandra makes some excellent points below (as usual!) for example.
- The RGM
Monday, March 2, 2015
Per in Pittsburgh Poses an Early Thirsty.
As I would for any member of the community, I have taken down the posting. I'm leaving the comments up in case anyone wants to continue the discussion. I think Cassandra makes some excellent points below (as usual!) for example.
- The RGM
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This is a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke.
ReplyDeleteI've elaborated on my initial comment below. I'm not as big of a jerk as this comment implies, or maybe I'm just a jerk for a different reason.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNot a joke, Ben, but you need to have read Eve Sedgwick to get it. Actually, the thirsty is phrased in such a way that when I first read it I thought the poster was saying the opposite of what I think was actually intended. So at first I thought it was an awesome high-concept troll and I was trying to figure out how to counter-troll. But on my fourth reading I figured out what the poster meant. I mean, I'm pretty slow, but still.
ReplyDeleteMy answer is that if I were to see it I'd try to call it out. But the truth is I haven't seen it. It could be that I'm just oblivious (always a good guess), or it may be that I'm not hanging out in the right circles. I just don't have any colleagues or grad students who fall into those categories--that I know of. My sense is that in the part of the academy I live in this isn't a huge issue and that nobody would bat an eye at non-gender-normative people. But I can imagine disciplines and departments where it might be.
Also, I'm wary of saying anything specific, because I'm well aware of the complexities and factionalism at work here. There was a good New Yorker article about this a few months ago, as I recall.
I've had a few emails requesting more info about this and have sent an email to the writer (a professor in an interdisciplinary field in a northeastern state for clarification, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat would be helpful. At the risk of really getting blasted, I'll point out that using language that many people don't understand can in itself be a form of aggression/ in-group/out-group marking.
DeleteI'm glad to see something resembling an actual conversation starting here (and tend to agree with Jesse that we're at our best when we're doing something other than bashing students. The thing is, as I pointed out earlier, that we really don't spend all that much time student-bashing, and, even when we do, we have a tendency to drift, after the initial steam-venting, toward analyzing and problem-solving).
ReplyDeleteI'd also echo Archie's warning that not everybody here is fluent in the latest gender theory lingo.
That said (and speaking from the position of a middle-aged white cisgender hetero female 2nd/3rd-wave feminist, with a longtime commitment to LGBTQ rights -- and a longtime full-time contingent faculty member in comparatively comfy but still long-term precarious circumstances, and a progressive mainline Protestant Christian, if you want a few more identity cards on the table), I'm finding it interesting, especially in light of Archie's comments about the particular privilege-blindness of a certain class of cool young white dudes (currently most easily denoted by the adjective "hipster," sometimes known here as "gumdrop unicorns"), how the response to CM members' critiques of Jesse has turned, almost reflexively, to a critique of them as powerful, privileged cis/hetero white men.
The problems you describe are very real, Per, and I do all I can, from my own position, to combat them.
However, if you don't mind, I'd also like to ask you a question: do you ever notice that you have a certain privilege in the academy, perhaps especially but not exclusively in connecting with some of your "favorite" students (I worry a little about that concept; shouldn't we treat all students equally? Or do you treat them equally but feel differently? If so, are you *sure* you're treating them equally?), that stems from your being both young and (I gather) an identifiable "outsider" in the academic power structure?
I'll reiterate: in asking this, I'm in no way diminishing what I believe is your very real experience of discrimination. One of the odd things about the academy is that one can both suffer and benefit from being an identifiable outsider, especially when one considers different context/audiences.
Two readers have sent me this same link from Dorothy Kim's blog. , referenced yesterday:
ReplyDeleteA number of female junior medievalists (graduate student and junior tenure-track and non-tenure track faculty) have told me that certain conferences have become the hunting ground for male, white-cishetero men. What I mean by this is that there have been witnessed incidents of sexual harassment happening at medieval conferences. Though conferences alone are not the only space where this happens. I think we have all witnessed sexual harassment at medieval talks, seminars, and in other professional spaces. -
See more at: http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2014/10/medieval-studies-sexual-harassment-and.html#sthash.7ddqgxAa.dpuf
The suggestion was that perhaps Per and Dorothy Kim were the same person and I would not provide that information about any person who wrote for this page.
DeleteMedieval's not my field, and I don't care whether Per and Dorothy Kim are the same person. Just don't care. But the I did go to the big Medieval studies conference at Kalamazoo (yes, really) once nearly twenty years ago. It is a massive conference, swimming in booze (lots of different open bar receptions) and culminates with a big dance on Saturday night (because what I want to do at a professional meeting is relive high school). If someone told me that Kalamazoo is rife with this kind of behavior I would not be even slightly surprised. If your big annual meeting is set up as a re-creation (with some poetic mimesis thrown in) of all of the worst features of adolescence (the binge drinking, the forced physical proximity in social situations and so on) can you be surprised if some of the worst behaviors of adolescence also come out.
DeleteI get that we should all be able to attend a professional meeting and not get harassed. But we should probably not organize a professional meeting attended by nearly a thousand people around activities like boozing and dancing that lower social inhibitions in sometimes bad ways either. If I were in Medieval Studies I would never ever go to that meeting. Like I said, I went once, and that was enough to last me a lifetime.
Now if the harassment is happening at the Medieval Academy of America meetings, that would surprise and repulse me. I'm a member of five or six professional associations that have annual meetings. I don't go to every one every year, but I try to rotate. If I saw the kind of shit that goes on at Kalamazoo at any of my meetings, I'd probably run for the executive committee just to put a stop to it.
Just to clarify for those (most of you presumably) who don't know the history here. The Kalamazoo meeting was founded as a revolt against the perceived stuffiness and general conservative assholeness of the Medieval Academy of America. That explains things like dance and the tradition called the pseudo society (a plenary panel devoted to The Onion-style fake scholarship). It's all about thumbing one's nose at the old fogies. The problem is that what was once a small counter-cultural island is now the biggest meeting in the field. Attendance at Kalamazoo dwarfs that at the MAA meeting. So Kalamazoo might once have been an outsider event, but it is now as insider as it gets and has been for a long time. And the people who founded the whole thing as an act of rebellion are retired and wearing depends now. You can't be cool, drunk, and rebellious when you are the insider's gathering. It just looks bad, and creates a permissive environment in which assholery of all kinds is tacitly condoned if not encouraged.
DeleteOh of course it has to be a troll making a joke, because why would white men harrass female, gay, and trans populations. Well, because they always have? The cluelessness of this blog is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteHello, Colorado Prof, etc.
DeleteThis is why we should never go outside the compound walls!!!!
ReplyDeleteThat's what the nurses keep telling me. Maybe they are right.
DeleteAs a cisqueer prof, I resent having my sexual identity used as a weapon, frankly, by a stranger with an agenda. With allies like that, who needs enemies?
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I do, to answer the supposed question, is educate students and teach them critical thinking. What do you do?
I should be been more clear when I wrote my first comment. I didn't question that this is a joke because the topic of privilege isn't serious and a problem in academia (as it is elsewhere too). My first take was really to ask, "Hey new guy, who do you think you are telling us what to talk about?"
ReplyDeleteIMHO, CM is a community with people loosely bound together with certain commonalities. We are having conversations here. We frequently talk about our poorest performing students. Why don't we talk about something else? I dunno. We could, I suppose, but maybe some of us would find that topic less interesting. We could raise money for sick children. That's a good cause too but we don't. Is that a good enough answer?
Imagine talking to a group of friends and somebody walks by, overhears a bit of conversation, and then says, "Hey, why don't you talk about something more important, like what I care about?" You'd roll your eyes and wonder how somebody has the nerve to act that way.
We do welcome new members of the community. Instead of telling us what we need to do here, read a few posts, get comfortable, add some comments and then ask the RGM to post what you want to say. We might agree with you that your topic is worth discussing, if you introduce it as, "This is important to me, here's why and I'm interested in your opinions about it," rather than dismissing our interests as unimportant. It's all about tone and knowing your audience.
Ben, your post reminds me of the time that someone posted something to the effect of: "Michael Jackson just died! You should be ashamed of yourselves, stop your complaining and join the world in mourning his passing!" (something to that effect...).
DeleteI would echo the sentiment of your post; we're quite a disparate group of characters that gather here at RYS/AWC/CM. Being from the natural sciences side of things, I, for one, had never, ever heard the word "cishetero" prior to this latest kerfuffle (and someone is going to have to explain to me how this differs from "heteronormative", which is also a word I heard for the first time here...), and I imagine fellow members of this community with a similar background have a similar level of ignorance about these sorts of topics, so I'd be surprised if Per expected ... well, I don't know what Per was expecting from this community...
All of the mods have had their flaws, and we've often had a good time with them. Fab, famously, was often seen as too sensitive, so much so that a longtime reader was stunned to find out Fab was male. That's where the "feminine energy" line first came out.
ReplyDeleteLes was called a bitch under her own name, and often a bastard when she used the all-purpose RGM moniker.
But my flaw is the worst of all.
When the page isn't fun, I don't have any fun.
Obviously, and Ben nails this above, there are serious and important issues in the academy. But I never saw this as the place to solve them. Just my view of what always struck me as best about RYS/CM. Nobody has to feel that way. The page can and does get used in many ways.
To take the original question seriously, what do I do? Well, I am aware of white privilege and male privilege so I know it’s a pitfall. I try to mentor students that don’t fit into that narrow definition of “normal.” When I form groups in class for projects I put the alpha males in one group since I know they’ll each try to dominate and that lets the students in the other groups have a shot at leadership roles. In class discussions I don’t let the handful of students (mostly male) that try to dominate the discussion do so. I extend my class material to cover material beyond dead white Christian males. And I don’t make the others into tokens-- none of that “GW Carver and the peanut” crap. Basically I try to treat everyone like I’d want to be treated. I can’t always succeed, but if I treat everyone with a sense of decency I think I can come close.
ReplyDeleteActually GW Carver was an excellent example of a small-college proffie with few resources doing the best he could with his situation. He accepted help where he found it, and had a thick skin and willingness to persevere in the face of scorn. He's an example of an admirable human being and (so I hear) a good teacher. Just not a very good scientist.
DeleteOn the other hand, Percy Julian, who was a topflight chemist and did more science with limited opportunities than Carver did, was a bit of a jerk, by the accounts I've heard.
If only we had an edit function... I would change "not a very good scientist" to "not a very innovative scientist."
DeleteNothing against Carver. But back in the day the only African-Americans you got in history class were Carver, Booker T Washington and maybe an abolitionist. That's what I was referring to. Along the same lines the only woman you heard about was Susan B. Anthony.
DeleteGoddamn it, I take one day off and I miss everything.
ReplyDeleteThe comments here seem to be...respectful and insightful (especially given how cranky we tend to be). Why was the OP unhappy?
My best guess based on my initial contact and then 2 follow up emails, is that the OP thought we assumed he/she was a troll and were going to treat him/her that way. It was someone who only found our page yesterday, so I have nothing else to go on.
DeleteThat's too bad. The comments make it seem like it would have been a good discussion. Though admittedly off-topic from all the student-shaming (and dean-shaming and colleague-shaming) we do around here.
DeleteI wasn't sure if the OP was real or not because I don't study gender theory and the terms seemed odd to me. I have to do the Google on Cisgender. Really? OK, I get to concept. But because the post was so jargon-heavy I was not sure if it was real or a satire by someone making fun of jargon.
ReplyDeleteI'm obviously late to this dustup and things have moved on. But I couldn't help thinking that we frequently converse about the "damage cishetero white men are having on academe."
ReplyDeleteCishetero white men like Scott Walker and Sam Brownback are doing untold damage to academia along with all the heteronormative politicians who undermine the value of research and education. BurntChrome has been on the front lines in this one particularly badly, but we've all been under attach one way or another.
We've ranted now and then about the cishetero white business execs who want tax breaks for their bidnesses, and insist that skule's exist to turn out workerbees at public expense (then turn their noses up at hiring said graduates). We've had lengthy (and profanity laced) discussions of the harm heteronormative corporate cheerleaders have done to universities with their customer-based model of education.
We've decried the edubabble wankery of outwardly cishetero education reformers.
We've pissed and moaned about the pseudo-science idiocy of privileged white anti-vaxxers, creationists and climate change deniers, who's superstitions we have to undo almost before we can begin to teach.
So yes, we are manifestly capable of having a conversation about the harm cishetero white men are doing to academia.
And as for the sexual harassment that still takes place in academia, we've decried that too, loudly and fractiously. But you know, for all the faults of the Tuk-U admins (and those faults are legion), they seem to be genuinely trying to address the issue (in their admin-flakey way), and it's not a task I envy them.
But that Scott Walker - he's one bad news heteronormative fuckstick.
Is that something out of Dungeons and Dragons or somesuch? My plus two Mage smites your Myrvydaean Wraith with its heteronormative fuckstick of intersectionality?
DeleteOkay, I'm wondering if the policy of removing original posts on request should be reconsidered. This was apparently a challenging topic, and now it's gone and just the broad accusation against "cis-het white males" (like me) is left. Topics, once proposed for discussion, don't really "belong" to the OP, but rather to the blog and the people who commented. I can see an exception made if the OP has reason to believe it is identifying, and gets nervous about that, but I don't think that was the case here. but if he/she wants to recant or adjust an initial position, the comments could be used for that. Saying "we can't deal with the topic" is ridiculous, and removing the post robs us of the possibility to prove the contrary.
ReplyDeleteIf the RGM has the time and patience, one possibility would be re-posting a summary with the OPs main point (although apparently the jargon would have been, erm, instructive as well).
On this page, the profile at
ReplyDeletewww.blogger.com/profile/13330402271110129564
is used by:
* Tenured Educator