the adventures of dr. diana york blaine

Diana,
I felt this article was very relevant to accusations you receive from the "trolls" on your blog. I wondered how you felt about the article (ie, do you agree with the author's view of academic freedom) and I wondered what techniques you used (or have not used) in teaching your classes to avoid indoctrination of your own feminist values. Or do you think the argument is irrelevant to what academic freedom means? I started reading your blog after seeing your interview on msn, and find the controversy at least interesting, if not entirely silly.

Thanks,
Jane

Jane, thanks for asking interesting questions. Stanley Fish, author of the opinion piece you reference, says "There is a world of difference, for example, between surveying the pro and con arguments about the Iraq war, a perfectly appropriate academic assignment, and pressing students to come down on your side."

Well, of course. In my position as writing instructor, I mentor students through all kinds of topics of their choosing, and am as likely to get a pro-Arab paper as I am a pro-Israel one, or a pro-Iraq-war paper as I am an anti-. I have opinions on these topics, as I hope we all do, but they are beside the point when I am helping someone learn to argue persuasively. I've had lots of anti-abortion papers, for example, and am obviously myself adamantly pro-abortion, but that doesn't mean I cannot help someone grow in her skills who is not. (I might add that my opinions on Iraq, Israel, and abortion have all been affected by my education on these topics.)

In the feminist theory class, a more obviously political space which students enter of their own free accord, I give them all kinds of opinions, including my own, based on the scholarship that we read together. Far from silencing them, I base each class entirely on questions about the reading that they submit beforehand so we can talk directly about their opinions. They also regularly hand in short papers in which they are invited to speak freely about their reactions to the topics. These ungraded assignments cast no judgment upon their beliefs whatsoever. What possible good would it do to pretend that we all agree? More importantly, how can I judge someone for being dedicated to compulsory heterosexuality when we live in a society that actively prohibits folks of the same sex from marrying? To be surprised at finding allegiance to discrimination amongst people who grew up in a culture structured by it would not only be unrealistic, but would also belie my own racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.

I also ask them to do a feminist analysis of a media narrative; this is an academic exercise, not a political one. Using theory to explain the mechanics of a text is not the same thing as saying the text itself is necessarily bad. However, now that I have a Feminist epistemology to draw upon, I often find the overtly sexist content of many of our films, ads, and t.v. shows inappropriate. So do many of my students, male and female, once they're educated to understand more fully what they're seeing. Many then use this knowledge to choose to change, as I have and do. One student even told me he was joining the Peace Corps because taking SWMS 301 “caused [him] to care." I can’t help but think that the Liberal Arts education exists to give someone precisely this opportunity.

So since I think feminist ideals could lead to a less violent and chaotic world, why not "indoctrinate" people to my side? Would that I had the ability to “make” everyone kinder to themselves and others! I admit it would be tempting to use such a power. But I don't delude myself into thinking that I can change people, even if that were my job, which it isn't. All I do is provide information--all kinds of it. Students do with that information what they will; I have seen them make all kinds of changes in their lives and beliefs as well as not change their lives and beliefs. They're people. I don't see them as sheep nor do I see them as victims of their education. I think encountering diverse points of view leads to a freer individual, not an enslaved one. No less a light than John Mill shared this belief.

People who attempt to stifle dissent have ideologically-based desires to control the minds of others and force their views on people. Happily, today I am not one of those people. As you note, I don't even delete the incredibly disrespectful posts that some people have left at the site. Let them speak. Even more happily, ideas continue to circulate freely in spite of the pressure to silence those of us indebted to self-determination. Thanks for reading.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBacks (0)

Pledged: The Secret LIfe of Sororities, by Alexandra Robbins (loan from a colleague. I notice our library copy has been stolen.....)*
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker (loan from friend Karen as I was whining to her about finances)
Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond (I LOVE THIS BOOK! The whole world looks different to me now)
One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps (from Rob at Burning Man. See you soon!)
Vanity Fair
Star
National Enquirer
Globe (I started reading these rags decades ago as an escape from my "work" as an English major, which was interpreting wonderful literature. I wanted time off from my studies, and I thought I would not be compelled to think as I read the tabloids as they are so unchallenging and uncomplicated. Of course I ended up analzying their content as well, even publishing an article on their representation of the JonBeney Ramsey case in Sexual Rhetoric : Media Perspectives on Sexuality, Gender, and Identity. Today I read them with ambivalence and see their disappearance on the horizon. But, honestly, not yet. Apparently I have some more evolving to do in this area.)

*as to the "missing" copy of Pledged from our library here at USC, I've got to say in truth this book does not paint a very flattering portrait of sororities and I can see why I would be defensive about it were I in one, but I am also very sorry to see people so afraid of the free exchange of ideas that they would attempt to silence an author simply because they do not like what she says. I gotta tell ya as an outsider, the book's theft makes it seem as if there's something to hide and therefore that the author might be right in her portrayal. If you're secure in who you are what you do, why care what other people say about you? Stealing a book doesn't make you right; it just makes you a thief. Not much character building in that.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow has this been fascinating! As much as people are accusing me of instigating all of this attention, I can only tell the truth, that I never, ever, in a million, jillion years dreamt that anyone would care about those pictures or be interested in seeing them or want to talk about it for months on end. But they do. The hits to my flickr site have topped 700,000. No, seriously. How funny is that? 700,000. I just continue to be amazed--AMAZED--at what's happening.

As I said, there wasn't some master plan: "Hey, I know, I will write an inflammatory editorial and then 6 months later post 3 topless pictures on my flickr site and then make sure that people who hate me find out about my web site and then hope that they get all obsessed with every aspect of my existence and link from the web site to my flickr site and then find those pictures and then tell the whole world and then I will be on the news! Moooo-hoooo-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

I mean really, in terms of a strategy, it's a pretty dicey one. Nonetheless, that's basically what's happened, and I don’t mind, but now I am dealing with being, well, a human Rorschach test. Everybody seems to project onto me whatever she needs to see. Need a crazed feminazi? At your service. Need a hypocritical prude? Here I am. Need an incompetent academic? Right-o. Need an arrogant exhibitionist? C'est moi.

I cannot tell you how fascinating it is to watch these various condemnatory narratives about me spin around in cyberspace. Of course there's also the other versions of me circulating, that I am a woman comfortable in her own skin; working for social justice; owning her own power; resisting sexism; asking valid questions about our values and beliefs; behaving with compassion; showing courage in the face of massive criticism-- of her looks, including her breasts and entire body, as well as her politics, intellect, pedagogy and sanity. (Needless to say I prefer these latter versions of Dr. Diana, and I again thank those of you who have written to tell me I inspire hope. That's all I want to do. Period.)

So anyway a friend sent me a link yesterday to yet another website where folks are holding forth about me and it seems what's become my posse, another topfree teacher and someone who threatened a toddler. Huh? I have no idea what that means—the toddler threatening--or why I am lumped in with her, because honestly I didn't read it. It’s none of my business. But I did skim through the myriad comments about me to see how I am being represented.

As usual, there's the "oh-it's-not-the-topless-photos" disclaimers, which just kill me, because OF COURSE IT IS. What's it feel like to have to talk out of both sides of your mouth? I don't know, because I work really hard on being authentic. My choices are conscious, my belief systems well-scrutinized, my actions examined--by me, I mean, the one person I am answerable to. So I don't have to run around saying one thing and then doing another. I like it this way, and I do wonder what motivates people to have to be so hypocritical. “It's not the topless pictures but let's talk endlessly about them and attack her for her choice to post them to her site.” Sheesh.

Obviously no one wants to cop to being uptight about the pictures because that's just so uncool. We're all educated, sophisticated adults, here, right? We understand the body isn't in and of itself corrupt or fallen or undignified, right? We know that only this culture at this time makes the breasts taboo and then having thus fetishized them operates obsessively to cover up and expose them, right? We know the difference between a commercial sex site and someone's personal construction of self, right? Right, right, right, right, right.

So why does everybody give such a HUGE-normous Flying Flip about those few pixels in the shape of titties? I am glad you asked, because I happen to know the answer.

It's all about control. Of what? Women. Control of the female body. Control of female sexuality. Control, control, control. Oh, it's perfectly fine for Hooters to sponsor the baseball game I went to last night. It's perfectly fine for women paid to dress up as servile objects wearing outfits designed to eroticize their bodies to walk around and hand tee-shirts to little children. It's perfectly fine for everyone to see the female breast deemed a HOOTER, and for that derogatory name to be splashed all over the baseball field and the women's chests and the shirts they are giving away.

Why? Because "Hooters" is a space designed by men, for men, for male pleasure, and thus promotes the control of the female by first turning us into things, reducing us to mammaries, then taking those mammaries away from us and putting them into male--er--hands, as it were. Hooters is all about the male gaze; those young women prancing around in short shorts and tight tee-shirts last night were NOT doing it for their own pleasure. They were doing it for money, for the money controlled by men—who hoard all the resources in this culture in case you haven't noticed.

There's a difference between defining your own eroticism and having it defined for you. There's a difference between being forced to expose yourself for commercial reasons and doing so as a form of expression. There’s a difference between being reduced to a thing and having sexuality integrated into your full identity. These differences are not at all hard to understand, and so I believe firmly that those who pretend to not be able to tell the difference do so because it promotes their ideological agenda, which is nothing short of control of women.

It's not just men who work to control us, of course. Women too work very hard to promulgate a sexist culture. We do so because we are promised a degree of safety and dignity and protection if we do. So it makes sense to be sexist, in a sense, even if you are female and that means you need to be working constantly against your own freedom and sanity and health.

I was one of these women myself until I actually read feminist theory and, thanks to the introduction of all those wonderful ideas no one had ever bothered to teach me in all of my years of education in patriarchal institutions, got the chance to think for myself. Most women don’t have this chance, haven’t read these books, haven’t talked to hundreds of other feminists as I have. So I was not surprised last night while reading that website that attacks me and other women to find that it is written by a woman, nor was I surprised that a number of the respondents were female.

What did get my attention though was what one of them said. Of course she starts off by saying that she doesn't have any problem with pictures like these. (See above for an explanation of why this bizarre disclaimer always comes just before the emission of sexist criticism of their existence.) Then, she goes on to say, she’s got no problem with pictures like these-- as long as they are KEPT IN THE HUSBAND'S WALLET.

To repeat: It’s ok to have pictures like these, as long as they are kept in the husband’s wallet.

No seriously, it says that. So as she sees it, women are allowed to be sexual beings, thanks, and even to create images of ourselves that include nudity and even eroticism, great--as long as these images remain the property of a male. Wait, huh? As long as these images remain the property of a male. Right there in his wallet with all of his other possessions. Reminds me of the commandment about not coveting thy neighbor’s wife, nor servants, nor animals, nor any of that STUFF that belongs to the other man.

Sorry sister. I don't belong to any man. Not at all. I am my own being. Totally and completely. I know it's scary, but you should try it some time. Then you can put pictures of yourself wherever you want. Just expect to catch all kinds of grief from total strangers for daring to have an identity that isn’t defined by male parameters. But you'll be able to handle it, because these selves we forge in the face of resistance are strong and beautiful.

Mazel tov.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey everybody! I am not spending much time at the computer just now, what with it being summer and all. Just got back from Yosemite, off to the beach today after my husband and I deliver Meals on Wheels. But I did want to take a second to thank the hundreds of people who have emailed me in support of my work and my life. I appreciate your kindness beyond words.

And the many men who have written to express regret over the cruel things that other men have posted to my sites just confirms what I have been saying all along: men are fully capable of compassion and humanity. We all need to endorse and encourage and support this type of behavior while continuing to make it clear that male arrogance and entitlement are abhorrent and inappropriate, everywhere at all times, but particularly in a democracy.

A recent study suggests that college men feel that it's uncool to admit they take their education seriously or to appear to care about their lives. Let's work together for a world in which self-care is part of what we call masculinity and not something boys are embarrassed to cultivate. Eliminating male self-loathing can only benefit everyone, both the men who have to live with it and the women and other marginalized groups who bear the hatred projected upon us as guys desperately try to find self-worth in a system that validates them for being cruel. No one who exists solely to put others down can ever love himself or find intimacy with his fellow human beings.

Men have also told me that as long as they don't assault women, they don't see themselves as part of the problem. But that just means they permit an atmosphere of oppression to go by unchallenged. We are all responsible. So when you see someone propagating misogyny, speak up, speak out, say no. It's not ok to call a someone a bitch; it's not ok to make a joke of rape; it's not ok to use racist, sexist, classist or homophobic language.

It's not ok. It's not ok. It's not ok. Find the courage to say so. If I have, so can you. After all, you've got waaaaay more testosterone than I do..... And the life you enhance just might be your own.

Here's a link to the Rita Cosby interview. I am deeply grateful for the chance to spread a message of acceptance and love to a wide audience, even as it was made possible by attempts to humiliate and silence me.

Peace.

Posted by Diana York Blaine at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)