The women studies doctoral program at the University of Washington has got a brand new chair - Professor David Allen - a first among women's studies depts with PhD programs (Joshua Gamson headed up Yale's women's studies program a while back, and he was the first - although one of the commentors on BitchPhD says that they changed that program's name to "gender studies" prior to his appointment).
His credentials are unquestionable. Allen has a history with the second wave women's movement, studied sexism in the health-care industry, worked as a nurse (about which he said, "What I experienced in that role was largely male privilege, like getting deferred to when I shouldn't have...I didn't get the same level of grief about things as my female colleagues did."), he's a prof in the University's school of nursing and was head of the department of psychosocial and community health, as well as an adjunct with women's studies. In fact, he's taught women's studies courses for the last 15 years, and has a specialization in feminist research methods.
He has a longstanding history with/in feminist scholarship; he is committed.
Committed. That's a key word here, I think. Committed meaning he's devoted his now-multiple careers to doing feminist work. His methods would, after all these years utilizing them, be feminist by reflex. He did the time, knows the material, and not only "supports" it (a phrase I've never personally been comfortable with, there's an air of icky condescension that surrounds it), but employs them.
He also knows that his posting makes a lot of people very uncomfortable:
"It's not so much risky for me individually as it is politically. One way to interpret this is, 'Here's yet another white guy claiming to have expertise over women,' " he said. "Another position is that relatively few women hold administrative positions, so why on earth would the university make it worse by appointing a man to a women-studies program?"
Which makes sense. Dude was appointed by David Hodge, the Dean of the U's arts and sciences program who said that he wanted a full professor in the role (and that left most of the existing faculty out of the running). He also has mega-management experience, having lead departments predominantly staffed by women in the past. He's going to be making $103,000 a year. He's also, in the final instance, a white, heterosexual man who's the boss of women in a field that "they" struggled - and continue to fight - to keep above water in the larger space of the academy.
Yes, some men do. Yes, most men don't. Even the so-called "sensitive" ones.
3 comments:
In a world rife with 'retrosexism' and the idea that somehow feminists are a branch off of the (sometimes silly) 'politically correct' ideological movement--ie. a manufactured and management based response to fight oppression...and we all know where managerial/committee crap can get us) breaking news items such as this give pause to cautious celebration. I too am tired of the oft asked questions surrounding men and feminism. I'm tired of hearing from fellas (after repeating yet another nauseatingly sexist tale) that, they 'won't call themselves feminist because that will take away from the overall movement' but, that I should keep in mind that their grand-mothers/mothers/aunties/cousins-in-law are feminists and therefore they have an 'in' into what feminism is and is not and that I can learn from them. Hmmm...well, I do learn. More and more. And desire more things to celebrate (even if it's with a pinch of salt).
Gosh, there’s so much I could say about this…! It’s interesting to see what’s going on over ‘the pond’ from my position in the UK. From a personal position and in the terms outlined here, I’m a male academic who is committed to feminist politics, methodologies and pedagogies (and, I should add, the feminist ‘everyday’ too). In the UK context I’m rather rare, perhaps because so many people have a problem with the connection between the political and the personal – surely this should be rather obvious by now? In many ways I’m drawn to the way ‘commitment’ is used here, but I have to say that, for myself, there is another realm that is just as important – the emotional. I agree that it’s far past the time we were debating whether or not men can be feminist (er, hello?) and started to get off our behinds and work consciously and diligently toward integrating more feminist approaches to our multiple practices. What we’ll come up against is a tangled mass of emotional resistance, and I know this from my own subjectivity and interactions with other men. What I mean by this is that commitment has a cognitivist ring to it. I don’t mean that in a pejorative way at all because I think it’s absolutely right that commitment can be brought about by relentless activism and integration – politics would be pretty tough, if not impossible, otherwise. It’s just that there are strongly influential unconscious resistances to such changes that must also be considered – heavy emotional investments that might be little understood or hitherto deconstructed, but which are culturally and structurally reinforced and supported, and psychically defended on a daily basis. I realise that this argument requires a great deal of explanation! But when ‘differences that make a difference’ are deeply subjectively embedded, this has to be taken into account when thinking about how commitment can be achieved more widely, which is certainly a vital goal.
Committed. In thinking on this, I'm tempted to paraphrase Trotsky: you may not be interested in patriarchy, but patriarchy is interested as hell in you.
As a feminist dude, I've felt compelled to respond to this post but I've struggled with how to articulate my response and debated my right (and my ability) to respond.
I've often questioned my own commitment 'cause I know that ultimately I--and all men--can walk away; we draw net benefits from patriarchy. For a decade now I've secretly feared that my ability to give up and 'pass' inherently invalidates my commitment (whether or not I decide to grab that particular brass ring). I still haven't resolved that.
For me, commitment means moving beyond analysis and beyond proselytizing to action: feminists are do-ers, they're activists in the most literal sense of that word. I don't cherry-pick my collisions with patriarchy. By defining (and re-defining and adjusting and modifying) a feminist mandate for myself and cleaving to it, I'm inevitably going to find myself in one situation after another (after another after another after another arrrghh) where I have to fight, whether I want to or not. It's part of who I am and I can no more ignore the reflex to fight than I can ignore the impulse to curse when I cut myself.
Your use of the terms "reflex" and "integrate" are especially useful and telling, I think. A good definition of "integrity" (as the virtue) is the integration of one's thoughts, words and deeds into a harmonious, intact whole. In other words, you act in tandem with your words, which are honest expressions of your thoughts. "Reflex" suggests an instinctive quality, a gut reaction. Together they speak to "commitment" as a holistic adoption of feminist praxis that manifests itself in a de facto way: you are a feminist, so you do feminism.
Feminism also means constantly checking yourself and being willing to accept criticism; none of us are perfect in our activism. It's hard, but sucking it up and listening is one of most important things a feminist can do, I think. Especially as a dude.
Finally, embracing feminism and commiting to it means rejecting patriarchy. This sounds like a no-brainer, I know--but bear with me. It wasn't enough for Luke to learn meditation techniques, memorize Zen koans and do yoga six hours a day; he had to reject hate and forgive Vader. Likewise, becoming a feminist man means actively disarming oneself--and that's pretty fucking hard. The society I live in seems to spend every waking minute girding me with all sorts of weapons to oppress, dismiss, undermine, devalue and generally dehumanize women.
Ammond Hennessy was a Catholic anarchist, pacifist draftdodger in two world wars, tax refuser, and vegetarian. He was born just before the turn of the century and died in 1970. He ran a halfway house for broken men: veterans of absurd wars, ex-cons, tramps, bums... severely damaged men. He used to say to them (in describing the pacifism he knew was their only salvation):
"You were born a white man in mid-20th century industrial America. You came into the world armed to the teeth with an arsenal of weapons... the weapons of privilege: economic privilege, racial privilege, sexual privilege. You want to be a pacifist, you are not just going to lay down knives and guns and fists and angry words, you are going to have to lay down the weapons of privilege and go into the world completely disarmed."
For me, that's a big part of being a feminist dude.
Feminism is the second greatest commitment of my life,
The first tier of activism,
And the best part of anti-oppressive practices.
Post a Comment