On Prefixes, Priorites, and Breast Milk

I am an affiliate of the Women's Studies program here. There is no actual major in Women's Studies, just a program, and I am grateful that we have that. 

Apparently the state's higher board of education want our university and the other university to have the same prefix for their programs to make it easier to transfer credits. I get it. This is one of those little annoying things that isn't a big deal until you find yourself dealing with people's mistakes too much of the time. Go ahead--change the program name and/or the prefix. Let's move on.

Move on? But no. No, no, no, no, no. We can't just get it done and move on, because academics are a bunch of narcissistic crybabies. Not all of them, but too many of them.

Narcissistic crybabies. There, I said it.

I don't go to the Women's Studies meetings because it seems like a lot of drama. I feel bad about not attending, but there are a handful of people that really get under my skin who faithfully attend and I only have so much patience. I try to save it for my child :)

There is an awful lot of mental masturbation (i.e. big words that serve no more function than smaller words, theorizing for the sake of theorizing, using hard-to-understand, insider terminology) going on in this department. My friend C calls it academic masturbation. I think academic masturbators are just subsets of mental masturbators. My ex-husband was an MM, but not in the academic category. He was a music snob MM. Like High Fidelity, but way more "underground."


My friend, K, is a member of the Women's studies curriculum committee. Regarding the meetings about name changes: Oh my god. There was pointing and yelling and crying and all sorts of drama.

Narcissistic crybabies. I told you.

K then went on to say that she must be a bad feminist, because she just didn't care that much about the prefix--she wanted to get on with other challenges and problems in the curriculum.

The thing is, I totally understand why this kind of thing matters. They are currently debating two options to rename the program: Women and Gender Studies vs. Gender and Women's Studies. I find the second-wave feminists favor the first option and third-wave/queer theorists want the second. So while the some of them are duking it out, there are others (4th wave pragmatists?) who are like, um, hey, uh, we just need to get this done so we can move on to important shit.


Personally, I prefer the first option: Women and Gender Studies. I think it's important to include both Women and Gender in the title, but I think Women should come first, if for no reason other than to pay homage to those early programs that were hard to start and controversial. In this regard, I agree with the 2nd-wavers. If women will be subsumed under "Gender," then you might was well just take "Women" out of the name.

Yes, I have an opinion. But at the end of the day, I'll go with any of the options as long as we still have a program and funds to expand. I'm nauseated that this kind of thing is taking up so much time. Let's celebrate that we have a program that needs a name and that we have freedom to bicker about this bullshit. And then move on.

Because seriously, stuff like this is happening, and once again, women are being chastised for daring to assert that they know what is best for their children, even though they are in agreement with the recommendations from the World Health Organization. The overarching message is that women are too irresponsible to be able to care for their children appropriately. The overarching message is that women are really just children, after all. They can create life, but are obviously too feeble-minded to figure out how to boil milk. Obviously, we shouldn't trust them to cook meat to a proper temperature either. Those dirty, weak, imbeciles can't be trusted.

I'd rather put my time and effort into political action like this. This is where academic feminists should be putting their time and energy. The Eats on Feets "movement" didn't initially set out to be political; it has, of course, become political. Anytime women assert control over their bodies, it becomes political. There is always backlash. The medical-pharmaceutical-agricultural-industrial complex always knows best.

This woman started the first Facebook page. She is simply amazing, and I feel honored to know her:

"I'm not saying we need to discount possible concerns because they are real and legitimate," said Walker. "But women are smart enough to figure these things out."

Amen to that.