Burn! Burn! Burn!

I really must make the time to sit down and write about AAAS and Atlanta, but I'll leave that until later. (Though there will be a tangential connection here.)

Earlier this week in my Feminist Theory class the discussion turned to the issue of women in elected government positions. For class that day we had read Gwendolyn Mikell's essay "African Feminism: Toward A New Politics of Representation" in McCann and Kim's Feminist Theory Reader. Towards the end of her essay, Mikell cites the positive effect of 45 female civic leaders and 6 parliamentarians having been elected in connection with the successful grassroots movement and consciousness raising among women by Wangari Mathai's Green Belt movement.

Moving from Mikell's discussion, students quickly turned to talking about U.S. electoral politics. My students (the vocal ones, anyway) articulated several positions. The discussion began with the question of whether or not electing females was a sign of tokenism. To this the reaction seemed to be that what matters most is what is (or is not) accomplished once there. Still, it seemed this question of getting into office was still important for folks to think about.

One position students held was that one can't get into office by being "radical" (my term, not theirs), but rather that one often had to be, in fact, more "conservative" (their term) than they might actually be to be elected. Another position was that people in office can do radical things, but only because no one (or at least, not the majority of folks, or anyone of importance) is paying close attention to what they are doing.

It makes (logical) sense why students might feel this way, but I tell you, it was really disheartening to hear them say it out loud and not equally hear how unfortunate it is that things might be/are this way. I suddenly flashed to a shroud of surrender and compromise (not the good kind that involves discussion and negotiation, but rather more along the lines of defeated complicity), and felt momentary defeat.

I should have questioned why it is we accept this way of thinking.
I should have asked them to evaluate the "gains" following this ideology has gotten us, and what their "costs" have been.
I should have challenged the ways they help maintain the electoral system's preference for "conservatives" in accepting this "logic."

I should have jumped up and down yelling how we must not accept this way of thinking!



What did happen, though, was that my resolve to examine the ways in which I've subjected myself to such defeatist thinking and compromised myself/spirit/soul was renewed.

While in Atlanta, I saw the following quotablecard and was instantly drawn to it...



To those mad and burning in my life--may we continue to be mad and burn for as long as we can--living hard, and in so doing, living well.