Education

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A review of the comps essay

I’ve come to the conclusion — which I shall not be officially sharing with my school — that the comprehensive essays are inefficient for demonstrating comprehension. They are effectively a 50 page essay (not including the title page or Bibliography) in which you discuss the books you choose for a particular subject, such as my…

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The perils of ivory tower indecisiveness when studying misogyny, pt. 3

So yes, this book is one of the most horribly self-righteous homilies on how the poor, emotionally tragically sad, snoogie-woogums-needing men are suffering SO MUCH!! by all that abuse they’re foisting on the women! It’s not that they actually want to dominate or anything, right? — though Gilmore has apparently forgotten some shockingly honest Indian…

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The perils of ivory tower indecisiveness when studying misogyny, pt. 2

Weirdly, Gilmore also seems to be completely blind to any understanding of the concept of “patriarchy,” to the point that he repeatedly enthuses about how there’s no unifying external element in misogyny. But good modern research has shown us that every patriarchal culture we’re aware of mandates the creation of, first: strongly separated gender roles,…

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The perils of ivory tower indecisiveness when studying misogyny, pt. 1

First, an apology for starting two separate posting threads here, and then getting distracted with midterm schoolwork. Now the paper is handed in, I’ll be getting those done soon, I promise. Second, fair warning: this blog entry is going to be a rant — a very ranty rant! — that will get it out of…

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What is humankind’s “worst discovery” ever? part 1

A common assumption I’ve frequently read is that the “worst discovery” made by humankind was agriculture, in that it taught men (not humans) the concept of property. The rather androcentric theorizing seems to be that once men conceptualize food as property which can be hoarded away despite the needs of others, it’s invariably a short…

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Women & World Religions comps booklist, take II

This has been a very strange semester so far, and I’m less than a week in. Amongst other things, my Women & World Religions comps essay prof did another review of my bibliography, and suggested some changes. I found this odd for two reasons: 1) I thought we’d agreed on the official booklist at the…

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A wonderful revelation: we can “undo” destructive gender roles!

Ecofeminism is a powerful means to accomplish the goal of a more peaceful, prosperous, and socially just world. Unsurprisingly, entrenched blocks to its implementation exist within the modern social order due to its excesses of hierarchical capitalism and masculinism. Thus one of the most methodologically exciting works of this subsection is an analysis of how…

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Wandering Thoughts on Feminism

Because of the field of study I’m in, the definition of the word feminism is of powerful personal importance. I’m always faintly surprised at the astonishingly ridiculous I sometimes hear regarding feminism, too: things like the movement is full of sexually frustrated lesbians, or it’s embarrassing to be associated with such a (supposedly) retrograde social…

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“We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For”: a book review, part 3

It was my unwittingly noticing this damaging issue — the fear and/or greed which underlies bigotry and violent interpersonal aggression — which caused my first faint, initial attempts at bringing down my internal walls: I slowly became aware of “what has happened in many parts of the world where knowledge is kept secret from the…