Inactivity and Feminist "Baggage"

[Shannon Carter]

Just a couple of things:

On lulls in this list--
I'm on three dicussion-based lists (the others are things like CFP), but it
is the postings to THIS list that are most interesting, useful, and
provacative to me. V-Woolf and the narrotology listserv are well
established, and often quite interesting, but there seem to be a lot of
students using the list instead of a library and scholars patting each other
on the back for jobs well done. I have yet to see such "empty" postings on
GALA.

I have also never seen a list and organization built, and I am absolutly
thrilled to be allowed to be part of that process. Keep it democratic and
keep it slow. The GALA postings thus far have introduced me to a
groundbreaking group with TRUE intellectual curiousity about the ways in
which gender informs language and vice versa.

On the vote--
 "15 people care enough to think and vote?) of people aren't voting on the
issues, this implies to me that people are either apathetic or extremely
trusting that we're all in agreement."
Ok, I'm guilty. I didn't "care enough to think and vote." But that was VERY
early in the list's life. I joined right in the middle and was really not
sure what sort of organization I was hoping for. I suspect there are others
out there that feel the same. The postings since are from participants that
are far from "apathetic" or "in agreement." That's the fun of the group. I
think a later vote will yeild a better turnout.

On the "Feminist" label--
I certainly appreciate Alice's definition of femininsm (I'd cut and paste it
here, but I'm experiencing a bit of technophobia:)), but I have to agree
with Kenneth that DESPITE the work of many fine feminist scholars who work
towards the "theoretical and practical" goals we keep going back to (goals I
whole heartedly support), "feminism" carries with it some baggage I don't
thing we want to bring aboard.

I would really like for GALA to be an organization that places academic
rigor before our social agendas. I certainly don't mean to imply that we do
not have social concerns here: we most certainly do! But we, I hope, should
be an organization devoted to the epistomological dimensions of langauge as
it effects gender and vice versa: language as it shapes who we are, who we
are as we shape language, and how these investigations might predict (or
instigate) a more humane relationship between language and gender. This is
what I mean when I say that the academic rigor ("langauge as it shapes who
we are and who we are as we shape language") should be placed before social
agenda ("predict or insigage a more humane relationship between langauge and
gender").

What 'cha think?


Shannon Carter
Texas Woman's University
(940)898-2341
http://venus.twu.edu/~g_2carter/
s-carter at excite.com




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