Journals, and the stories of Djamila, Beth, and Julia Ann

I'm back in the office, feeling a little stiff but otherwise fine.

I've been busy reading my final batch of journals from my women's history class.  I've assigned journals since I began teaching the course a decade ago, and have found them to be immensely useful.  (In the old days, I assigned four or five entries a week; now I assign only two.  Oh, how our standards grow more lax!) As I read the journals, I'm awed -- as I always am -- by the extraordinary diversity of my students' lives. 

This semester, I had a crowded class: 39 women and 4 men.  (Some years, I have had more male students; my record high was 10, my record low was 1.)  The women range in age from mid-teens (I have one high school student in class) to mid-forties. (My record on the high end was a woman in her seventies, who headed back to college after being widowed, and immediately enrolled in a women's studies class.  Sheesh, did she bring a lot to the table.)

Ethnically, these 39 women and 4 men represent are extraordinarily diverse.  About a third are American-born "whites" (which is higher than the campus average of less than 20%).  In addition to native-born Latino/as and Asians, I've got students from Mexico, Armenia, the Philippines, El Salvador, South Korea, Poland, China, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.  I've got a couple of African-American students as well.

What this means is that our classroom discussions are often extraordinarily revelatory for many of my students!  For example, at the end of the semester, I always ask my students to tell me what lecture or topic was most memorable to them.  This term, almost a third of the women in the class wrote entries about my lecture on the intersection of tampons and cultural history.  One young woman (from El Salvador) wrote:

"Until your class, I thought tampons were designed only for women who had given birth.  That's what my mother told me when she explained why I should never use them.  I'm amazed that it took me until I was 20 to know different."

Another student, a blue-eyed Southern California native, wrote on the same subject:

"I couldn't believe it when you said that some cultures believed tampons took your virginity.  My mom gave me tampons when I was twelve.  I wouldn't have believed you, Hugo, if other girls in the class hadn't said you were right.  It's so amazing to me how my culture blinds me to how other women my own age were raised.  I still have a hard time not judging cultures that I think keep women ignorant about their bodies, but I've learned to be better about watching what I say."

In my early years of teaching this course, I often let class discussions get out of hand.  In 1996, I foolishly allowed an abortion debate to take place (after realizing how divided my class was on the issue.)   It ended in tears and in several students walking out.  I made a huge mistake by emphasizing debate (which wasn't healthy) over the sharing of experiences and values (which is).  In discussion, I don't allow my students to criticize one another's sexual choices, and I don't allow them to demean other cultural perspectives.  That sounds easy enough, like PC pablum, but when discussing issues that hit so close to home for almost all of us, it's often very difficult to enforce.

It's at moments like this that I can't imagine teaching anywhere other than a community college in an urban area!  I think back over the students I've had in my women's studies classes over the years who've taught me so very much about what true diversity is.  Each year, I meet new students who force me to reconsider my own beliefs, and who challenge their classmates to become both more aware and more compassionate.

I think of Djamila, a young Pakistani-American Muslim woman who took my course in spring 2002, less than six months after 9/11.  She wore a head scarf, and called herself a proud feminist.  She wanted to be a civil rights lawyer (before 9/11, she had wanted to be an OB/GYN!) She talked with her classmates about reconciling feminism and Islam, she talked about modesty and sexuality and faith; she was the former student who last year sent me a link to Mohja Kahf's Sex and the Umma blog at Muslim Wakeup.  I had many other students in the class write entries about what they learned from Djamila.

I think of Beth, who took my class in 2001.  Beth was engaged to be married to a young pastor the semester she took my class.  A vivacious, thoughtful, extroverted and attractive young woman, Beth was, in her words to the class one day, "24 and never been kissed."  Her own belief about sexuality was quite strict; she'd been raised in a Fundamental Baptist home.  She had no problems calling herself a feminist, but she also wanted to wait until her wedding day to have her first kiss.  Because she was willing to do so, she sat with a group of gals from the course for an hour after class one day, talking with them about her own sexual ethics, about her plans for the future, about her faith, and of course, about her feminism.  She had no intention of staying at home after she was married, mind you; her belief that all physical intimacy of any kind should be confined within marriage was linked to her own desire to be a high school teacher and sports coach.  (She was a fine athlete).  Many students wrote about how challenged they had been -- in  a good way -- by Beth.  Two weeks after the semester ended, I went to Beth's wedding.

And then there was Julia Ann, who took my class back in 1998.  Julia Ann is her real first and middle name, and she was and is a fairly well-known porn star.  You can "google" her name if you like, but the content you will find is decidedly adult, hence, no link. I'm comfortable using her real name (Djamila and Beth are pseudonyms) because Julia Ann is a public figure who has been open not only about her sexuality and her profession, but about her return to college in the late 1990s.   I did not know who she was (not ever having been up on the big names of porn), but a couple of weeks into my class, she came to talk to me in office hours and talk about her career.   She was enjoying the class immensely, she said, but wanted to know when and if the subject of porn was going to come up; she was concerned that I might take a hard, inflexible, "anti-porn" line.  I told her it would come up later in the semester, and asked her if she'd feel comfortable talking to the class about her experiences.  She said she'd think about it,as (quite understandably) she rather enjoyed the anonymity that came with sitting in class in sweats and a ball cap, just another (very bright and talkative) student.

Eventually, there came a day when she did "open up" to the class.  It came spontaneously, taking even me by surprise.  She was gentle and warm and funny; she talked about the risks and rewards of her profession.  She called herself a passionate feminist.  She assured her classmates that she wasn't "recruiting" anyone, that indeed, she thought it was a rare woman who, in her words, was in the right place emotionally and physically to do the work she did.  Many of the students didn't know what to say, and a few looked disgusted, but I'm happy to say that many of them did talk with her at length and ask her thoughtful, interesting, appropriate questions.  I got many journal entries about Julia Ann that semester!

I'm so grateful for the Djamilas, the Beths, and the Julia Anns I've had in class. They were atypical students, of course, but in the ethnically, chronologically, economically, religiously, and sexually diverse student body we have here in the community college, I don't know what a "typical" student looks like.  Though my women's history course is first and foremost that, an opportunity to focus on women's history, it is also a forum in which to learn about the many faces of feminism.  Perhaps it's because I'm embued with kneejerk liberalism, but I've generally been insistent that feminism (or pro-feminism) is, ultimately, a label each person must choose for herself or himself.  It's a big enough label to encompass a Djamila, a Beth, and a Julia, even though some of my readers might wish to exclude one, two, or all three of these exceptional young women from the ranks of those who may rightly be called by that term.  But these three women -- and countless others like them whom I've met in ten years of teaching this course -- have taught me what it means to live out an authentic feminist life.  Best of all, they've taught their classmates.  I've been so grateful for the opportunity to witness all of that.

Comments

[cmc]

I can't imagine thinking that a woman's sexual choices (modesty, chastity, or lack thereof) could possibly disqualify her from being a feminist. The real question is whether she views herself as subject or subordinate to men, or limited solely because of her gender. For example, if Beth believes that her sexual standards are not equally applicable to men, then I would probably consider her beliefs unfeminist; but a belief in chastity in itself is not unfeminist.

[Hugo]

Oh, Beth was very clear that both sexes were called to what she called "holiness." After all, she expected her fiance to be faithful, and if she wasn't going to kiss him, he wouldn't be "getting any more" than she was...

[djw]

In discussion, I don't allow my students to criticize one another's sexual choices, and I don't allow them to demean other cultural perspectives.

Interesting contrast: As I type, my "Political Theory of Human Rights" students are scribbling away on their final exams. In this course, I've had to work pretty hard to get students to even consider some of the good reasons for criticizing other people's cultures when it comes to some of the worst Human Rights violations. Including--even especially--feminists. I didn't think much of Susan Moller Okin's "Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women?" essay when it first came out, thinking it overemphasized tensions unnecessarily. Now I'm rethinking that.

Anyway, always nice to hear your musings on teaching. I try so hard to keep things at an analytical level, so I often shake my head in amazement at your strategies. I don't think I could pull it off.

[djw]

I should add, of course, that I don't want them to "demean" cultures, obviously. I just find they are sometimes so careful not demeaning other cultures that they don't want to take seriously non-prima facie demeaning arguments that (for human rights, for example) would lead them to criticize other cultures, or (more accurately) some aspects of those cultures.

[Hugo]

And every year, I keep thinking, "Darn, I really need to give these kids more theory." It's interesting; I don't seem to have as much of a problem these days with radical relativism as I did a while ago... that's a blessing.

[IT]

Apologies if this duplicates: computer weirdness.

You have summed up the pleasure, challenge, and joy of featchin. If we learn from our students, we have taught them well.

This poem by Guillaume Apollainaire sums it up for me:

Come to the edge, he said
They said, we are afrad
Come to the edge, he said
They came
He pushed them
And they flew.

[ianvh]

Just a little curious Hugo,
Do you find that you have more men in your Women's Studies classes than the ones taught by your female colleagues? If so, do you think that they find it 'safer' to have a male professor? If my school offered it, I think I would probably be a gender/women's studies major, alas they don't. But I've noticed that you are the only male professor teaching such an explicitly women's studies course.
ian.v.h.

[Hugo]

Some semesters, Ian, I have more guys than my colleagues; others, it's about the same. Overall, every one of us who teaches women's history rarely has more than a handful of fellas. Honestly, I've always been disappointed with how few men take my course, but it was the same way back when I was a student in women's studies classes.

I think it's the subject, more than the gender of the teacher, that leaves so many guys leery.

[Amanda]

Unfortunately for the feminists pro-chastity argument, women who have touted it to me have had no luck whatsoever finding a man who agrees with them. Every woman I know who waited for marriage married a non-virgin in the end, some with very extensive sexual histories.

[cmc]

In response to Amanda's comment, I think there is an important difference between choosing to be chaste because one believes it is the right thing to do and being more successful at it than men, and choosing to be chaste because of a double standard that requires chastity of men and not women. The old double standard hurts all women on a number of different levels.

[mythago]

cmc, I believe Amanda's point was that those women do not or cannot find men who share that viewpoint--that is, men who *also* believe they, themselves, should admire and adhere to the standard of chastity she does. Unless we're referring to victims of sexual abuse, that's not a matter of 'being succesful,' as though chastity were a slot machine or a sport where you can win or lose. It's a choice.

[Hugo]

Amanda, I think you may be right -- outside of certain pockets of religiously conservative culture. I know a couple of guys who were virgins on their wedding nights (or claim to be, and I have no reason to distrust them) -- but it was faith that held them back, not a romantic notion of "waiting."

[ianvh]

Hugo: I agree with you, and I think that it is the subject. I also think that the naming is very important--I think that men would be more likely to take a gender studies course than a women's studies one. I'm a cocnstant reader of your blog (though only an occasional commenter) and I know that if I lived in the Pasadena area I would take all of your courses :D Alas, Canada is quite a distance....

Amanda: I am living evidence of a man who values chastity. Yes, it is due to my religious beliefs, but my religious beliefs are grounded into what I believe is best for me. I don't think that I will go as far as Beth (I'll probably want to kiss my wife before our wedding day). However, I definitely do NOT want to have sex with anyone before I'm married (and once were married, just with my wife, thank you.) However, the past is much less important than the present, and if either of us has made mistakes in the past, they can be forgiven and (hopefully) forgotten. (Something I'm sure Hugo can attest to.)

[Hugo]

Can indeed, brother, amen. Except, I don't know about forgotten. I always like what AA says about this; in recovery, "We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it." It's over, it's done with, but it's not entirely forgotten. My past is often a resource for working with others. But I'm with you on the forgiveness, Ian; thanks for the nice words.

[ianvh]

Amanda, I think you may be right -- outside of certain pockets of religiously conservative culture. I know a couple of guys who were virgins on their wedding nights (or claim to be, and I have no reason to distrust them) -- but it was faith that held them back, not a romantic notion of "waiting."

I am one of those guys, and many of my friends are the same. I believe that it for the reason of faith, but alongside with that most of my male friends mix in the romantic as well. There's lots of talk of "on my wedding night..." or "I just can't wait to get married...."
The bizarre part of that is that, when compared to when guys in mainstream society talk of their sexual experiences (for example, the stereotypical high school male lockerroom), I think that the conversations are almost identical, except for my conservative Christian brothers look to their future, wheras other men are talking about their past.

[Amanda]

I figured there were some men, ianvh, but it's pretty rare. And it's not a matter of "failing" in their husbands, I'm afraid. Their husbands uniformly thought it nifty they got a virgin bride, and while they were willing to abstain while dating that particular woman, they saw no need to do so otherwise.

[jpjeffrey]

I made a huge mistake by emphasizing debate (which wasn't healthy) over the sharing of experiences and values (which is).

Why isn't debate healthy...? Perhaps it's not healthy if it completely ignores the sharing of experiences and values, but why would it have to?

[Hugo]

I don't think debate is always unhealthy. I think in a course on women's history, debating an issue like abortion, no matter what the ground rules, is likely to be an unproductive experience. My concern is not to get students to defend their positions; my concern is to get students to be sensitive to the beliefs of others who hold radically different views.

[djw]

Right. In a course like, say, philosophy or political theory, where students would be focusing more on making analytic arguments than exploring their personal history, a debate would be appropriate, I think.

[mythago]

My concern is not to get students to defend their positions; my concern is to get students to be sensitive to the beliefs of others who hold radically different views.

What about getting students to evaluate their own beliefs? It's much harder (yet more thoughtful and rewarding) to say "Am I right?" rather than tell others they're wrong.

ianvh, I don't think Amanda was trying to say you do not exist--only that you're much rarer than the female version, and there very much does seem to be a double standard, where it's more forgiveable for a man not to have waited for the One.

[jpjeffrey]

I think I understand what you're saying, Hugo, and when you have limited resources (i.e. only so much time with a class), you have to choose where you want to place your emphasis. I just think that, given the whole relationship between the personal and the political stuff that feminism brings to the fore, it seems sort of silly to talk about, say, the *history* of abortion rights without debating abortion somewhat.

Put more starkly, seems to me a course in women's history that didn't involve at least some debate about abortion rights would be sort of missing something...

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