extemporally (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
extemporally) wrote2011-07-12 05:56 pm
extemporally) wrote2011-07-12 05:56 pm
(no subject)
1. You know what is cool? The UN Progress of the World's Women report is cool.
2. I am SO PISSED OFF that no one ever told me that the rule of law was gender-relevant. Fail, Oxford.
3. This ties in to a larger problem with the Oxford law syllabus, insomuch as it's completely restrictive. I don't get subject options until third year (a lot of law courses in other universities open options up as early as second year), and only then do I get two optional subjects. Meanwhile the compulsory subjects are: criminal law, constitutional law, roman law, contract, tort, land law, administrative law, trusts, and jurisprudence.
3a. Even within these subjects, we're not encouraged to examine the social justice implications of certain topics - maybe I'm just being obtuse here, but seriously, I had no idea you could consider the rule of law from a gendered point of view. It's highly likely i would have been more invested in the concept had I not been encouraged to read Wade's "The Rule of Law: revolution or evolution?" (Correct answer: who the fuck cares?) as my main text.
3b. This isn't an, um, concern limited to the law degree - someone who studies English was also complaining to me about her lack of options, that she found the fact that the bulk of her degree was pre-sixteenth century texts oppressive. Of course, this should have been self-evident - you go to Oxford! Of course your course is going to be traditional! etc. but to put a more cynical face on it, nothing (unless it's a cambridge degree) offers the amount of prestigious heft a degree from Oxford gives you. So quite often the choice is between prestige and flexibility, and I don't think that's a choice that even should have to be made.
3c. It's just frustrating how intellectually limiting this is. In Oxford there's obviously a huge resistance to doing that which is perceived as "trendy" - and to a large extent I can understand how that is, if what you're offering is knowledge that lasts down the ages. But there's also a kind of arrogance in the refusal to engage with prevailing academic trends, to refuse to cover the kind of ideas that are sweeping the rest of the academic world. plus the fact that gender mainstreaming and racial perspectives are kind of, oh, important, especially given that Oxford is so desperate to escape the kind of public schoolboy image that it's consistently beleaguered by.
4. On a whole other tangent: recently I've been thinking about Sunera Thobani's speech, the one where she said: "The radicalism of the women’s movements in the Third World have to start taking over the dying movements in the First World." Like I said to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goshemily, I'm not so sure about "dying movements" (I actually think that in developed countries, feminism is on the cusp of a new wave) in the 'first world' (imho that terminology, and the dichotomy implied therein, is kind of problematic), but also: yes. Because it is not just ethnocentric as hell, but damaging to feminism, to label it a Western construct. Because you know which country has the highest percentage of female parliamentarians in the world? It's Rwanda. Which has, btw, implemented a whole host of gender-progressive reforms since and in 2008 took a statue of a woman with a baby on her hip and a water jug on her head in down from its former position in the town centre and replaced it with another statue of a woman, water jug gone, walking along with a little boy alongside her. Indonesia's feminist journal Jurnal Perempuan is flourishing and in Afghanistan Noorjahan Akhbar is organizing street-level movements. That is the face of the worldwide women's movement.
tl;dr I am tired of being presented with institutionally biased representations of what constitutes the women's movement. a) it is worldwide and b) maybe it should be led by those in developing countries where, yes, there are more basic struggles to work through (struggles which were by and large won in Western countries years ago) but also as a result more energy and optimism.
4a. There's a whole other rant here about cultural relativism that I won't go into because I haven't thought about it properly yet.
5. re 3: I think I've just come up with a new reason for not studying. Go me!
6. All these thoughts have been percolating as a result of having to compile my organization's daily news feed twice a week. This may seem obvious, but searching for 'gender' under google news is both unbelievably depressing and incredibly uplifting.
6a. Oldie but goodie: women run the show in a recovering rwanda
6b. india suffers poor implementation of gender laws
6c. unique chance for south sudan to herald gender rights
7. ONE DAY, I am going to talk at length about something that does not fall under the tenuous label of 'social justice'. Carry on, internet!
2. I am SO PISSED OFF that no one ever told me that the rule of law was gender-relevant. Fail, Oxford.
3. This ties in to a larger problem with the Oxford law syllabus, insomuch as it's completely restrictive. I don't get subject options until third year (a lot of law courses in other universities open options up as early as second year), and only then do I get two optional subjects. Meanwhile the compulsory subjects are: criminal law, constitutional law, roman law, contract, tort, land law, administrative law, trusts, and jurisprudence.
3a. Even within these subjects, we're not encouraged to examine the social justice implications of certain topics - maybe I'm just being obtuse here, but seriously, I had no idea you could consider the rule of law from a gendered point of view. It's highly likely i would have been more invested in the concept had I not been encouraged to read Wade's "The Rule of Law: revolution or evolution?" (Correct answer: who the fuck cares?) as my main text.
3b. This isn't an, um, concern limited to the law degree - someone who studies English was also complaining to me about her lack of options, that she found the fact that the bulk of her degree was pre-sixteenth century texts oppressive. Of course, this should have been self-evident - you go to Oxford! Of course your course is going to be traditional! etc. but to put a more cynical face on it, nothing (unless it's a cambridge degree) offers the amount of prestigious heft a degree from Oxford gives you. So quite often the choice is between prestige and flexibility, and I don't think that's a choice that even should have to be made.
3c. It's just frustrating how intellectually limiting this is. In Oxford there's obviously a huge resistance to doing that which is perceived as "trendy" - and to a large extent I can understand how that is, if what you're offering is knowledge that lasts down the ages. But there's also a kind of arrogance in the refusal to engage with prevailing academic trends, to refuse to cover the kind of ideas that are sweeping the rest of the academic world. plus the fact that gender mainstreaming and racial perspectives are kind of, oh, important, especially given that Oxford is so desperate to escape the kind of public schoolboy image that it's consistently beleaguered by.
4. On a whole other tangent: recently I've been thinking about Sunera Thobani's speech, the one where she said: "The radicalism of the women’s movements in the Third World have to start taking over the dying movements in the First World." Like I said to
goshemily, I'm not so sure about "dying movements" (I actually think that in developed countries, feminism is on the cusp of a new wave) in the 'first world' (imho that terminology, and the dichotomy implied therein, is kind of problematic), but also: yes. Because it is not just ethnocentric as hell, but damaging to feminism, to label it a Western construct. Because you know which country has the highest percentage of female parliamentarians in the world? It's Rwanda. Which has, btw, implemented a whole host of gender-progressive reforms since and in 2008 took a statue of a woman with a baby on her hip and a water jug on her head in down from its former position in the town centre and replaced it with another statue of a woman, water jug gone, walking along with a little boy alongside her. Indonesia's feminist journal Jurnal Perempuan is flourishing and in Afghanistan Noorjahan Akhbar is organizing street-level movements. That is the face of the worldwide women's movement.tl;dr I am tired of being presented with institutionally biased representations of what constitutes the women's movement. a) it is worldwide and b) maybe it should be led by those in developing countries where, yes, there are more basic struggles to work through (struggles which were by and large won in Western countries years ago) but also as a result more energy and optimism.
4a. There's a whole other rant here about cultural relativism that I won't go into because I haven't thought about it properly yet.
5. re 3: I think I've just come up with a new reason for not studying. Go me!
6. All these thoughts have been percolating as a result of having to compile my organization's daily news feed twice a week. This may seem obvious, but searching for 'gender' under google news is both unbelievably depressing and incredibly uplifting.
6a. Oldie but goodie: women run the show in a recovering rwanda
6b. india suffers poor implementation of gender laws
6c. unique chance for south sudan to herald gender rights
7. ONE DAY, I am going to talk at length about something that does not fall under the tenuous label of 'social justice'. Carry on, internet!