i found this online (it’s something I wrote a looooong time ago on my old blog) and I wanted to be sure I didn’t lose sight of it, so i’m just posting it here to book mark it! carry on, friends! :p

teaching full frontal feminism
Hugo Schwyzer has a glowing post up of how teaching Full Frontal Feminism in his womens studies class went. In short: Amazing. The women in the class loved it, and guess what? There was even women of color in class!! And they loved it! And that has laid to rest any lingering doubts he had about the book.

Now, I really don’t want to get into a debate about FFF again. It’s not worth it, IMO. But, what I *do* want to discuss is Mr. Schwyzer’s teaching methodologies specifically and women’s studies dept.’s in general.

I hold (horrors) a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies. The only classes I took for three years were women’s studies classes, not one of which was taught by a man. Most of the students in the classes were women–frankly, I always hated it when men showed up in the class because they were soooo (holds up snob nose) feminism 101. They just didn’t get it.

Shortly after I declared my major, an amazing activist, organizer and teacher was hired into the dept. Her name was Andrea Smith. I had never heard of her before, I had no idea of her extensive and intense organizing/teaching career. To me, she was just some chick.

The class she was teaching was a women’s studies 101 class called Native American Feminism. It was cross listed with African American Literature–and frankly, on the first day of class, once most of us found out that the class was not going to be about African American Literature, most of us wanted to leave.

But Andy started class off with something different. She asked us to tell her everything we knew about feminism. We told her all about Seneca Falls and Susan B. Anthoney and Gloria Steinem–and some of us even told her about NOW or Feminist Majority or bell hooks or Alice Walker. One person mentioned Adrienne Rich.

She asked us what we knew about “the waves” of feminism. At least half of the class raised their hands.

Then she asked us what we thought women of color were doing during all the ‘waves’.

All of the hands went down and we all just stared at each other. One person finally said, “Well, we said Alice Walker,” to which Andy replied, What do you know about Alice Walker?

Everybody replied “The Color Purple” and then we lapsed back into silence.

Then the big question came. “Why do you only know about white women?”

Now, I’ll admit, at that point, I was feeling very very defensive. Most of the women in the class were women of color–I think there were a total of three white women in the class if I remember right. Every other person was either black, native or Latina. But in spite of this diverse class dynamic, I could tell most of us were feeling pretty defensive. We’d just been shown in the period of about 10 minutes how much we’d been completely bought into a particular definition of “feminism”–and even more so, we’d just been exposed to our vast ignorance of our own histories.

Driving home that night, I thought about my previous classes in women’s studies. They had all been taught by white women. They had all been predominantly attended by white women. And what’s more, reading material consisted of early white feminist readings (Elizebeth Cady Stanton etc), socialist feminists (Emma Goldman etc), then the late 60’s/70’s feminists (Adrienne Rich etc). Some times, there was even a bit of the French Feminists (Helene Cixous was the big one). Women of color feminists were *always* restricted to Audre Lorde and bell hooks–and then we only read those women if we stayed on schedule through the semester. “Women of color feminism” (or “race and feminism” or “womanism” or “dissent to feminism” as the subject has been variously defined by different teachers), was *always* left to the end of the semester–it was discussed in the last week or two of class “if there was time”. And if we managed to make time to discuss “race and feminism,” woc feminists were presented not as amazing thinkers in their own right–but as reactionaries reacting against evil white feminists. The final point of the chapter being, “we used to be racists, we’re not any more, let’s get back to the business of destroying patriarchy!”

This happened across the board without fail in *every* single class. There has never been a class I have *ever* taken in any university anywhere that has not had this particular format (’race’ is discussed at the end of the semester “if there’s time”) UNLESS it has been a post-colonial class or a class about a particular racial group (i.e. Native American Feminsim, Black feminism, third world feminism etc)

I will say that again.

Race has NEVER been a central focus of ANY class I have ever taken unless it’s been a post-colonial class or a identity focused class. And just so you know, I’ve attended community colleges, commuter colleges and elite universities. I also am currently teaching at a college that is mostly working class to middle class and is about evenly divided white/black.

Is it any wonder, then, that a book that does mention women of color is received with pleasure by a ‘diverse’ class of women? (Because for most of the woc bloggers I saw who wrote about FFF, the question was never if woc were in the book or not–but “how” they were incorporated into the book.)

I want to go back again to my first women’s studies class at Elite University. I have written about it before:

In that class, both of the professors where white women, and they pretty much ran the class as many white liberal feminists before and after them did. They centered feminism on white women and then inserted a couple of Audre Lord articles. Literally. But that was the very first time I had ever heard of such a thing as a black feminist. Of a black lesbian feminist. That was the first time I’d ever even *heard* of a woman of color who was a lesbian. So long story short, I felt like the two articles they included were liberating for me–that was all I needed at that time because that was all I could handle–that was all I could hear. Women of color lesbians hadn’t even existed before Fall semester 2002, what more could I grapple with?

But that wasn’t enough for the young black women in the room. They, even in their youth, had seen more of the world, experienced more, learned more, knew more people than I did. Lesbian women of color were not a major phenomenon to them. And they demanded more. And they had the courage to do it in front of a lecture class. Which, of course, in a school like the University of Michigan, lecture halls are filled with mostly white folks. But they had the courage, in front of all those white folks, to stand up and demand that the professors tell them where all the women of color feminists were.

If any of you have attended prestigious schools, you’ll know already how that demand was received-by the students and the professors. The professors do their polite nodding thing (we’re women’s studies professors, we care about safe space, really we do) but never *really* explain why they don’t include women of color feminists in the curriculum. They do the “women of color have done some powerful things, women of color are so amazing, women of color are wonderful–but we just don’t have time for that this semester” thing.

And then there are the students. The students, for the most part, are already threatened and pushed by the mostly white liberal curriculum. They can’t handle the added pressure of some self assured confident black women standing up and demanding them to push themselves even further. So what usually happens when a woman of color (or women of color) make their presence known (and as such, all the complications their presence brings to an almost all white gathering) is a lot of hostility and anger on the part of the white folks.

And in this case–on the part of the Mexican folks (me) as well.

Because what was there for me, a liberal (but really closer to conservative) Mexican (but mostly white) woman (but really girl) who didn’t know that lesbians of color existed (but had been dreaming of making love to women anyway) to do except keep herself in a safe space and tell those powerful black girls that they were expecting too much of me/us? That white centered feminist thought was enough for all of us?

And so I, in all my self centered self-righteous superiority, stood up and said that I felt that things were just fine as they were. To which the black women began to argue with me. And of course, the professors, happy to have the pressure off of their shoulders, let me take the heat for them. And because I have that loose tongue–that uncontrollable tongue–I said some really horrible condescending ignorant shit. With the final capping moment of glory coming in the form of me telling the black women that I really HAD learned so much about women of color in this class–I learned that black women really DO go to school, in spite of what mainstream press tells me about welfare queens.

Amazing bit of liberated feminism, huh?

To go back to Hugo’s post, what bothers me most is not that other woc liked FFF–rather instead, that as an educator who teaches women’s studies, Hugo seems to accept without question that a white feminist text that mentions women of color is sufficient knowledge for his women of color students. White women teaching women of color about their histories is good enough.

A common belief in women’s studies departments. A common belief in white centered feminism.

The other thing that I think is important to point out: Why does Huge consistently point to alllll his women of color friends/students/allies that “love” the book? Why does he feel this need to point out that not all women of color are like those women of color bloggers?

Would a white person’s critique of a book only count unless every single white person in the world agreed with that person? Why on earth should it make a fuck of a difference if there’s fifty or a hundred or a thousand women of color who disagree with any woman of color blogger? Is it possible that disagreement between community members is a part of any fully fledged self-actualized community?

It’s also important to ask, out of all the enthusiastic women’s studies professors who are dedicated to teaching this book in this class (Hugo is not the only one that I read declaring he will/has taught the book)–how many of those professors have in any way referenced any of the women of color bloggers criticisms of the book? Or do those professors just introduce the book without any context and then take notes on their responses?

Do any of those professors, as people in positions of power within the classroom, feel it’s warranted to let their students know that they are observing responses so that they might use “real” woc responses to discredit and silence other women of color?

How many times will women’s studies professors let their colored students take the brunt of the fight so that they don’t have to confront their own racisms?

As an educator, I don’t think FFF is not valuable. When I first read the book, I never would have *considered* teaching it in any class. But upon further consideration–I might teach it. There is a valid, interesting, important discussion contained not so much within the book itself, but in the community that surrounds the book. I would make it a multiple week reading, read the book, then read feminist bloggers response to the book. What information can we collect about feminism as a community? Where and how can we see power playing out in these discussions? Where and how might our identities/life experiences have us identify with a particular point of view? What makes you mad about the discussion? What makes you excited and ready to rock?

Having that type of discussion can only happen, however, if women’s studies professors wake up and realize that women of color are not some add on to the final semester of the class if there’s still time.

One of the biggest surprises of my life came when I found out that Susan B. Anthony and Ida B. Wells were contemporaries. Up until the point that I figured that out, Ida B Wells had been an add on to women’s studies classes. It was as if she existed in her own separate reality–which of course, overrode the fact that she had very real interactions and critiques of the women’s movement that Susan B. Anthony helped to create–and she very pointedly STATED those critiques in open forums that Ms. Anthony attended. Ida B Wells critique of white feminism was as much a part of her life as her ongoing struggles against lynching–and yet most women’s studies majors are never taught the two side by side. Even as Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and sex positive feminists and radfems and Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan are all taught as coming into who they are as a result of the direct interactions they had with each other, white women interacting with racialized women is not only not taught, but actively denied through syllabus layouts and the quarantining of race to “ethnic studies”.

Native women were alive and fighting when Cady Staton organized the Senneca falls meeting. Latina women were organizing labor movements when Emma Goldman was around. Black women were creating some of the most profound sociological studies of U.S. communities even as white women were insisting lynching was not a feminist issue. And yet, today, each generation of feminists that I have interacted will insist to me that racism in feminism is something of the past–something that never existed in *their* wave–it always came before them.

Coming to feminism is a wonderful and empowering experience. I can still remember the first time I read Gloria Anzaldua–I can still remember the first time I heard “I am Chicana” come out of my mouth. I can still remember the first time I ever said “I am queer”. I remember (and savor remembering) the first time I ever sat in a room filled with other Chicana academics. I have only ever taken one class in my life where I was not the only Chicana (a Latino Literature class).

I can also remember the first time I ever told another woman of color she was wrong in front of white people. And I can remember the first time another woman of color told me I was wrong in front of women of color. I remember the first time a black woman told me that I was a sell out because of personal choices I had made in my life, and I remember the first time I ever totally and completely unjustifiably went off on another Chicana. All of those interactions–whether positive or ‘negative’ have helped to shape who I am and what kind of a feminist I am today. And all of the interactions white women have had with me, with other women of color bloggers, has had an impact on who they are and what kind of feminist they are today as well.

It’s time for all of us, but in particular, women’s studies departments, to stop pretending that these interactions between women of color and white women never happened or don’t count. It’s time to stop pretending that the voices of white women speaking about women of color is sufficient enough of a history for women of color. It’s time to stop pretending that universal agreement between women of color is necessary before white people can interact with an engage with a particular critique of women of color. It’s time to stop pretending that any critique by women of color exists within a timeless vacuum that demonstrates some ancient racism of a feminism from time past.

We are all here today. We all carry the ancient wounds of past mistakes–just as we all also bear the burden of pain we inflict on each other right now at this moment. We’ve got a lot we have to work through, we have a lot we have to be accountable to each other for. But we can’t start working through this shit as long as women’s studies departments continue to passive aggressively eliminate of the histories of women of color interacting with white women and vise versa.

Women of color need those histories to connect them to communities that have long been under assault. White women need those histories to understand The Tone Of Voice they find so aggravating in women of color. We all need our histories so that we can learn and build something different. We need that uncomfortable defensiveness that teachers like Andrea Smith bring into the classroom. We need that so that we can grow.

Again, I don’t intend this to be any type of critique of FFF. I will probably not approve any comments that are about FFF and not about the stuff I talked about in this post (I will use my better judgment here, I’m not saying I won’t allow any comments at all that talk about FFF–but I *WON”T* allow this to turn into a gang up or a rehashing of painful wounds). I DO intend this to be a very pointed critique of women’s studies departments and professors. As a woman of color, I’ve existed through a lot of bullshit in women’s studies departments and I’d like to start a discussion about what other people experience and believe. I’d like to know why “the personal is political” is a mantra pushed on us–and yet our (woc’s) personal is expected to be the same personal as white feminists.

And I’d like to know all this as a person who credits women’s studies as having changed my life.