Bibliography, Book Reviews

The Annotated Bib: Amazons and Mothers?

Have you ever had to write an annotated bibliography? I have, once, and I hated it! Well, guess what I get to do for the Studies in Women’s Writing course I am taking this semester. You guessed it: an annotated bibliography! This assignment requires that I read and analyze a minimum of ten scholarly secondary sources on the subject of “women’s writing.” The annotated bib will be almost as long as my final paper!

After all these years of blogging, it seems like a waste of time to me to put so much effort into writing something that will result in nothing more than a grade. As with much of my other school writing, I am adapting this assignment to generate content for my blog. Over the coming weeks, I will be posting my individual annotated bibliography entries as blog posts.

So, without further ado, I present to you the very first entry in my annotated bibliography!

Amazons and Mothers? Monique Wittig, Helène Cixous and Theories of Women’s Writing

Griffin Crowder, Diane. “Amazons and Mothers? Monique Wittig, Helène Cixous and Theories of Women’s Writing.” Contemporary Literature L’Écriture Féminine 24.2 (1983): 117-44. JSTOR. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.


http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/103007438

This article explores the modern feminist notion that the oppression of women is a changeable social construct that does not depend on the fact that women are born with the potential to bear children. The article discusses the women’s writing theories of French feminists Monique Wittig and Helene Cixous. While “Cixous views motherhood as a primary trait of women” (132), Wittig views the tendency of women to identify primarily with the role of mother as oppressive. Continue reading “The Annotated Bib: Amazons and Mothers?” →

Illinois, Women in the World

Stop apologizing for existing

Castle at Illinois State UniversityI recently started a new job at a large state university, and I have been a little disturbed by something I have witnessed since the students returned to campus last week. No, I’m not talking about how filthy the restroom outside my office is now (seriously, you’re supposedly adults: clean up after yourselves!) What I am talking about is how often I hear the young women in my vicinity apologizing for existing.

It happens to all of us, but especially to those of us who live or work in heavily populated areas where there are a lot of people coming and going. You step around a corner or go to open a door and almost run into someone who is coming toward you, heading in the opposite direction from which you are going. Neither of you has done anything wrong. You simply happen to be trying to exist in the same time and space, and each of you has a need to move in the opposite direction from the other. Not a big deal, right?

But the thing that bothers me about this common, everyday (sometimes every hour, when classes are letting out all at once) occurrence is that the males I am almost running into on a regular basis will usually say, “Excuse me,” while the females will invariably say, “I’m sorry.” Continue reading “Stop apologizing for existing” →