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the_fantastic_ms_foxOne of them 11.5-hour days at the office.
A day where we've paid for our delegates to attend the CFS meet only to discover that one - no two - of the five - oh, no six (apparently someone is coming from SFU-Kamloops... yes, that's right, the Kamloops Campus) - people that we're sending to Friday evening - no, Thursday afternoon - meeting in Nanaimo (it is still to my knowledge in Nanaimo - check back tomorrow for changes) cancel on the day of.
I run around to our constituency and activist groups to drum up volunteers for a paid trip, and by "paid," I mean that the SFSS covers basic costs. I go to Out-on-Campus, SFU's Public Interest Research Group, the First Nations rooms and... the Women's Centre.
A day where we've paid for our delegates to attend the CFS meet only to discover that one - no two - of the five - oh, no six (apparently someone is coming from SFU-Kamloops... yes, that's right, the Kamloops Campus) - people that we're sending to Friday evening - no, Thursday afternoon - meeting in Nanaimo (it is still to my knowledge in Nanaimo - check back tomorrow for changes) cancel on the day of.
I run around to our constituency and activist groups to drum up volunteers for a paid trip, and by "paid," I mean that the SFSS covers basic costs. I go to Out-on-Campus, SFU's Public Interest Research Group, the First Nations rooms and... the Women's Centre.
This post wasn't supposed to be about the Women's Centre.
Nor about the confusion between feeling angry and being hurt.
Yeah. Awkward that. The Women's Centre is one of my fonts of anxiety, but not for the obvious reasons. I came from UBC-Okanagan, where Women's Studies, Crim and Soc were all in one department. I arrived stoked on sociology and gender and was a bit pissed off - no, I was very hurt - to find out that while I was some hot shit in gender studies (which was not then an SFU program), and was happy to help, and very happy to learn, my contributions weren't welcome. Epecially there.
Now SFU has a gender studies department. This, combined with such fine groups as Labeled/Unlabeed, provides me with an outlet. And I thought that I'd made my peace, but sequences like this question that.
The same woman who opened the door last time gave me the "what are you doing here!?" look. It's the same as she gave me when I knocked on the door to donate some books found in the SFSS office; books and courseware which I would not have donated were it not my job to serve all my constituents, including ones with libraries that... (deep breath...) are less than accessible, and which may, as an unintended consequence may remain unperused by people who are, in theory, welcome.
When the assistant coordinator came to the front and asked me to please go around to the back door, I am not saying that she was somehow wrong, or that they're treating me like a second-class citizen. As I've alluded to, I would say that most folks in the WC and like groups (including certain trans organizations) haven't exactly considered all the ramifications of their who-can participate policy.
Later I was walking back, I see the door to my office and I can see what will happen: this grinding feeling will lash out in a fit of telekinetic rage and blow the door into a thousand splinters. Every time that my gender causes a social problem I've been expecting a fit of mind-over-matter destruction. But I don't have psychic powers. Or a vagina.
But before I walked back and my mind failed to demolish a door, we sat in the back office of the WC and discussed the conference and sending someone to it. She seemed nice enough, though a little confused (most likely by the conference). We talked; I wondered. I could have just strolled in the front door, and by their own criteria, I have every right to do so now and have had since August. But even if I was able to do so uninterrogated, I don't know if I'd want to. There are several reasons for this upon which I may later comment, but one stands out.
I thought the problem I had was "we're (you're?) losing men, and, as a consequence, a lot of women too (and trans?) and that annoys me." But maybe that's not it. On Tuesday, we were talking about something to do with feminism in the SFSS office, I can't remember what, and my response, to the people who know I'm in women's studies, was "I honestly don't give a shit." I'm afraid that the gnawing feeling is "you've (we've?) lost me, and that hurts."
There's a letter that I've been meaning to write to the Peak for a few years now. I think I should go do it.
Nor about the confusion between feeling angry and being hurt.
Yeah. Awkward that. The Women's Centre is one of my fonts of anxiety, but not for the obvious reasons. I came from UBC-Okanagan, where Women's Studies, Crim and Soc were all in one department. I arrived stoked on sociology and gender and was a bit pissed off - no, I was very hurt - to find out that while I was some hot shit in gender studies (which was not then an SFU program), and was happy to help, and very happy to learn, my contributions weren't welcome. Epecially there.
Now SFU has a gender studies department. This, combined with such fine groups as Labeled/Unlabeed, provides me with an outlet. And I thought that I'd made my peace, but sequences like this question that.
The same woman who opened the door last time gave me the "what are you doing here!?" look. It's the same as she gave me when I knocked on the door to donate some books found in the SFSS office; books and courseware which I would not have donated were it not my job to serve all my constituents, including ones with libraries that... (deep breath...) are less than accessible, and which may, as an unintended consequence may remain unperused by people who are, in theory, welcome.
When the assistant coordinator came to the front and asked me to please go around to the back door, I am not saying that she was somehow wrong, or that they're treating me like a second-class citizen. As I've alluded to, I would say that most folks in the WC and like groups (including certain trans organizations) haven't exactly considered all the ramifications of their who-can participate policy.
Later I was walking back, I see the door to my office and I can see what will happen: this grinding feeling will lash out in a fit of telekinetic rage and blow the door into a thousand splinters. Every time that my gender causes a social problem I've been expecting a fit of mind-over-matter destruction. But I don't have psychic powers. Or a vagina.
But before I walked back and my mind failed to demolish a door, we sat in the back office of the WC and discussed the conference and sending someone to it. She seemed nice enough, though a little confused (most likely by the conference). We talked; I wondered. I could have just strolled in the front door, and by their own criteria, I have every right to do so now and have had since August. But even if I was able to do so uninterrogated, I don't know if I'd want to. There are several reasons for this upon which I may later comment, but one stands out.
I thought the problem I had was "we're (you're?) losing men, and, as a consequence, a lot of women too (and trans?) and that annoys me." But maybe that's not it. On Tuesday, we were talking about something to do with feminism in the SFSS office, I can't remember what, and my response, to the people who know I'm in women's studies, was "I honestly don't give a shit." I'm afraid that the gnawing feeling is "you've (we've?) lost me, and that hurts."
There's a letter that I've been meaning to write to the Peak for a few years now. I think I should go do it.