I have 3 hours to do whatever! (It's early pickup day for Moomin.)
Riffling through "Feminist consciousness and feminist research" to help me thinking about my anthology project. I am thinking hard about Dale Spender's intro to her book where she sent the chapters on people to those people. I can't do this because all the poets I'm doing are dead. What could approximate? I thought perhaps sending to someone who is a particular scholar on that person (if she exists - I somehow doubt anyone's making their academic career writing about Em1lia B3rnal. Yet.) But writing to someone who might know more than I do on that person's work and life and inviting her to contribute a paragraph or two. If I end up with multiple short bios of some authors that would suit me right down to the ground.
I was thinking about something (as I read all this criticism and the introductions to anthologies galore) that really bugs me. When women put themselves down or are especially self-effacing as an aggressive act and then on top of that, get praised for doing so. I am angry and therefore I will say how bad, dumb, ignorant, and unable to speak I am; I'll turn invisible. Because I don't exist except in mirrors and echoes, no one can take vengeance. I understand that this is a survival strategy, but it bothers me greatly. I think of the disappointment and horror of the narrator in "virgil, non..." when she comes to the lake of the suicides, or watches the parades.
Bulls in china shops everywhere, I praise your refusal to be invisible!
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