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I would agree with Jensen-Clayton, C. (2018) when they discuss that writing is a freedom where the female can assert themselves separately from the constraints of the social dynamics of the patriarchal society. I find that writing frees me to speak long enough before being mansplained, questioned or dismissed. All of the work I have had published has been submitted anonymously. Getting the female perspective into the mainstream is not always easy because the process of learning about women involves unlearning the ways they have perpetuated inequality and this experience can be confrontational.

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When we hear the #METOO movement, I automatically go to the assumption that I will eb hearing about horrific stories about abuse towards women and women speaking their truths to gain justice. Yet as I read Rusell, Gough and Whitehouse article, I realize that women just want the world to realize they are equal. They are saying I should be speaking at conferences about political and environmental issues, I care not only about the domestic life but society at large. As discussed, studies show women care more about the environment, yet, why does it have to be a 12 year old girl being the face of women? Women in their 20s,30s and 40s should not be scared to come out of the shadows and say this is my view, this is what needs to be done and I am intelligent enough to speak and educate others including men about the world social, economical and environmental problems.

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Can writing encourage the female gaze? Which strategy she provides works best for you to move out of the male gaze? (article by Cecily Jensen-Clayton)

This article was perhaps one of the most powerful that I have read in this course. Perhaps as an English teacher, it speaks to me in a way that is more authentic? I also have a passion for studying neoliberalist education policies and this article provides me with steppingstones to do some more research on that.

To the questions – can writing encourage the female gaze and which strategy works best for me to move out of the male gaze? Absolutely, writing can encourage the female gaze, but I don’t think the way to do that is through narrative structure. Lorde (2000) suggested that poetry would be a strategy (Jensen-Clayton, 2018, p. 127), but I don’t think so. To assume poetry as a “feminine” artform is wrong. Poetry was first published in this world by men, so while I appreciate that poetry can allow for more “feminine” type revelations, it is wrong to assume it is feminine in nature.

Strategies should consider voice first, in whatever form that takes. Phenomenological writing is perhaps the only way that our experiences as women will truly come to light and in which we can take those childhood experiences of “dissonance and disconnection” (Jensen-Clayton, 2018) and reflect for the future. This type of writing is not structurally confined, but rather speaks from experiences in whatever way they naturally flow from our voices.

References

Jensen-Clayton, C. (2018). Women writing to ourselves: Rescuing the girl child from androcentricity. In A. Black, & S. Garvis (Eds.), Women Activating Agency in Academia (pp. 123-132). Routledge.

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As a woman, writing matters because it empowers, it gives a chance for the unheard to be heard simply via a different mode of communication. I personally like it because I can say what I want to say and one may not be influenced by how I look or what I wear; all they can see (or ‘hear’) is my voice. The attention is focused on what is being said and nothing else. And this is what it means to be heard!

Rawan
p.s. thanks Derya for the slides and your knowledge!

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Do I think women write differently than men?

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Do I think women write differently than men?

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To be honest, I don't like the question. This course has taught me to embrace intersectionality, and it is too dualistic in nature, but I understand why it is asked - traditionally - there were only two culturally-accepted gender identities when writing.

I write differently than everyone because my perspectives and experiences of sexism and ableism make it so. I struggle to separate out the woman writer in me from all the other perspectives.

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This such an important topic for everyone to look at as part of this course, and I would like to thank Derya for putting this together for us.

For my doctoral thesis, I wrote a non-empirical "auto/ethno/graphic bricolage" (Watt, 2011), which uses the juxtaposition of various texts/narratives to provoke thought. This experimental text sets out to decenter patriarchal forms of knowledge and the sedimented layers of our understandings about the self and other. Through deconstructing media representations and my own understandings/experiences, placed beside narratives of the lived experience and sense of identity of Canadian Muslim female youth, it sets out to disrupt dominant assumptions about Muslim, female identities as it deconstructs the self.

I have attached an article related to my thesis to show anyone who might be interested what this particular form of writing might look like. You can see how I connected narratives of my lived experience to academic theory and research. I also included images. If you are a poet, you could include your poems. There is a journal on autoethnography if anyone is interested. It was my idea to also add the concept of "bricolage" as I had many complicated strands I was trying to pull together in one text.

This is just one option, of course, and something that worked for me and what I was trying to do. There are many forms of feminist writing that speak back to patriarchal forms of knowledge and knowledge construction. I invite you to think about writing as a woman/feminist for your final paper! I wouldn't expect it to be a masterpiece if this is your first try and will keep this in mind when grading...

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Thanks for the great slides, Derya. You've inspired some thinking around how writing is knowledge, and how the personal can be universal, even as it is subject to time, place, and context. After reading Richardson's article on writing stories, I am inspired by the postmodern idea of no singular truth representing the world. When we are told a story as though it is the only one, we digest the grand narrative that favours particular groups of people and leaves out those that are marginalized. By breaking away from the single story (Adichie's talk on the dangers of a single story is thought-provoking), we make space for all truths and lived experiences. The personal is indeed political, as we cannot separate ourselves from the world around us. We exist in a specific place and time, and our experiences of them are valuable and just as much true as the person sitting next to us. By breaking away from a single narrative, discourse then becomes a powerful tool in dismantling power structures that marginalize and oppress, and by sharing our stories, especially in our writing, they become a source of knowledge and a way of understanding the world.