femilicious.com

I’m spending a lot of time on campus lately. I have a wonderful workspace in the History Research Lab and I’ve made it cozy with some comics, postcards, and other decorations. I also leave articles I’m reading on the desk so that I have to come back to continue working. Since I bought a parking pass it’s been a really great system.

I sit next to a large window and have a beautiful view — of the Ambassador Bridge and all the bridge traffic making its way to and from Detroit, Michigan. My desk is covered in grit, my keyboard is filled with grit, the monitor has a layer of grit on it, and my books and papers are coated. The rest of the room is covered too so it makes no difference from desk to desk. I wipe my space down every morning to keep up with it.

At home I have this grit on everything in the yard as well. No wonder Windsor residents have such a high rate of breathing problems. I’m sure my lungs are full of the grit by now.

Today it’s cold so I’ve got the window closed. I wonder if it will cut down on the daily grit…

There’s nothing quite like the week after a semester finishes. I’ve been so productive the last few days. Rob and I have put doors up on two kids’ bedrooms so that leaves only one more. I just finished installing the doorknob on the second one and sawing off the shims. My taxes are done and filed (just in the nick of time). Wood for the fence was delivered on Monday and I’m planning to order dirt for the garden later today. Hopefully this weekend will be warm and I’ll get lots done in the yard (including having my family over for my daughter’s (gasp!) fourteenth birthday! Of course by next week all of this energy will be gone and I’ll be wondering what the heck I got myself into…

And the week after that I’ll be whining that my next paper is due at the end of May and I’ve got nothing to say or the research doesn’t connect with my topic or something like that…and then that paper will get handed in after a week and a half of much coffee and little sleep.

Ahh the seasons of a student.

I’ve got a hideous paper due Friday and yesterday I realized (for reasons that I won’t go into now) that my topic is all wrong. Unfortunately, there’s no time to start over so I’ll have to make do with the research I’ve been doing all semester and salvage what I can when this semester is over.

I’m having trouble focusing on what to say in this paper (what with the premise being all wrong and stuff) so I’ve decided to break it down more than the usual outline. I did the outline last week — and it isn’t working. It’s too vague maybe for a long paper and I don’t know how to make it more detailed (yes the paper is due in two days).

So the new strategy? I took everything I’ve written so far and separated each section and made each into its own document. I now have 13 independent documents open plus another with notes that haven’t found their way into the paper yet. My strategy is to complete each of these 13 documents as its own mini-paper and then assemble them as a complete work (by this time tomorrow). :)

It was too confusing trying to keep track of where each piece of research fit into the long document. This should be much easier as I’ve saved each with a meaningful title.

Forget asking how did people write before word processors — how did people ever write without hyperlinking? I’m going crazy trying to write my final essay of the semester without hyperlinks. Aaarrrggghhhh!!!

It would be so sweet to go beyond footnotes, to be able to include a link to a photo or a text or a discussion or another essay. Alas, when your professor is a historian of print and publishing it just ain’t gonna be happenin’ here.

Last night I attended a talk held at the University of Windsor given by Dr. Shahnaz Khan. The topic of the presentation was entitled: Veil Talk: Examining the Many Facets. Dr. Khan is the author of Aversion and Desire; Negotiating Muslim Female Identity in the Diaspora and a professor in Global Studies and Women’s Studies at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

As she was discussing how the veil takes many forms and waiting for some technology to catch up with the presentation she took questions from the audience. A man criticized her for confusing all these Westerners. He said that what she was showing the group were not in fact veils, that there was a difference between veils and head coverings. He told her that He Would Now Teach Her That Difference.

It was an unbelievably arrogant and dismissive comment. Dr. Kahn is an expert in her field. She has written and lectured on this topic for many years. She had just finished describing and showing pictures of some of the many ways women veil and explaining that where a woman lives has much to do with the form the veil takes and that there are many reasons why a woman veils. She showed pictures of hijab, niqab, burka, obaya and chador and as all are used to cover a woman’s body they come under the category of veiling. She discussed the relationship between veiling and class — in the past, veiling beyond a head covering for protection from the sun — worn by both men and women — was practiced by upper class women. Those involved in physical labour were unable to work effectively with their movement restricted. We were much too polite to him. Instead of telling him where to go we rolled our eyes at each other, grimaced, and groaned. The idea of waiting for one person to finish talking before speaking should have been replaced with heckles and boos.

A few minutes later another man criticized her for not taking the talk to a different level — that we need to go beyond the talk she gave. Her response was that his idea is a different talk than the one she gave — an idea for another day. Judging by the number of people in the room who turned up for her presentation I’d say there was an interest in the talk that was presented. Not to say there isn’t more to say — but we have to start somewhere.

The first man tried taking the floor a second time at the end of the presentation but the moderator cut him short with her closing remarks — several times. This man did not want to stop — he was determined to re-educate the group. Dr. Kahn handled it all beautifully. It looked as though she’d dealt with this before.

Some of us were saying that it was really wonderful that these men turned up to tell us how to talk about women’s bodies. Because, you know, how could women do that on their own?

flickr photo by aymanshamma

Next week I have to hand in a comprehensive annotated bibliography for my major research project. I’m finding out there are trickier citations to write than books with editors but no authors, self-published books and websites with hidden authors. Until now these have been the toughest. Now I’m finding I need to cite primary sources including birth and death records and personal interviews. Or at least I’ll be doing this before I’m done.

Here’s what I’ve found so far in case this is useful to anyone or if anyone has any better source that might be helpful to me:

Most of the citation tips are coming from genealogy websites like this one. Here are their examples for Vital Records:

Death Certificate for Jacob F. Rost, 24 September 1924, File No. 28093, Missouri State Board of Health. Certified copy in possession of author.

Certificate of Marriage, Edward H. Wigal to Velma G. King, 12 June 1912, Wood County, West Virginia. County Recorder’s Office, Parkersburg, West Virginia. Copy in possession of Kelly Collier, Arlington, Texas.

From about.com I found these instructions and examples for Birth & Death Certificates:

When citing a birth or death record, record 1) type of record and name(s) of the individual(s), 2) the file or certificate number (or book and page) and 3) name and location of the office in which it is filed (or the repository in which the copy was found - e.g. archives).

1. Certified transcription of birth certificate for Ernest Rene Ollivon, Act no. 7145 (1989), Maison Maire, Crespières, Yvelines, France.

2. Henrietta Crisp, birth certificate [long form] no. 124-83-001153 (1983), North Carolina Division of Health Services - Vital Records Branch, Raleigh.

3. Elmer Koth entry, Gladwin County Deaths, Liber 2: 312, no 96, County Clerk’s Office, Gladwin, Michigan.

From an online index:
4. Ohio Death Certificate Index 1913-1937, The Ohio Historical Society, online , Death certificate entry for Eveline Powell downloaded 12 March 2001.

From a FHL microfilm:
5. Yvonne Lemarie entry, Crespières naissances, mariages, déecs 1893-1899, microfilm no. 2067622 Item 6, frame 58, Family History Library [FHL], Salt Lake City, Utah.

I’m not sure yet which and how many records I’ll end up using in the project. I’m still looking for a style guide that tells me how to cite the archive of vital records without naming a specific record. Maybe something like about.com’s #4 above.

flickr photo by rhonamccallum

No need to ask, I’m still not all that engaged in my school work. At least I’m crying less this term.

I had to present a statement of my research project this week. (For those who forget or are tuning in mid-journey, I’m looking at something about childbirth on Pelee Island in Southern Ontario in the early twentieth century. Think isolated, no hospital, women all giving birth 30+ kilometres over water by boat or plane by 1950.)

This week, we were required to draft a one-page statement describing the research focus/question and discuss one relevant historiographical work on the topic. I had a really hard time with it. I keep changing my research question, trying to tune it into something that will be useful to me after this degree is over. I also need it to be something very interesting (to me) so that I can keep with it for the next half a year or so. And it must be feminist. Once I’ve begun it will be difficult to change and a very large number of words will need to be written about it. I’m finding it hard to do something history (maybe since my background is Women’s Studies?) that will translate outside the academy afterwards. Assuming I will be leaving the academy afterward. If I stay in, I don’t know what discipline I’ll land in. I need something with some transferability.

So, still playing with my general topic of childbirth on Pelee, I thought, instead of looking at the physiologic/medical process of childbirth and how that changed maybe I could look at the communities of mothers on the Island, and how that changed. Maybe something about women and community and the influence of a patriarchal medical model of childbirth on the larger community of Island women/Islanders.

The thing that ties me to this project is the anticipation I have of talking to the women about their lives. There are a handful of these mothers who are the age my grandmother would be if she was still alive. Women who have had incredible lives and their history is unrecorded. I presented a research statement on this idea but it was lousy. My heart is obviously not in it and it’s hard to be passionate when you aren’t really present. I fumbled for words to talk about it, the interest from others was poor, my own interest weak.

So now I’m thinking back to what it is that gets me excited about a project. I realized that it’s when I believe in the purpose of what I’m doing. When there’s learning involved or sharing, or building connections. When I believe that what I’m doing is important on a larger scale, when it goes beyond myself. When I believe that what I’m doing is going to make a difference.

I don’t believe that writing a 40-60 page paper is going to make a difference in anyone’s life. I think it’s important history that deserves recording, but to have it sit on a shelf in the university library? What’s the point of that? Is this merely an act in methods and discipline? /sigh/ For many, that answer is yes. It’s a stepping stone to a PhD program or to a job in government policy or else teacher’s college or ?? History is too often done in isolation, buried in the archives, with findings published intermittently in journals. Not always, but this is the way of the Ivory Tower.

I want to make a connection. I want what I want to do to matter. I have another idea now — and maybe it could work. It bridges History and Women’s Studies/Activism but what did they expect from me, really?

I was going to start daily blogging of insurmountable problems. But it turned out to be impossible.

(see? I have a sense of humour!)

The latest struggle: staying awake. I’ve always had trouble staying awake. As a babysitter I had to work hard to stay awake until the kids were asleep. Usually the parents woke me up when they got home. At my own pyjama party I was the first one asleep. Dating? /sigh/ Pumpkin time was early.

Now the problem is mostly because I have So Much Reading to do for school. It doesn’t matter if I try reading first thing in the morning, in the afternoon, or after I put the kids to bed. It doesn’t matter if I’m at my desk, at the kitchen table, or on the couch. Within a few pages my eyes are heavy and next thing I know I’m waking up.

I have to allot several sessions to get a reading done because I know I will not be able to stay awake through a sitting.

It doesn’t matter if I drink coffee. I can fall asleep drinking a cup of coffee. I can put on music, sit outside, even read at the university. Anywhere, anytime — I’m asleep. And once I’m out there’s no bringing me back.

I’d appreciate any tips for staying awake or how to read while sleeping so I can get through this “chapter” of my life. (egads! more humour!)

It could just be a coincidence.

This semester I run two of ten tutorials for a very large first-year world history class that covers the years 1914-1945. There is an acknowledged Western perspective.

Last week there was one lecture (50 minutes) assigned to the topic “Women in the 20th Century.” This had been rubbing me since the beginning of the semester when I first got the syllabus. I had heard of the “add women & stir” approach to women’s history but had never seen it so boldly in action. This week the students read the first (and only) readings for the course written by women.

Message here:

• women only write about women
• women don’t write about the world in the 20th century

But that wasn’t where it ended. The prof wrote to the assistants a day before labs to say that covering only a few of the discussion questions would be adequate and mainly to concentrate on returning student papers and exams.

Message here:

• it is okay to dismiss the small bit of women’s history/feminist history included in the course
• what women say isn’t important — what women say isn’t as important as what men say
• women are not a significant part of 20th century history

Of course this is nothing new. History (patriarchy for that matter) is full of dismissing women’s thoughts, writings, and activities. I know I was sheltered living for four years inside of Women’s Studies, thinking that as I was opening my eyes to it so was the rest of the world. Since moving to the discipline of History I am frequently reminded why we still need women’s history.

Until women’s history is integrated in the survey course there is no equality.

The System is not made for me. Graduate students are not supposed to have families to care for, houses to clean, meals to prepare and clean up, or groceries to buy. They are not supposed to organize birthday parties, coordinate repairs, clean and sell a house, finish a basement, wash laundry, fold laundry, garden, or cut lawns. I need someone to do all these things for me. (*edit: Can I also add that this person must care for the physical and emotional health of all members of the family, including me? And let me tell you, grad students are Needy.)

Graduate students are supposed to read, research, think, discuss, write, present, read, research, think, etc ad infinitum. My job should be to go to school then come home and study in isolation, with occasional breaks for midnight rollerblading and Chinese takeout. It’s supposed to be a lot of work, but it’s supposed to be doable.

For some crazy reason, maybe because I managed an undergraduate degree with small children around, I thought I could do this too. It’s been an interesting month and a half — maybe because of the fun I’ve been having with family law court, police, children’s aid, and counsellors (could another agency possibly be interested in my life?). Somehow I think that even if my life were stable, with no drama or crises, it would still be too much to be a grad student and mother.

I met a 4th year student yesterday who is married, planning to do the MA next year. He’s only a few years younger than me — in his early 30s. His wife lives one and a half hours away, he has an apartment here… he has a kid that doesn’t live with him and she has 3 kids — but they’re her kids, not his. Because they are her kids, according to their arrangement, there’s no need for him to be there. He’s focused on one part of his life — school.

I don’t have that option. My identities are completely interlocked. I’m not a student from 9-5 and a mother from 5-9 and a partner from 9-midnight. I cannot separate out one piece of my self and put the rest on pause or say they are insignificant or disposable. I am all of me. Like it says in my bio on this site: I am a feminist-activist-artist-geek-parent-student. I am all of these things at once. I can do what I do because of all of these things. The skills that I have, the insight that I bring, I bring because of these multi-dimensions.

Alas, the Institution of Academia is not made for real people. To receive funding I must be a full-time student. The perception is that unless I am full-time, I am not a serious researcher, that maybe I have a job somewhere. Maybe it’s time (or past time) for Academia to realize that there are other responsibilities in a person’s life and that these other things do not preclude people from making contributions to the Academy.

As long as the system runs as is, the only people in academia will be the ones that fit the mold: young people, no family responsibilities, no primary childcare responsibilities. Hmmm sound familiar? This is going to be a problem because more and more people want undergraduate degrees and there aren’t enough good teachers to fill the roles. By excluding a woman like me from academia, a good potential educator and researcher is lost. There has got to be a change. Maybe more distance education options, maybe a part-time option with funding. It’s sad to think I may have to give this up because the logistics are beyond me.