unikorento (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unikorento) wrote2011-03-21 12:13 pm
unikorento) wrote2011-03-21 12:13 pm
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... This is all written in a hurry, and may contain silly things, like language errors and sentences that never stop. Please approach with caution.
This morning's french class was surprisingly interesting.
I'm not normally very fond of the lecturer (he's inconsistent, doesn't give out info and isn't fair in his assessment of students), but the topic was fascinating. La place des femmes dans la société française.
We watched Youtube clips of different people saying different things (and for once he actually stopped every once in a while and made sure that everyone was onboard with what was going on).
Elisabeth Badinter was a completely new name to me! I've often heard talk where (and I'm not sure if my terms are right here) black feminism is mentioned as a separate thing from western or bourgeois feminism, but at least on the courses I've attended there's never been any talk of the difference between feminism as its viewed "dans la culture latin" and "dans la culture américaine". That was the difference she made, mind you. La culture americaine, and not "la culture germanique". And she said that les pays scandinaves, on account of reading so much in English are the gateway through which le féminism américain is seeping into Europe. (This would imply, I suppose, that there is no such thing as féminism scandinave, and on a gut-level I sort of resent that. And that there is such a thing as féminism européen... which I'm not sure of. Is there? How alike are we on this subject, anyway? Purely in terms of "where am I more comfortable", I can say that I was more at home in northern germany and the mid-western united states than I ever was anywhere in France. Not the kind of "at home" I'd be in, say, Sweden, but still. It was closer to what I knew. But then, french speaking switzerland felt very familiar too.)
It's terribly interesting! I'm not sure if I agree, of course, but still. Why don't I know anything about how women's rights movements have progressed/are viewed within the different cultural influence zones in Europe?
I was a fireman, and I was in this apartment that essentially consisted of one big livingroom and one big kitchen. There was almost no furniture, and I think some man was walking in and out of the apartment every now and then.
There was this older lady with me who was black, and a young white man who was wearing overalls (like the kind mechanics wear). He was very angry. I knew there were kids around somewhere, but I knew that it wasn't my responsibility to take care of them. Actually, nothing was my responsibility - everything I did was for the sake of being nice. I think it's because I wanted the owners of the apartment to like me.
I decided we should vacuum the place, because there was a lot of sand on the floor and lots of mini-litter, like candy wrappers and such. The overall man was furious, because he thought it was a waste of time and not our job. Still, we dragged out a big blue vacuum cleaner, but when we opened it we realised it was full of skeins of yarn. (We had to open it to change the filter, you see.)
I started organizing the yarn according to colour and if it was still usable or not. There was a red one, a white one, a sort of multicoloured pink one and one that shifted between orange and green and white. I organized them all onto this table, the same way we pack firewood back home. The ones that were just bits and pieces, or had come undone somehow, I tossed on the floor.
We never got to start vacuuming, because the firemen we were running away from (that was why we hiding in the apartment, I realised), had surrounded the building we were in. Turns out we're in the penthouse of a skyscraper, and the only way out is to jump off the roof. We realize we need a disguise, so we try to dye our hair.
We make this sticky paste in a Tupperware bowl and mix it around with the end of a wooden spoon. Overall-man mocks us and tells us how stupid this plan is. My hair doesn't hold hairdye, and the woman already has black hair, so this whole hair-colouring-business is only going to help him get out. I wake up once we get to the roof, and I see the red firetruck way, way below us on the street.
EDIT: Hey! Where is this sundays SPN newsletter on DW? I love that newsletter. Gives it to me! :/
This morning's french class was surprisingly interesting.
I'm not normally very fond of the lecturer (he's inconsistent, doesn't give out info and isn't fair in his assessment of students), but the topic was fascinating. La place des femmes dans la société française.
We watched Youtube clips of different people saying different things (and for once he actually stopped every once in a while and made sure that everyone was onboard with what was going on).
Elisabeth Badinter was a completely new name to me! I've often heard talk where (and I'm not sure if my terms are right here) black feminism is mentioned as a separate thing from western or bourgeois feminism, but at least on the courses I've attended there's never been any talk of the difference between feminism as its viewed "dans la culture latin" and "dans la culture américaine". That was the difference she made, mind you. La culture americaine, and not "la culture germanique". And she said that les pays scandinaves, on account of reading so much in English are the gateway through which le féminism américain is seeping into Europe. (This would imply, I suppose, that there is no such thing as féminism scandinave, and on a gut-level I sort of resent that. And that there is such a thing as féminism européen... which I'm not sure of. Is there? How alike are we on this subject, anyway? Purely in terms of "where am I more comfortable", I can say that I was more at home in northern germany and the mid-western united states than I ever was anywhere in France. Not the kind of "at home" I'd be in, say, Sweden, but still. It was closer to what I knew. But then, french speaking switzerland felt very familiar too.)
It's terribly interesting! I'm not sure if I agree, of course, but still. Why don't I know anything about how women's rights movements have progressed/are viewed within the different cultural influence zones in Europe?
I was a fireman, and I was in this apartment that essentially consisted of one big livingroom and one big kitchen. There was almost no furniture, and I think some man was walking in and out of the apartment every now and then.
There was this older lady with me who was black, and a young white man who was wearing overalls (like the kind mechanics wear). He was very angry. I knew there were kids around somewhere, but I knew that it wasn't my responsibility to take care of them. Actually, nothing was my responsibility - everything I did was for the sake of being nice. I think it's because I wanted the owners of the apartment to like me.
I decided we should vacuum the place, because there was a lot of sand on the floor and lots of mini-litter, like candy wrappers and such. The overall man was furious, because he thought it was a waste of time and not our job. Still, we dragged out a big blue vacuum cleaner, but when we opened it we realised it was full of skeins of yarn. (We had to open it to change the filter, you see.)
I started organizing the yarn according to colour and if it was still usable or not. There was a red one, a white one, a sort of multicoloured pink one and one that shifted between orange and green and white. I organized them all onto this table, the same way we pack firewood back home. The ones that were just bits and pieces, or had come undone somehow, I tossed on the floor.
We never got to start vacuuming, because the firemen we were running away from (that was why we hiding in the apartment, I realised), had surrounded the building we were in. Turns out we're in the penthouse of a skyscraper, and the only way out is to jump off the roof. We realize we need a disguise, so we try to dye our hair.
We make this sticky paste in a Tupperware bowl and mix it around with the end of a wooden spoon. Overall-man mocks us and tells us how stupid this plan is. My hair doesn't hold hairdye, and the woman already has black hair, so this whole hair-colouring-business is only going to help him get out. I wake up once we get to the roof, and I see the red firetruck way, way below us on the street.
EDIT: Hey! Where is this sundays SPN newsletter on DW? I love that newsletter. Gives it to me! :/
no subject
*sigh* I have this one person on my access list that reads a lot of skandinavian (or well, swedish) stuff about gender and feminism and suchlike. And I keep feeling like maybe I should try reading one of those books some day, but I never get around to it. But my point is that reading what you just said, I had this very instinctive reaction to go "that's wrong!! of course there's scandinavian feminism". Honestly, I don't quite know how different/similar we are to others. And were does Finland fall on that front though, technically speaking we're not scandinavian, though we're definitely ridiculously pro american, so... yeah.
no subject
I keep saying that to people... though truth be told, I'm not even sure what the hell I mean by that. I mean, aside from the linguistic issue, Finland follows the Scandinavian model on quite a few things, and we're more alike to Sweden than Russia or Estonia, hands down. We're certainly not Slavic, and I don't think most Finns would consider themselves Baltic (whatever that even means) despite the linguistic connection to Estonia and... you know, the sea. Uhm... what was I saying again?
Feminism! Right! Yes. I mean, there are scandinavian (>.<) authors who produce work on gender issues all the time.. but it is true that the academic tradition we follow is largely that which comes from writers who've written in English (e.g Judith Butler). Aside from Simone de Beauvoir, since... show me a feminist that doesn't deal with her. Anyway... is the reason we draw on them because we a) understand the language or b)the things written by them resonate within our context?
But if we're not talking about an academic tradition, but rather a "position of women within our culture" (and, yes, what is "our culture"? what is our "common identity" here?) I'm sure there's a scandinavian tradition from before (that can very well include Finland!) that is different from the germanic (and certainly the latin), starting somewhere through mid Denmark and going as far as southern Lapland. (Because the guys that are that far north, well... they do their own thing.)
And historically, Finland never had a women's rights movement the same way the rest of Europe (and Scandinavia) had. The women's rights thing was closely tied to the red vs white thing. In Finland the "class" struggle wasn't separate from the "women's struggle"... But that also meant that some specific women's rights things were ignored until pretty late, compared to the rest of Europe.
*flail* And if you ask the "real" Scandinavians, they'd probably say scandinavia consists of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. So.. uhm... there is an identity difference, and... uhm. Huh?
no subject
And to compound the issue; am I as a Swedish speaking Finn more likely to identify with Scandinavia, than a Finnish speaking Finn would? Or with germanic culture? Or might it be a regional thing more than a language thing? I really have no idea, I mean I can say a lot of things about how I think it probably should work, but in the end I just don't know.
From a personal standpoint of course I can tell you that af far as shared culture/heritage I think I share more traditions with scandinavian and germanic culture than I do with slavic or baltic. But then it's really hard to say where some of those things come from originally.
It's quite difficult really and we're kind of in between different places, belonging neither here nor there completely. Not that I'm totally sure but I think, not culturally, tradiotionally, genetically or by language... damn ancestors making things complicated for us.