“In the language of the digital world, I am multitasking. But in the language of women and their work, I’m weaving functional art, both caring and taking care” (Bell, 2000, p. 33).
There is a kind of psychic exhaustion that comes from working with women. I want to be good for them and good to them—and I work hard at it—as their advisor, teacher, colleague, and friend. At times, we get into a feeding frenzy: ideas appear, flit, zip, and disappear. We can’t talk fast enough—or long enough. Our ideas come out jumbled and frantic, amid both shared anger and laughter at the world. Finally, the session ends—always reluctantly. “Did I do it well enough?” I ask myself afterwards. “Did I give her what she needs? For now?” My self-evaluation is always at once, “Yes. No. Maybe.”
This week I am having trouble focusing on helping myself do my work. It’s no problem for me to help advisees, answer students questions, proofread drafts for friends, or even complete surveys from book publishing reps. The problem is showing up for my writing with the same care and time. I’ve rationalized that I was dragging my feet with this post because I can’t figure out how to listen to our first meeting’s recording…a recording from February, mind you, but NOW is when I absolutely MUST listen to it! After my futile, albeit voluminous, research on the Voice Memo feature on iPhones 3-5, I finally–as in, TODAY– caught on to my self-defeating ways and decided to focus on the information I do know.
I know that I love the idea of this project being a digitally interactive kind of autoethnography. I look at my notes from our conversations and get energized all over again about our shared intent: a meta-consciousness-raising thought experiment…a feminist conversation about mentoring young feminists…In teaching this class, what can we learn about ourselves?…What can we learn about young feminists?
The questions, in particular, are useful prompts for today’s writing. I remember our conversations in January as we tried to articulate our intentions in a syllabus. And I appreciate how thoughtful and careful we were in those conversations—talking about how we each came into our own respective feminist consciousness in our own time. Therefore, we didn’t want students to feel forced into feminism, or pressured into claiming it as part of their identities. (I’ve decided that “force” is antithetical to feminism, in hindsight) And so, as the semester winds down and I reflect on the awesomeness of Shout Out, I am starting to think that feminists can’t be born out of a class; but feminists, I believe are midwifed by other women.
Alison, I really identified with your post. It resonates with my perennial work experiences – always caring for others, rarely doing any self-care – whether that self-care is focusing on my own writing or even in crafting some sort of balance and healthy practices outside of work. Strangely enough sitting here unable to walk because of a sprained ankle, I feel simultaneously trapped by my immobility and dependence on others and liberated because I can’t do anything but read, write and rest.
Like you, I think I’ve approached mentoring our students in a way that focuses on their development, but never feeling like I had quite enough to give. Always stretched to my limits, while also wondering what did they learn about themselves? When I first started working with Women’s Studies students in a formalized way, it was after a large event where students were vocalizing “I’m disposable, just replace me with the pretty girl sitting next to me and I won’t be missed.” I started working with a small group of women in a face-to-face consciousness raising group. It was amazing, I had never participated in a CR group before so it was all “theoretical” to me and witnessing a student CR group was pretty amazing. I felt like my job was to help to make it happen, mentor the students organizers, help them to get the word out, reserve the space . . .but to still sit on the margins. It was always a balancing act – how much do I participate (beyond buying the pizza and “being there”), or is it just about being a good listener? It was a constant struggle. A good struggle. An exhausting struggle. It was both a labor of love, deeply rewarding, but also my own experiences and gendered challenges remained marginalized – focusing on empowering the students to find their voice, to become leaders in their own right. I wonder how we can deal with the inherent power relationships between faculty and students in these contexts – how we can craft mutuality – how we can shape shared responsibility. . ..