On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Nalo Hopkinson wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Andrea L. Klein wrote:
>
> > those who do. I just wonder if we are deceiving ourselves in marking off
> > boundaries that divide and enclose--aren't we all just "walk[ing]
> > alongside" each other?
>
> NH: I agree with you to a certain extent; we are. Come right down to it,
> we're all human. The 'difference' lies in how one is *treated;* it's an
> external thing that's imposed upon you. People impose barriers and
> boundaries differentially on other people. It doesn't stop if one says
> to the other, "but I'm really the same as you."
<snip>
> "That boundary really isn't there" is not an effective way to
> battle other people's prejudice, particularly when those people are in a
> position to use their prejudice to limit your access to the world.
good points. I didn't mean to imply that real boundaries (gender, race,
expectations, even height and weight, and other appearance expectations)
don't exist in daily life. Our schemas for organizing endless streams of
data and experience govern our perceptions: we see generally what we've
come to expect to see. These schemas translate too often into prejudices
and very real discrimination.
Rather, what I intended to say was that, in a more abstract sense, I
wonder how different our experiences of salience, of abnormality, of being
ignored or condescended to or misjudged or simply pre-judged, really are.
I wonder if beyond the particular manifestations of these
experiences--salary discrimination, access discrimination, media
invisibility or misrepresentation, etc.--most of us experience similar
feelings and thoughts. I wonder if we stress the
differences between various "oppressions" too much--to me, feminism is
broader than that.... especially since I agree with some of the
particulars of various feminist thoughts, and wholly disagree with others,
and I feel like a woman sometimes and a human, animal, student, jock,
atom, other times. This is all to say that if I am not quintessentially a
woman or a feminist in all ways at all times, why can't Delany be somewhat
a feminist in some ways and some times?
Hope I've been clearer this time, but I fear not :)
Andrea
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