cross-posted on www.shaungatagore.com
I feel blessed and honoured to be a part of the anthology, Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex. (Also see the follow up event here!) Not only because it gave me space to put down in print and solidify forever my XTREME-RAGE-AGAINST-GRAD-SCHOOL, but for many other reasons as well. As editor Jessica Yee has stated many times, including in the book, it is not a “hate-on” feminism or academia. To me, it is exactly the opposite: in deconstructing all the things that feminism far too often tends to be (ie. oppressive!) what’s revealed is a love for all the beautiful and powerful things feminism is and can be FOR REALZ. I think that one of the reasons it means so much to me to have been a part of this project is because of where I realized my tumultuous relationship to feminism has brought me.
I’ve had my (un)fair share of emotionally intense, be-all/end-all uber-dawson’s-creek-stylez dramatic love relationships. And feminism is right up there with them. when i first met feminism it was like fireworks and stars exploding in the sky. It was passionate, energetic and exciting - the kind of all-out love where you would gladly spend all night awake talking online, confessing your undying love for each other. “Truly Madly Deeply” by Savage Garden playing in the background on repeat. (You might have noticed by now that yes, I was once a teenage girl growing up in the late 90s.) It was like the kind of relationship that gives you the oxygen you didn’t know you were missing.
