I've been trying to think of one clear, defined topic for this first journal, and it's been startling hard. There was  just so much information jammed into those readings, and to make things more difficult to myself, I kinda read them out of order and so spent a lot of time going "But what is essentialism?!" while tearing out my hair. Things are a bit better now that I've read that explanation, but even with that and a day of processing, I don't really know where to start. There's a lot of stuff to unpack from there! And, not to be rude, but y'all talk funny. I've been involved in a good deal of gender politics debates (or, in some cases, grudge matches) and it's something that's important to me, and I have still never heard a lot of these words in my entire life. (Hegemony, I'm looking at you!)

All of this is just to say that this entry might not be the most coherent. Rather than waste more time trying to cobble together some big, overarching meaning I've extracted from the readings and class, I'll spend a few words talking about some things that popped out at me. I hope that once I've spent a little more time with the ideas in this class, I'll be able to make some super real good sensical pro-blogger blog entries, but until then, please bear with me.

In Glenn's "The Social Construction and Institutionalization of Gender and Race", there were many concepts that she seemed to phrase near-perfectly, the sort of stuff that's crucial to gender discussions but can be ridiculously hard to parse. The first was the importance of intersectionality (which Google Chrome is helpfully telling me isn't a real word). Sometimes topics of equality that are not based on gender lines come up in feminist debates, and there's often the question of why issues of class, race, orientation, etc. are relevant there. As Glenn says when discussing women of color, "These women did not experience race and gender as separate or additive, but as simultaneous and linked." So if you're a woman of color, or a queer woman of color, or a queer trans woman of color, you've got to deal with all the shit that entails as a member of Western society at once, not in little, compartmentalized packets. In fighting for women's rights, if you're not fighting the class/race/orientation/etc. battle as well, you're leaving a huge number of the people you hope to help in the dust.

Glenn also explained privilege quite well. Privilege is one of the trickiest things I've ever tried to explain. It was a hard concept for me to grasp at first, too. It's an unpleasant concept to think about as a member of a privileged group, but it's also extremely important when dealing with social issues. As Glenn puts it "a White person in the United States enjoys privileges and a higher standard of living by virtue  of the subordination and lower standard of living of people of color, even if she or he is not personally exploiting or taking advantage of any persons of color." It's not something privileged people have to feel guilty over, but it's something we have to address and be aware of. It's also important to state that privilege isn't a golden ticket to a good life. I've had plenty of people tell me "Well, I'm a white dude, and I've had to overcome hardships." The notion of privilege isn't trying to undermine certain people's personal experiences. You can be born with a basket full of privilege, and you can still have an awful life. But it's less likely to be awful in certain respects if you're a man or white or straight. It's not a definitive but a probability.

The longer I spend on this the more it seems I'm rambling, so I'm going to cut it here for the night. With a little more practice at this gender and conflict blogging stuff, this will all take a turn for the better, fingers crossed. More on class and the other readings in the next day or two!