The economy and women's studies

As with viritually every entity, colleges and universities are looking to save money. Courses and programmes that are perceived to not add value to the bottom line are likely at risk of elimination.

Potente Susurro at Like A Whisper explains how Florida Atlantic University has chosen to eliminate its women's studies programme, one of the rare schools offering an advanced degree in the discipline.

Menstrual Poetry shares how womens and queer studies are at risk in Georgia.

This is an alarming trend, and reminds me of how Lillian Faderman wrote of the purging of women's professional education advancees in To Believe In Women.

In the late 1920s, new writings were beginning to portray gays as sick minded folk, and it led to purging faculty at women's schools, removing women from the presidency of such schools, all because they suspected them of being gay. What resulted were curricula no longer geared to send women into professional positions, and instead created domestic arts programmes focused on running and managing homes.

Cindy at Fringe writes that Womens studies are first on the chopping block.

I get queasy thinking we are the ones on vulnerable yet again, and think schools with only women in the student body will once again be asked to carry the day.

Early criticism

Almost four weeks have past since Obama became president.

In that time, the right has criticised him for: his lack of wearing a suit jacket and signing the stimulus bill on Tuesday instead of Friday night through Monday.

Aren't we off to a rousing start? My gosh, I did not vote for Bush in 2000. Yet, I gave the guy a chance, and through say... March 2002, had no complaints with his performance. He lost me with Iraq, from the moment the whispers began of a plan to attack that nation.

I watch the criticism of the stimulus bill, and people wish that this bill be sliced and diced and dissected and scrutinised as if it were an energy or education bill, where we have time to ponder and evaluate.

There is no time to ponder and evaluate now; we need to act. If we err somewhere, well, we will correct the error later. What counted was size of bill and speed of passage. That three Republicans bravely defied their party to vote for this bill is a tribute to their recognition of the urgency of the problem.

Democrats reached out in a way never extended to them over the first six years of the Bush Administration, yet for a party barely holding on to any sort of relevance, the reaching out was insufficient.

So long as the right refuses to recognise they cannot get everything they wish nor block everything they do not wish for, so long as this parlays into a refusal to compromise, they will remain irrelevant in American politics.

The tale is in the transcripts

Over the past couple of weeks, I've collected various archival records related to my past, the latest installment, my high school transcript.

I graduated in 1972, ranked 245th in a class of 331. Do the math, that is the 26th percentile in ranking. Such stellar work, nelle!

Notated in the upper corner of the back page was my score from standardised testing in year three: 87th percentile.

The disparity between the two sent my mind back in time. Looking at the grades, what sheer ugliness. I cornered the market on D's, yet somehow my final average was C+. Huh? Wh'appened?

Damn if I know. My first year was 4 D's and a C. My last year was best, and perhaps I saved the day with a modest performance.

Here is why I really write of this. If you know me, you know my issues. In 1968, in 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972, yet hardly exclusive to those years, was the dark age of homophobia supreme. One simply did not willingly reveal any inherent gayness, or heaven forbid, even worse, gender issues.

Well, here was me, a transdyke, fearing the world finding out the truth. Here was me, who spent a majority of class lecture time letting my mind float free, away from the class in some inward and inner world, a world where gender miraculously self corrected, not by the issue going away mentally, but rather physically.

I've always been such a daydreamer, and that manifests as a learning disability. How did I make it through college?

Today, it is likely someone would see those results and realise an evaluation was in order, that a 504 plan was likely necessary. And as one dug deeper, a therapist would be recommended, and off we go. Please let it be so. Please let such at risk kids find the help they need. There are intelligent kids out there who are so troubled by their self-variation they fear others bearing witness to it.

I know better now, I'm a gay woman and damn proud of it, but in 1968, in 1972, I was scared shitless, fearing everything, including me. This is a serious case of if I knew then what I know now...

The paths we walk

Every waking moment of our day, we are faced with choices; such is the gift and province of sentience.

Whether scurrying about at work - through interviews, writing, or assisting other staff - in my drive time, one hour each way commute, setting at this machine committing thoughts to screen, practising reiki, or nestled into bed, letting thoughts take me away, I, as with every other being, face a constant assortment of choices.

Our society, our world in fact, is facing acute choices, the consequences of which will reverberate through following decades. We walk an unknown path, with only the past as a reliable guide, vetting our choices, vetting the efficacy of alternatives, and how we choose will impact the lives of our children and grandchildren.

On a personal level, I make choices that hopefully carry me to a sound future. Choices of the path, sometimes not really choices, but reactions and survivorship, proved poor and harmful.

What I take away from this is the need to choose wisely, the need to find a framework that works, and operate with the framework as a guide.

That is not meant to constrain such that change is to be feared or shunned, not at all. Change can be embraced, if one has a sound framework with which to approach it - that we can face issues square on, overcome them, learn lessons, and thrive under new circumstance.

My writing reflects this sort of optimism, with characters that unabashedly go about creating a world they can be proud to live in. I try to live up to that aspiration now, in a way I never did before. I'll succeed at times, perhaps stumble on others, but the focus will remain clear, toward the future.