Title : "During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult...."
link : "During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult...."
"During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult...."
I had to wonder who that teacher was, going public with misogyny (even if it was misogyny in the past).20 years ago today I was an extremely obnoxious college freshman, a trait later immortalized in my Comp 101 professor’s memoir pic.twitter.com/yiHnQORDFR
— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) September 11, 2021
It was my first semester of college at a small state university... I wasn't particularly interested in school... until I met the woman who would be my creative-writing professor.... My teacher, who I'll call Sandy, wore too-big sweaters, dowdy leather clogs, and no makeup... She was the first openly gay woman I'd ever met.... Most of the women in my holler would never admit to an attraction to anyone outside their husbands, except maybe for Jesus and Dale Earnhardt....
Stereotypes are dangerous, but sometimes they are also true, and Sandy had "dyke" written all over her face. Besides, her sexuality was written into our course syllabus. Our reading list was entirely women who slept with women or looked like they did, from Virginia Woolf to Dorothy Allison, from Leslie Feinberg to Judith Butler....
I wasn't interested in anything my teacher had to say, and when she gave me feedback on my writing—especially the feedback that essays required transitions between paragraphs and I needed to start using them—I'd say, "I don't believe in transitions," and leave in a huff....
Ha ha. That's funny. "I don't believe in transitions." I feel the same way, don't you? But be careful running around saying "I don't believe in transitions" today, because you could get taken for a transphobe an canceled. On that topic, see this Katie Herzog piece from 2017: "A Response to the Uproar Over My Piece, 'The Detransitioners.'"
But — oh, no, a transition! — back to the essay about the teacher:
At the end of the year, I dropped out of college.... [A]fter a year, I went back to the college and, with no other options, enrolled in Sandy's class once again. I just hoped she wouldn't remember what an ass I'd been. She did remember, but we never talked about our past, and we gradually came around to something like peace. Or, rather, I stopped being a dick, and she was gracious and professional enough not to hold it against me. Years later, after I'd graduated from college, moved back and forth across the country three times, and finally started writing full-time, Sandy e-mailed me out of the blue. She had a book coming out, and it included a section about a student who'd almost driven her to quit teaching. The student's name, oddly enough, was "Katie," and she compared this Katie to an abusive ex-girlfriend. If I squinted hard enough, I could see the resemblance. When her book tour came to Seattle, I went, and I bought a book. Later, alone, reading a chapter about myself, I clearly saw how terrible I had been. But I also knew by then that it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me.
That's all you need to know. I'd link to the memoir and give the author's name, but I'm not 100% positive I found it.
The interesting part here is that the line "During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult" — which jumped off the page as misogynistic to me — was almost certainly written by a woman. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not misogynistic, but it may give some insight into how we get the idea that something is misogynistic.
I had to wonder who that teacher was, going public with misogyny (even if it was misogyny in the past).20 years ago today I was an extremely obnoxious college freshman, a trait later immortalized in my Comp 101 professor’s memoir pic.twitter.com/yiHnQORDFR
— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) September 11, 2021
It was my first semester of college at a small state university... I wasn't particularly interested in school... until I met the woman who would be my creative-writing professor.... My teacher, who I'll call Sandy, wore too-big sweaters, dowdy leather clogs, and no makeup... She was the first openly gay woman I'd ever met.... Most of the women in my holler would never admit to an attraction to anyone outside their husbands, except maybe for Jesus and Dale Earnhardt....
Stereotypes are dangerous, but sometimes they are also true, and Sandy had "dyke" written all over her face. Besides, her sexuality was written into our course syllabus. Our reading list was entirely women who slept with women or looked like they did, from Virginia Woolf to Dorothy Allison, from Leslie Feinberg to Judith Butler....
I wasn't interested in anything my teacher had to say, and when she gave me feedback on my writing—especially the feedback that essays required transitions between paragraphs and I needed to start using them—I'd say, "I don't believe in transitions," and leave in a huff....
Ha ha. That's funny. "I don't believe in transitions." I feel the same way, don't you? But be careful running around saying "I don't believe in transitions" today, because you could get taken for a transphobe an canceled. On that topic, see this Katie Herzog piece from 2017: "A Response to the Uproar Over My Piece, 'The Detransitioners.'"
But — oh, no, a transition! — back to the essay about the teacher:
At the end of the year, I dropped out of college.... [A]fter a year, I went back to the college and, with no other options, enrolled in Sandy's class once again. I just hoped she wouldn't remember what an ass I'd been. She did remember, but we never talked about our past, and we gradually came around to something like peace. Or, rather, I stopped being a dick, and she was gracious and professional enough not to hold it against me. Years later, after I'd graduated from college, moved back and forth across the country three times, and finally started writing full-time, Sandy e-mailed me out of the blue. She had a book coming out, and it included a section about a student who'd almost driven her to quit teaching. The student's name, oddly enough, was "Katie," and she compared this Katie to an abusive ex-girlfriend. If I squinted hard enough, I could see the resemblance. When her book tour came to Seattle, I went, and I bought a book. Later, alone, reading a chapter about myself, I clearly saw how terrible I had been. But I also knew by then that it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me.
That's all you need to know. I'd link to the memoir and give the author's name, but I'm not 100% positive I found it.
The interesting part here is that the line "During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult" — which jumped off the page as misogynistic to me — was almost certainly written by a woman. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not misogynistic, but it may give some insight into how we get the idea that something is misogynistic.
Thus articles "During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult...."
You now read the article "During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult...." with the link address https://welcometoamerican.blogspot.com/2021/09/during-this-time-i-convinced-myself.html
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