There are savvy students
everywhere. Feminist students come to see me when I tour to colleges. I preach
to the choir more often than not.
A commuter school, like
North Seattle College, makes me smile. I know from experience that the students
will be smart and ask good questions. From the moment I step onto campus I feel
I am part of an open space where the exchange of ideas is encouraged.
It is great to feel the
audience right there with me – laughing, nodding in agreement, listening
intently, taking notes and posing poignant questions at the end of it all.
After Seattle I headed
south to Portland and Reed College to present the same lecture. The week before
I arrived a controversy erupted over one of Guerrilla Girls On Tour’s posters -
displayed on campus to promote my talk.
The poster, created in
2008, is entitled “Female By Birth…” and was inspired by a t-shirt we saw while
on tour that read: “American by Birth, Christian by Choice.” The spirit in
which we wrote the words “female” and “feminist” was meant to be inclusive of
any person who identifies as female and/or feminist.
This poster angered
students at Reed College who felt it was transphobic. When I learned of this I
wrote to Reed and said:
“…guilty as charged…but
hopefully I can turn this into a discussion about how feminist groups are not
perfect and what we do when we fail and how we can all help each other
understand each other as well as how to look at older work in the context of
when it was created. That poster is 8 years old - a great deal of
awareness has happened since that time and again, the spirit we wrote it in was
honest. BUT I would like to challenge the students at REED: Change and rework
the GGOT poster “Female by Birth” so that is not Trans-phobic. I will
accept any and all ideas to this email address and will happily display and
discuss them in my talk. AND I also challenge the students to make
posters that are pro-transgender and anti-transphobic and plaster them all over
campus before I arrive - especially in my green room. Please send out the call!
The
faculty sent the call out. They even provided tape in the green room to display responses. I kept checking my inbox for replies. None came.
I
learned, sadly, that the students had created
posters and responses but chose to share them privately, only among themselves.
They did not let me or anyone on the faculty see their reactions.
I
gave my talk. It was sold out. One student questioned me about the "Female by Birth..." poster and I
repeated what I said above, reminding them of my challenge – extending it and
hoping to have a further dialogue with the students about it.
Today,
I visited a class of made up of a number of art history, art studio and theatre
students who gathered for an hour to have an informal dialogue with me. I loved
talking with the students. Their questions were well thought out and honest.
Yet, I sensed some of the students were still very angry, suspicious and
unwilling to engage with me.
After
the class visit I learned every copy of the “Female By Birth” poster, which had been placed all around campus, had been taken down by students. An act of protest.
Fine. But nothing had been put up in response. What offended them had been simply
removed from sight.
Dear
Reed College Students – you have to create an alternative message in order to
change the world. Differing ideas and new experiences are what make college
campuses incubators for the next generation of activists and artists. Just removing
images, ideas, text which offend you, does nothing to change the status
quo.
The
world is full of discomfort and offense. It is up to us all to respond publically
to it. If we act as passive bystanders and only share our outrage with our
friends on facebook we limit ourselves. As feminists of different genders,
classes, races, identities, we must engage with each other to survive.
