Into and out of the Vortex
04/12/06 08:32 Filed in: News
I have just emerged from the vortex of some
undergraduate essay marking (literary theory). I
suffer what I can only describe as
moral-emotional agonies before, during and after
the process - concerned to be both fair and
encouraging; worried that I am too easily swayed
by glib-but-fluent writing over stodgier but,
perhaps, more content-rich work; a simultaneous
fear that the borderline Fail I give is a) too
harsh and b) too generous to answer for in an
imagined court.
One thing which always gives me a hollow laugh, though. Feminism is largely dead for the current undergraduate age-group and - in tutorial/seminar discussion - the three most-expressed opinions from the women are that a) it might have once been 'needed', but now it isn't, b) everyone bangs on about it as if it still relevant and can we stop talking about it now, please and (most worryingly) c) it has 'spoilt' relationships between men and women, or made them more difficult. And yet how often they choose the 'representation of women / feminist critical theory' question for essays, and with what cynicism they rehearse the arguments and sound radical!
One thing which always gives me a hollow laugh, though. Feminism is largely dead for the current undergraduate age-group and - in tutorial/seminar discussion - the three most-expressed opinions from the women are that a) it might have once been 'needed', but now it isn't, b) everyone bangs on about it as if it still relevant and can we stop talking about it now, please and (most worryingly) c) it has 'spoilt' relationships between men and women, or made them more difficult. And yet how often they choose the 'representation of women / feminist critical theory' question for essays, and with what cynicism they rehearse the arguments and sound radical!
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