Homeschooler. Homemaker. Feminist?

I call myself a feminist but I have to admit that I don't have a firm idea of what that means for me. Does it mean I'm committed to equal rights? Does it mean I tow a certain line when it comes to issues like abortion or women in the military? If it does mean those things, am I satisfied with that?

I discovered recently that the answer to the last question is, not at all.

I'm not much for labeling myself something so that I can simply adopt the views espoused by those who share that label. Rather, I choose the labels because they give me a foundation from which to build my views on things, make me ask the questions I need to when I'm evaluating my thoughts or a course of action on a matter. For instance, I'm not a Christian because it gives me the answers. What attracted me, in part, was that it gave me a foundation from which I could construct my answers. My neighbour has a broken foot. How can I show my love for that neighbour?

My other labels and roles are useful for the same reason. Being a parent, being a homemaker, being a homeschooler. It's also why I'm a little reluctant to call myself certain things. I get squirmy and uncomfortable when I attempt to call myself an artist because I'm well aware of what that would demand I start asking of myself. When am I going to work on my drawings? What do I need to do to improve my skills?

But feminist? What questions does that prompt in me when I'm going about my day and sorting out my life and ideas? I think I have the start of an answer.

I was reading a blog post yesterday about the Feminist Theory of Science. It's really a good read, as are the comments but one thing that stuck out for me was,

Just consider the field of primate research, for one, which is perhaps the most famous example. When all primate researchers were male, they saw only alpha males in primate groups, and dominant male behavior. When females began to do observational work on primate groups, all kinds of behavior that had gone completely unnoticed suddenly began to be observed and reported, and the field of primate research was completely changed. All because a different perspective had been brought to bear on the same data sets.

It also brought to mind feminist theology. In biblical criticism the real gift of feminist theologies has been noting what, for hundreds upon hundreds of years, was simply not noticed by the men. Were early Christian women involved in church leadership? That wasn't even a question for the longest time until someone noticed that perhaps you don't tell people not to do something, as in Timothy 2:11-12: "A woman must learn in silence, in all submission. I do not permit a women to teach or to dominate over a man, but to be in silence", unless someone is doing it.

I've also been looking at the work of Artmesia lately. She was a post-Renaissance painter who's work is very different from what many of the male artists of the period were doing. Look at her women and you'll discover they have personalities. They are there to help tell story, not to please the male eye. In looking at her art you realize, by contrast, just how alike the women in so many contemporary paintings were and how narrow the view of the artists was.

The last connection was a blog post I made a year and a half ago on a different blog. The New Avengers and Herman's Head deals, sort of, with the classic superhero team in comic books made up of a selection of male characters that represent differents personalities but then just one or two female characters who are there simply to represent the the feminine. The token girl.

All this relates the theory of the male gaze.

The defining characteristic of the male gaze is that the audience is forced to regard the action and characters of a text through the perspective of a heterosexual man; the camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur1 to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events. The male gaze denies women agency, relegating them to the status of objects. The female reader or viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male

Though the essay that talked about this (by Laura Mulvey) deals with the cinema it's not hard to see how, once you understand and accept the premise, it affects science, theology, art and even comic books.

So back to me and feminism. What makes me a feminist is that I can see and acknowledge that male gaze. Furthermore, that when I make decisions and evaluate my actions I will take into consideration and give due value to my very female gaze and further, acknowledge that there are more gazes then these.

That's as far as I got. I haven't really figured out what useful questions all of this will prompt or how to test and use them. But I do know that at least there's a foundation under the label of feminist that I will be able to build on.

Any thoughts or comments or welcome. I realize this was a bit of a ramble but this is a blog and, at times, that's what they're for.

A Bit of the Renaissance

On Monday Catherine did a couple of Geeart lessons. Seeing as she was in the mood for art I pulled out a couple of books I'd given her for Christmas. They were nice big art books, one on Leonardo Da Vinci and the other on Michelangelo. Though she was a little reluctant to start it didn't take for the painters' work to drag her in. We were soon talking about light and structure and very often simply about what we liked best in the paintings.

As luck would have it Biography had a show on Michelangelo Tuesday night. We sat down and again, Catherine was a little reluctant but was soon asking questions and bringing out the Michelangelo book to get a better look at some of the details being shown on the program. Her book's focus however was only on his paintings so it was a real bonus that the show really showcased a lot of his sculpture. That helped her notice just how much the art of the time resembled Greek and Roman art and helped me plant a few seeds about the Renaissance that will come in handy when we get to that in history.

There were lots of giggles though as marble nudes meant lots of marble penises.

Now Catherine's conflicted. Leonardo used to be her favourite artist but now she's quite in awe of Michelangelo. And I have barely introduced her to Raphael. Hehehe.

Homeschooling in the Dark Ages

Funny headline from the HSLDA:

Legislator Wants to Take Homeschool Law Back to the ‘Dark Ages’!

Uh, you mean when almost all kids got their education at home? Sounds good to me.

Accept Global Warming? Who cares! It's About Risk Management.

This addresses something I've been thinking about for awhile. Whatever your position on global warming, shouldn't basic risk management dictate we take action to curtail polution and damage to the planet? If the doubters are right then the worst case scenario is economic harm but, if the doubters are wrong and nothing is done the consequences will be much more severe. But I tend to think we live in a time when people don't understand how to assess risk ("I would never fly! Planes crash all the time. What? Oh well, little Johnny didn't need a seat belt. We were only going down the road to the store") so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this basic idea doesn't get much talk.

Watch the video. It's not only informative, it's entertaining. The guy has a real gift for this sort of thing.

Pop Culture Synergy

Youtube meets Tom Cruise meets Lolcat.

Blog About Heart of Wisdom? God Will Get You.

Tami wrote up an interesting blog post that includes some criticism of Heart of Wisdom. I've never looked at Heart of Wisdom myself. I really don't know much about it and the Hebraic educational model as opposed to the Classical model. I'm more of a Catherine or Harry model kind of homeschooler myself.

Anyhow, she blogged about it and got a tremendously funny response in her comments from 'No Name':

...If I were you I wouldn’t mess with someone in God’s corner. He’s bigger and you will be sorry.

That's not the whole thing but the commentor does accuse Tami of writing about Heart of Wisdom just to get blog hits and well, I figure he/she/it is right so you can go over there, give Tami a hit and read the whole comment. It's good for a snicker.

It never fails to amaze me how people can be so sure God is on their side and be so embarrassed about that fact that they hide who they are. Funny that.

Thankfully, another Heart of Wisdom user left a very reasonable and measured response just after 'No Name' so we can conclude the comment was a bit of isolated lunacy and not reflective of the whole Heart of Wisdom crowd.

BTW - REad Tami's post and go to the links she's provided. This Hebrew/classical thing is a really interesting issue I never knew existed.

When 15 Minutes of Play is Better Than a Week With Curriculum

Let's Play Math has a post on Euclid's game. Last night I printed off a hundred chart, grabbed a highlighter and sat down at the kitchen table to play game with Catherine.

Note: Taking a look at the game and the rules might be helpful right now.

Within half a dozen moves Catherine realized the winner had been determined by the very first move. A few moves more and she realized half the board would never be marked and why (the highest of our first two numbers was 47). We talked a bit about the possible outcome and decided that, of course, there were only two outcomes, she'd win or I'd win, but that those two outcomes could be determined by four moves at the beginning.

1. She picked an odd number to start.
2. She picked an even number to start.
3. I picked an odd number to start.
4. I picked an even number to start.

Sure enough, she won through her first move of picking an even number. That let us decide how the other 3 initial moves would end a game.

After that, since this was Euclid's game, I googled Euclid and found this page. We read it and noticed an image of a sheet of Euclid's writing. On it were some shapes so I asked Catherine what kind of math she thought Euclid was interested in. 'Geometry"!' she answered.

That reminded me of an activity a friend (who's also a teacher) had shared with me when I mentioned Catherine was having trouble with the difference between 2 and 3 dimensions. So we grabbed some paper and traced a pattern block. I drew an x and y axis and explained that those were the two dimensions would could measure the shape by. Then I went a little further and showed her how we could number the lines and plot the points of the shape. I thought I was losing her but she said, "I know! Remember when we did maps?" and she drew out a little example of a map with a grid over it and showed me how she'd learned to find a square in the grid by the coordinates she'd been given. Awesome.

That down I stacked up pattern blocks on the tracing and said that the shape was now three dimensional and asked her to show me how that was and where the new axis would be. She understood right away and demonstrated it.

Ta da! Now of course I need to get some activities to reinforce this. I found a little whack-a-mole game on the subject and plan to make up some worksheets where can plot points to come up with some shape or secret message. I know this isn't 4th grade math but she seemed to enjoy it so we'll take a little detour and when she comes back to it in a couple of years there will already be a foundation.

Fifteen minutes of wandering off the path.