What's wrong with that? Seems to me like they've learned something.
It's the peppy "Oh, I totally wasn't a feminist! Now I'm a feminist" thing they engage in. Like... I don't know. I just don't have the energy anymore to deal with that default attitude, where it's the safe thing to be non-pro-equality.
I sound more angry and outraged than I feel by a long shot. What I feel is that I'm too tired to hear about these Journeys Into Feminism. Yeah, I haven't always been progressive, and I've definitely become more so throughout the semester--largely due to self-education. But I don't feel like it's this thing, where you just self-identify and then it's over with, or where you should run in going "yeah, I'm totally a feminist!"
... It's like those guys who get into Japanese aesthetics, and then say "Oh, I bought it because it was so totally
wabisabi." Sure, I'm discriminating against folks with valley girl accents right there, but in general that diction implies an attitude of Completely Not Getting The Picture. Especially the "humility" and "asperity" parts of the philosophy.
So... I dunno. I feel like I've been fighting, and then the fresh wave sort of stumbles in with coffee and donuts still on their breath, and they "Okay, here we are! Totes ready to be the heroes, now that we've managed to find the place. Man, it's pretty ugly here." And I just want to shout "Well, what took you so fucking long, asshats? Why are you being so self-congratulatory for doing the bare fucking minimum for yourself? Here I am, figuratively bleeding for you and continuing to fight in this fucking department and all over the place in other places so that your children, and their children, will have more opportunities--and all you have to say is 'ttly feminist now
'? What the fuck is this noise? Is that just a viewpoint you're holding now that it's cute and conveniently laid out, or are you going to get fighting? Have you even been thinking about this, or do you just eat the slightly-higher-brow intellectual food that anyone puts in front of you?"
But I don't say that.
Anyway, that's why I'm upset. I am tired of people being so oblivious, and so insensitive.
I am more tired because I am going to give a presentation on the mental health industry at large, focusing on "intelligence" and the autistic subculture. I am afraid that either a. I am going to stand up there and my speech centers will totally crap out, as occurs sometimes, or b. I am going to have to stand down due to opposing argument, because it will either be stand down or blow my top off big time.
I'm carefully planning this so that neither of those eventualities will occur, if I am lucky. But I would like to not feel like something huge is riding on this presentation. I would like to be able to show a clip from a cute movie that I enjoyed, or to bring in some music, or, you know... something fun. But I'll be providing links to Homestuck and the Hetalia archives (plus a certain amount of necessary explanation) when I post in their forums, and so on, and instead I am going to do my best to shock the foundations of their understanding in my 15 minutes of glory. This can't be left up to chance.
*sigh*
I just wish I didn't feel like I had to. This isn't about a grade anymore--none of it is. It's about something bigger than that.