Why White Women Voted for Trump—And How Literature Can Save Us

All women live with a constant drumbeat of real and threatened violence against us. White women, however, are taught that the worst of that violence comes from men of color and that only the white supremacist patriarchy can save us, even if the men that system places us beneath sometimes hurt us. That hurt is assumed to be lesser, deserved, and legitimate. Rape is the threat of a shadowy figure hiding in the bushes, not the actions of the men we are supposed to marry. Take away the power of the patriarch, and we too will be destroyed.

But literature can show us how that patriarchy in fact destroys us. In Kate Chopin‘s The Awakening, a white woman who tries to escape the restrictions imposed upon her eventually succumbs to social pressure, not by returning to her limited domestic life but by killing herself. The poetry of Adrienne Rich can teach us to see the “Galaxies of women, there / doing penance for impetuousness“. She shows us, too, that by “Diving into the Wreck“, by leaving behind “the book of myths” we can find something new, something unexplored. We can survive and make of our survival a quest.

They led a writing workshop together in Austin...

Audre Lorde, Meridel Lesueur, and Adrienne Rich (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

And when white women come to see through the myths that tell us we can only be safe in white supremacist patriarchy, we can read the work of women of color in a spirit of solidarity. When we read June Jordan, we can follow how she has been damaged by the same system that has damaged us, even as it also elevates us above her. Her “Poem about My Rights” reads, in part:

I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been raped

As long as white women remain supportive of the white supremacist patriarchy, the sanctity of our leaders will not be violated, even if parts of ourselves are.

It might be objected that not all literature opposes or deconstructs the white supremacist patriarchy, but that is where literary criticism comes in, whether formal, casual, academic, or public. This is why literature as a discipline matters: because we teach students to examine the narratives they read instead of consuming them passively. We can read Gone with the Wind for how it promotes false narratives about race and gender in the American South around the time of the Civil War. When we regard stories critically, we are analyzing what narratives and ideals are being expressed and evaluating whether to accept or reject them.

Literature, especially when studied carefully, helps us to understand the narratives that shape us. When those narratives become visible, their validity can be assessed. We can also better understand how those narratives shape both ourselves and those around us. This is something sharper than what is commonly called empathy, though some might argue it gets closer to the real meaning of the word.

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9 Ways I’m Changing My Marathon Training This Year

With the academic year starting up again, so too is my training for the Honolulu Marathon. This year will be my second try at the course, and I want to finish faster, so I’m making some changes to the way I prepare:

  1. Adding strength training and foam rolling to my cool-down routine. I’m focusing on my arms and core because my arms suffered a lot more last year than I expected.
  2. Adding mobility drills to my warmup. I have pretty good form already, but it can always be improved. Plus, warming up properly will help me avoid injuries.
  3. Not using an off-the-shelf training plan. I’m still basing the pattern of runs I do in the mornings off the Hal Higdon plan, but I’m following my own cycle for when I back off in mileage and when I push ahead.
  4. Running beach intervals two nights per week. I need to run fast sometimes if I want to run faster. Plus, the sand will provide resistance that will help me with hills.
  5. Doing yoga the other nights of the week, focusing on hip openers and building strength in my core and arms (notice a theme?). I will use a more restorative style as needed. Last year, I did yoga twice a week at most.
  6. Foam rolling on my rest mornings. Recovery is serious business.
  7. Stand up paddle boarding on my cross-training mornings, working—guess what?—my arms and core.
  8. Running a course that will bring me over the bridge whenever possible. It’s the only hill on the island, and I wasn’t ready for Diamond Head last year.
  9. Carrying a two-liter hydration pack on my long runs. It’s hotter here than it is in Honolulu.

Now, my question to you is this: how many times do I have to run the same marathon before it becomes a tradition?

5 Ways I’m Changing My Syllabi This Semester

This semester, I’m not teaching any new courses, so with two weeks to go until classes begin, I’m refreshing previous syllabi, but I want to do more than change the dates.The following are five steps I’m taking to continue developing syllabi that focus on improving learning instead of being mere compilations of rules and regulations.

  1. Adding my own brief explanation of each course, focused on its overarching and disciplinary questions, before the required description and outcomes. I plan to have students write their best guesses at the answers to the questions on the first day and then have them revisit those questions at the midterm and the end of the semester. In part this change is based on Ken Bain’s What the Best College Teachers Do, as he suggests that starting with questions is part of the essential process of creating a “natural critical environment.” It is also influenced by the importance of helping students to see the value of a discipline as part of a general education course, which the students in last semester’s postcolonial studies learning community helped me to see. For Introduction to Literature, I ask:

    How can we think about literature, and why would you want to?

  2. Focusing more on visual design. I have always given my students both printed and digital syllabuses with the latter in a format that allows them to change the font or its size so that students with visual impairments have more options for accessibility. My goal here, however, goes beyond readability. I want the syllabus to be visually appealing and to look friendly. I am playing with the typeface and making sure each printed page has a visual element such as a picture or a chart.
  3. Adding a list of required attitudes and beliefs, such as

    Everyone can improve their writing through consistent practice.

    My hope here is to create a ground for the building of metacognitive skills from day one. I have already been including the outcomes of prerequisite courses and what students should do if they do not feel confident in their ability to do them.

  4. Simplifying the language by sticking to the 1000 most-used English words when feasible. For introductory courses, I am also putting other words that are important to the course itself in bold and using them in a syllabus vocabulary quiz on the second day of class. The goal is to get students in the habit of looking up words they don’t know and to establish some familiarity with the basic language of the discipline.
  5. Noting that if students have excellent attendance, I will round their final grades up, per this Vitae “Dear Forums…” post.

 

What are you adding to (or removing from) your syllabi this semester?