Coming Into My Feminist Consciousness
My Humanities Moment occurred during my Junior year in college, when I attended an evening session with Gerda Lerner, the author of <em>The Creation of Feminist Consciousness</em> and one of the founders of the academic field called women’s history. <br /><br />I read only short sections of the book assigned in my women’s studies class. (The course itself was a revelation to me, and a requirement because I didn’t score a 5 on my high school AP History exam. Being forced to take history courses in college was the bright side of this failure, because it was in those classes that I learned that history is more than the dates of battles, treaties, and founding documents -- all activities of men. I realized that women were doing cool (and important) things while all that other business was going on.) <br /><br />I remember almost nothing about the event except a single line by the speaker, which I can only approximate here. Dr. Lerner said that the tragedy of women’s history is the sheer waste of intellectual capital for millenia. She asked us to consider what our culture might have lost -- what all the world’s cultures have lost -- due to women’s subjugation and their lack of access to education. How many books were never written? How many works of art never made? How many ideas in philosophy and politics and religion and science were never engendered because of one gender’s systematic oppression? <br /><br />I remember sobbing in my chair. I remember the choking anger I felt at this injustice. I also remember the feeling I finally had an answer to a question my father had once posed. <br /><br />Now, you have to understand a bit about me to understand this moment, my coming to feminist consciousness. I was the only girl in a family of three boys. I was the daughter of a man who could have given the Great Santini a run for his money. Our household was run with military precision, my father being a retired Army officer, Vietnam veteran, helicopter pilot, and Ranger instructor, and my mother a traditional, mild-mannered wife. Our house was patriarchal, to be sure, and I did my best to measure up to a standard that placed male bodies and minds above all else. (My father, in fact, once told me that I was the “best son he ever had,” a true compliment coming from him.) <br /><br />I understand now that my father was a product of his time, born in 1931 and raised in Tennessee, but as a young girl I received mixed messages about my place. He appreciated my intellect and we often spent evenings together watching Masterpiece Theater or some other PBS documentary that would be “wasted” on my brothers. During one of these evenings, my father asked me, “Why do you suppose there are no women composers?” <br /><br />I cannot remember the exact tone of his question; he could very well have been taunting me, reinforcing the idea that women were inferior because, look, there’s the proof. There are no women composers. They must be bad at composing. Taunting me was one of my father’s unfortunate habits. But I like to think my father’s tone also included some confusion and curiosity. Here he was with this brainy daughter -- who was, in his words, “smarter than all three boys put together” -- but where could she really succeed if there were no women composers? <br /><br />I certainly don’t recall my answer to my father’s question, but I do remember the roiling of my brain and the shame I felt at not having a good explanation for why there were no women composers, few women authors, no women presidents, and certainly no female helicopter pilots. I remember the queasy sense of defeat that whatever my intellect, I couldn’t amount to much -- or at least not to the level of men. And I wanted to be a good man -- the best son -- for my terrifying, mercurial father. <br /><br />Gerda Lerner’s words gave me the answer I needed. There were no women composers because, according to Lerner, patriarchy had “skewed the intellectual development of women as a group, since their major intellectual endeavor had to be to counteract the pervasive patriarchal assumptions of their inferiority and incompleteness as human beings.” <br /><br />That’s exactly what I had been doing in my family for 20-something years, trying to counteract the idea that I was inferior. <br /><br />I never got to explain all this to my father, partly because I was too afraid, partly because I hadn’t worked it all out in a bell ringer, iron-clad speech that would once and for all convince him of women’s equality, and partly because he died soon after I graduated. But Gerda Lerner’s words have never left me, and they’ve helped me understand how the humanities -- the intellectual endeavors of both women and men -- can and do nurture the mind and the soul.
<em>The Creation of Feminist Consciousness</em> by Gerda Lerner
1993-1994
C. N. Bernstein
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Set On a Path by Socrates
As a college freshman, Thérèse Cory encountered Plato’s Socratic dialogue <em>Euthyphro</em> for the first time. Reading Socrates’ exhortations for Euthyphro—a man bringing charges of murder against his father—to articulate a clear and universal definition of piety, Cory realized the extent to which many of us take key terms and ideas for granted. The story ignited her belief that we must discuss and understand one another’s conceptual perspectives in order to live harmoniously together. This intellectual commitment set Cory on her path to become a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
<a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/meet-the-fellows/therese-scarpelli-cory/">Thérèse Cory</a>, associate professor of philosophy at Notre Dame University
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9/11 Shaped My Career
I continued as an education major and eventually graduated in 2007 with my degree. By the time I graduated, I knew that loved teaching. I discovered during my different experiences in the classroom in college that this was my calling. 9/11 taught me that service is important, but it also taught me that knowledge is power and knowing about the world outside of my little bubble is extremely important. I try to do this with my students in my classes everyday. I want them to be educated citizens who can see the many sides of an issue and are curious about the world they live in.
I was a brand new college freshman getting ready to attend my Political Science class that started at 8:45am on September 11, 2001. I heard the news on the radio when I first woke up and I thought it wasn't real. I turned on the TV and still couldn't believe it was real. I didn't know what else to do except go to class and so I did. My professor came in the room sobbing and she told us all to go home and be with our families. We all walked out of the lecture hall, scattering across the green, going our different directions. I began walking to my car but my mind was focused on one thing, I wanted to go volunteer for military service. My dad had served during Vietnam and I felt like it was my duty. So I called my dad and told him my plan and he said to me (in probably the first adult conversation we would have), "You don't need to serve in the military because I served for you. If you really want to make a difference in this world, start thinking about how you can give back to your community through your career or volunteer service." At that point, I was a communications major and I had aspirations of being a sport journalist. I stuck it out for another year in the major, but what my dad had said to me on that day kept coming back around. At the end of my freshman year, I switched my major to history with a secondary education emphasis. I loved history, that I knew, did I love teaching? I did not know, but I knew this would be a chance to service my community and country.
I continued as an education major and eventually graduated in 2007 with my degree. By the time I graduated, I knew that loved teaching. I discovered during my different experiences in the classroom in college that this was my calling. 9/11 taught me that service is important, but it also taught me that knowledge is power and knowing about the world outside of my little bubble is extremely important. I try to do this with my students in my classes everyday. I want them to be educated citizens who can see the many sides of an issue and are curious about the world they live in.
9/11/2001
<a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/education-programs/teacher-advisory-council-2017-2018/">Carly Hill</a>, 34, teacher
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Deciding Not to Be a Doctor
<p>Larry Kramer, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, went to college expecting to become a doctor, but taking a course on religious ethics and moral issues shifted his direction. To him, the humanities allow us to be introspective and to understand our lives from a larger point of view, which leads to a more revealing and enriching human experience.</p>
<p>To celebrate its 40th year anniversary of grant making, programming, and partnerships that connect Californians to each other, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to explore what the humanities mean to them. For more information visit <a href="http://calhum.org/about/we-are-the-humanities" title="California Humanities: We Are the Humanities" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">California Humanities: We Are the Humanities</a>.</p>
California Humanities
Larry Kramer, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms">Standard YouTube License</a>
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Coming to Terms with the Experience of War
<p>For centuries philosophers like Glenn Gray have sought ways to make sense of the world and better understand our place in it — from the order of the cosmos to the nature of beauty to the chaos and brutality of war. And, for just as many centuries they have inspired, intrigued, and challenged us to consider new ideas, and offered perspectives on difficult issues to help us navigate our lives and set the course of civilizations.</p>
<p>As chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, William Adams has helped oversee the roll-out of an agency-wide initiative <em>Standing Together: The Humanities and the Experience of War</em> which seeks to use the humanities to help Americans understand the experiences of service members as they return to civilian life.</p>
<p>National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman William “Bro” Adams shares how philosophy professor and World War II veteran Glenn Gray and his book <em>The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle</em> helped him come to terms with his own experiences in Vietnam.</p>
<p>For centuries philosophers like Gray have sought ways to make sense of the world and better understand our place in it—from the order of the cosmos to the nature of beauty to the chaos and brutality of war. And, for just as many centuries they have inspired, intrigued, and challenged us to consider new ideas, and offered perspectives on difficult issues to help us navigate our lives and set the course of civilizations.</p>
<p>As chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, William Adams has helped oversee the rollout of an agency-wide initiative, <a href="https://www.neh.gov/veterans/standing-together">Standing Together: The Humanities and the Experience of War</a>, which seeks to use the humanities to help Americans understand the experiences of service members as they return to civilian life.</p>
<em>The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle</em> by Glenn Gray
William “Bro” Adams, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities
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