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I recently dropped a class because I was frustrated by the lack of feminist content, but in all fairness it was a women's studies class, so a discussion of feminism is rightly expected. After this, a friend told me that the majority of the world is not feminist, and when I leave school I will encounter many situations that are not feminist; part of what I need to do with my life is find the feminism in things or use my own feminist standpoint to critique what I experience. And I'm fairly realistic, so I know this is true. I am considering going to law school, and this would be an immense challenge for me to make that work with my feminism.
This experience has also made me very critical of what I am doing in university. Up to this point I have expereinced a type of ready-made-feminism. I have the great privilege of being able to sit in a classroom and read feminist scholars and discuss their work, or read their critical observation of the world, and believe me I love every minute of it. But it says something about me that I would get mad and drop a class becasue there was not enough feminism to it. What is presented to me in classes are the debates among feminists, their thoughts and ideas and activisms, basically telling their story of how they found the feminism in something they are passionate about.
This may seem like an obvious idea to some people, but it is just hitting me now that if I really want to make a change or do or say something powerful, I need to take something and challenge it for myself. So far all I have done is read about how other women have challenged something, and then I form my opinion based what I read. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is all part of building up knowledge. But while it is valuable and probably essential, talking about other people's work is not going to be enough. I'm realizing that if I'm ever going to be happy and feel like I'm actually making a positive contribution I need to push past that opinion and do my own challenging.
It's an exciting prospect :)
