Women and Politics

For my new job (to start in August) I have to sign and have notarized a security form in which I swear that I do not and have not (for the past ten years) belonged to any club, group, or organization which planned to overthrow the US or Georgian government. Now, I haven't, but two things come to mind as I think about signing this document: Joseph McCarthy and Delores Umbridge.

And from there, my mind begins to spiral. The policing of ideas is horribly frightening to me, and I have to squirm a little bit when I think how easily I will sign this form without protest. I am participating in my own gagging.

What, you are beginning to wonder, does this have to do with women?

Well, I've started reading a new blog: Tiny Cat Pants where the writer has inspired me to think about how feminism works in life (rather than just how it informs my work). I find myself wondering, in a world that is STILL run by conservative white men, who am I? TCP has a great post about women's writing (or women writing themselves) that I think everyone should read. Not that I want to police your thoughts. :)

So, if a blog is a way that we (women) can write ourselves, what is it that I am writing? Cute stuff about dogs and travel? Is that who I am? While I have strong political beliefs, I've always fallen short of really articulating those ideas here.

I have work to do. So, be prepared for a little less fluff -- or I hope -- and a little more academics here. In her article "The Laugh of the Medusa," Helene Cixous says:

I shall speak about women's writing: about what it will do. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies -- for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Woman must put herself into the text -- as into the world and into history -- by her own movement.