A BLOG

Bodies and habits in the coffee shop

note: I am in the process of cleaning up/expanding my blog. My first step is to finish up or delete past draft entries. The following began as a draft on October 11, 2010.

How do we learn to become aware of others? Why do some people (almost) instinctually act in ways that demonstrate an awareness and consideration of other bodies? How do we develop habits that compel us to always think about (or, if not think, at least act in accordance with) how our bodies exist/move in the world/connect/are in proximity to other bodies?

I was reminded of this set of questions this morning when I was waiting to get coffee at a local coffee shop. When I arrived to get a latte, there was a line. It was positioned in such a way that the people in line blocked the door and made it difficult for others to easily enter or exit. As with most coffee places, people usually wait in line right by the counter and don’t block the door. However, the door-blocking line had happened enough times at this coffee place that it made me wonder about lines at restaurants (and other public places) and why some people always seem to like to take up as much space as possible, regardless of its impact on any bodies around them.

Perhaps it is a misreading, but when I see people blocking exits and being oblivious to others I am often bothered by the sense of entitlement that these space-hoggers must have. How can they not pay attention to their surroundings? How can they not realize the impact of their bodies and actions on others? Because of my interest in virtue ethics and habits, I wonder about what repeated/habitual bodily practices space-hoggers do that have trained them to be so oblivious. And I wonder what needs to be done for them to break those habits. Could disrupting their space with subversive practices/subversive bodies be successful in enabling them to stop being oblivious and stop hogging space? Could they learn new habits, habits that trained them to be aware of all of the bodies beside/around them?

I don’t really have any answers to these questions, but I find thinking about how bodies exist in proximity to each other in coffee shop lines and how this connects to power, privilege and habit to be much more productive than silently stewing over how/why space hogs like to screw up lines just to piss me off.

In revisiting my reflection, having first started this draft last October, I am reminded of some recent discussions in my queer/ing ethics class about bodies in coffee shops. These discussions don’t necessarily directly connect to my own questions about space-hoggers, but I find myself wanting to put them beside each other (plus, that’s just how my brain works; I like to put a wide range of ideas next to each other and experiment with developing connections).

1. During our February 8th class, we watched a clip from the documentary, Unexamined Life, in which Judith Butler and Sanaura Taylor ponder the question, “what does it mean to take a walk?” At 2 minutes and 57 seconds in, Taylor describes what it’s like for her, as someone who is in a wheelchair and has limited use of her hands, to be in a coffee shop. Butler asks her, “Do you feel free to move in all of the ways that you want to move?” Taylor answers:

I can go into a coffee shop and actually pick up the cup with my mouth and carry it to my table. But then that becomes almost more difficult because of the normalizing standards of our movements and the discomfort that that causes when I do things with body parts that aren’t necessarily what we assume that they’re for. That seems to be even more hard for people to deal with.

I find it helpful to think about how both the space-hoggers in my experience and S Taylor inhabit and disrupt space (and normative behavior) in radically different ways.

2. In her notes for our class discussion, Raechel documents how we kept coming back to this Butler/Taylor clip and Taylor’s discussion of the coffee shop. Here’s just one excerpt:

What does it mean for her to use body parts in ways they weren’t “meant for.” What kind of visibility disruption is caused through her picking up a coffee cup with her mouth? Remy recollects an image from their past when they saw someone using their feet to do different tasks, such as eating, and remembering that they felt weirded out/grossed out by that. They then make the connection to gender and how others respond to their gender as a similar thing, and gender visibility does create space for actual change. Remy challenges the word “individual” and prefers word “solo”–Sanaura’s act impacts other people; it’s not just about her. Liora points out that coffee is treated as a basic human need. Some agree that it is. : )

3. Months later one student in the class, @Mel4queer11, posted the following tweet:

Teaching on the day my mom died

As I was sorting through a ginormous pile of papers from classes over the past few years, I came across my lecture/discussion notes for the graduate class on Feminist Pedagogies that I taught on the day that my mother died–September 30, 2009. I feel compelled to post them here today.

First, a set-up. My mom died in the very early morning (I don’t know the exact time) in the living room of her house in Illinois. My dad called me at my home, over 6 hours away in Minnesota, around 8 AM. I taught my graduate class that afternoon, starting at 2 PM. It was an intense class; while I didn’t cry, I do recall at least one other student did. We spent the first half of class discussing what it means to be a “person” in the classroom and the second half of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I began the class by announcing that my mom had died that morning. Here’s what I wrote down to discuss in relation to that announcement:

Theoretical: What does it mean to be a “Person” in the classroom? What is demanded of us as teachers? How do we represent our vulnerability—when we are in grief, when we are upset, when we are hurt, when we are passionately committed to our ideas?

Fisher encourges us to, “bring our most authentic selves into feminist discourse” and feminist classroom (51). How do we do that?

What sort of space is there/should there be for thinking about teachers as people with feelings, who have experiences that influence their teaching? How do we perform/represent that in the classroom? How does the classroom become a space for the teacher to learn and critically self-reflect—as a fellow classmate instead of “the teacher”?

What sort of resources does/should feminist pedagogy give to the teacher (as a learner, student, member of the class)? How and when should we, as teachers, shift the focus on ourselves—our own care, our own need to be challenged, our own willingness to engage in critical self-reflection?

Rosa Pugueras writes about her belief that “she is the decisive element” in the classroom, that her mood affects her student’s mood, that she has the power to hurt or heal them. Is this true? If so, does the professor have a responsibility to be aware (and make others aware) of their mood? When is this admission a performance that is authentic and that helps to create a dialog (co-intentional education) between the teacher and students and when is it too confessional and merely personal?

Application: Practically speaking, as teachers should we try to “leave our worries at the door” and perform as selves who are lighthearted and upbeat? Or, should we tell them when we are having a bad day? Should we remind them that we are people too? If so, how?  Is one more authentic than the other? What are some strategies you can think of for bring our “authentic selves” into the classroom?

I can’t remember what I exactly said about how these questions were so compelling to me on that day. I do remember feeling that I had to teach. Teaching that semester–both feminist pedagogies and my undergrad class, queering theory–was what helped me through those gut-wrenching months of my mom’s dying/death.

These questions of authenticity and navigating the personal and professional/academic have been central to my classes this year. In my 2010 Feminist Pedagogies class, we talked a lot about whether or not social media (twitter, in particular) could help us to access our authentic selves, or at least authentic moments of our selves. And in my queer/ing ethics course this spring, we repeatedly reflected on how to put the personal and academic beside each other. I hope to think even more about these questions of the person in the academy and the personal and the academic this summer.

 

Living (not grieving) beside Judith

The majority of my posts on this blog about my mother, Judith Puotinen, have focused on grieving for her.  This summer I hope to write about my memories of living beside her for 35 years. Of course, my grief still exists (it won’t ever end), but it should not be my only connection to her. I need to find ways to re-connect with her joy, creativity and fabulous troublemaking spirit.

Last July my sisters and I divvied up my mom’s journals and notebooks from my parent’s basement. Almost a year later, I finally have some time to look through them. In one notebook, I found a talk that my mom gave to a women’s club (I think she wrote and gave this talk while in remission–in 2007?) entitled, “Creativity and Weaving : A Journey of the Soul.” While I enjoyed reading the entire talk (before she got really sick I think she was hoping to give this talk to many other organizations), I was particularly struck by her discussion of the challenges of creating.* She writes:

In her book, The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron talks about a character in her head that she labels, “The Censor.” The censor is a nasty internal and eternal critic who resides in our left brain and keeps up a constant stream of subversive remarks that are often disguised as truth. Things like, “You can’t call yourself a weaver. That last piece was a pile of junk. What makes you think you can be creative?…” and so on.

The rule I try to remember here is that my Censor’s negative opinions are not the truth. One way I deal with this is to keep a journal. My journal might be on paper or it could be in the form of a collection of weavings that I just keep on producing. I have a record in front of me of what I can do. Another thing that is very effective is to personify the Censor and paste its picture on the wall and throw darts at it. I have done that as well.

I read this and laughed out loud (luckily I was by myself). I wonder if her audience laughed at this line about the darts?

I love what my mom writes about her weavings as a form of journal “writing” that enables her to prove what she can do. This line makes me think about my blogging and how and why I write. And I love her comment about the dartboard. I remember that dartboard. It was in our basement (well, at least in one or two of our basements. We moved around a lot). I also remember her telling me that she loved to play darts. She never said why…Now I know.

I do have one memory of her in the basement by the dartboard. Her lips are pursed and she is aiming the dart with quite a bit of determination and a playful twinkle in her eye. It’s a wonderful memory to have. To me, it speaks to her refusal to give in to the Censor and her great sense of humor.

*Note on may 21, 2011: My mom organized this talk around different shawls that she had made. Her section on the challenges of creativity involved her putting on a blue shawl. When I get a picture of this shawl, I will post it here.

Oh bother: Do girls like pink because of their berry-gathering female ancestors?

This article from The Week, which summarizes the findings of some researchers in China, was emailed to me by room34. Here’s an excerpt:

Maybe little girls’ preference for pink goes beyond Disney princesses and Barbie. Researchers says they have scientific proof that women are instinctually drawn to pinks and purples because their female ancestors were berry gatherers. Here, a brief guide:

What is the deal with this study?
Researchers at China’s Zhejiang University asked 350 subjects to rank 11 colors in order of preference. They found that the women were drawn to pink, purple and white, and men to blue and green.

What does that have to do with berry gathering?
The scientists say the color findings support their “hunter-gatherer theory on sex difference.” They believe that a woman’s brain is more suited to “gathering-related tasks,” like identifying fruits and edible red leaves hidden in green foliage. Women’s preference for reds and pinks might also be related to finding a suitable mate, one with healthy pink cheeks, they say.

Why would men like blue and green then?
For their manly ancestors, that would mean good weather for hunting.

Really? Is this worth bothering with? Does anyone actually take such a study seriously? Well…I’m not sure, but the search for scientific evidence to prove the biological “naturalness” of certain sexed and gendered behaviors is still in full effect. In terms of this study, I wonder, why is it important to know why girls (supposedly) like pink?

Links to check out:

  • For more on this, see Bitchmedia and their discussion of  how science is (mis)used in popular media outlets: Mad Science
  • For more on the social construction of girls liking pink, see Pink Think
  • For more on sex/gender differences and the science’s “sex industry,” see my class notes