I read Natalia’s own story about student debt and it got me mad. It reminded me of my own story and I thought I could share to show why good sexual assault policies matter. How rape changes lives. Why schools need to act responsibly and be held accountable for their reaction to rape survivors. The impact can go way beyond academics.
Setting the stage.
I was fortunate enough to be able to go to prep school for grades 8 through 12. My family did not pay full tuition; I was one of those A Better Chance alums who got a good education thanks to a good dose of financial aid. I struggled during those years (what adolescent doesn’t?!) I worked hard and got into 8 of the 9 schools to which I applied.
I remember when I got my acceptance letter – and scholarship offer – from Tufts University. It was spring break of senior year and I excitedly ran around the house alone with the letter in hand. Unfortunately, even with the financial aid + scholarship we had to take out some loans. This is where we made some decisions that would bite us in the ass years later:
- we used Tufts’ preferred lender (which didn’t mean much for us);
- the preferred lender was a bank, which means all the rules I read (and improvements that Obama has implemented) about federal student loans do not apply to me;
- we took out a PLUS loan – so it was really my dad’s loan, meaning his credit takes a hit, which hurts not only me, but my family – my mom, my sister, myself.
Now I went to a high school that was more than $20,000/year per girl (yes it was an all girls’ school). Our college counselors helped us get into college. Not so much pay for college. As being a first generation American, we did not have many resources to know how to make it all work. At our prep school you just went to expensive schools. Because it was the thing you did. Because it was worth it. Read More
*The Academic Feminist: Using the Past to Reimagine the Present with Imani Perry
Originally posted in Feministing
*Editor’s note: Due to concerns raised that there might be confusion with Barnard Center for Research on Women’s awesome The Scholar and Feminist Conference and S&F Journal, we have renamed The Scholarly Feminist to The Academic Feminist.
1) Your work lies at the intersection of law, history, culture, and literature. You wrote a 2007 law journal article that combines these elements to argue that third wave feminists understand sexual harassment in different ways than their predecessors. Can you describe the main points of this article and how your views may have shifted (or not)?
In that piece I wanted to consider how the concept of sexual harassment can at times work to punish rituals of courting, and not simply harassment. I wanted to fine tune an understanding of what harassment is, because we sometimes talk about it in ways that cast the net too wide. So I tried to develop a basis for distinguishing between harassment and an acceptable expression of romantic interest. Then I tried to offer an way of thinking about how people ought to respond to indicate they aren’t interested, at which point we need to see how interested party replies to the rejection: do they persist, or do they accept that response and move on? I think this is important to consider in what we deem harassment. In particular, I was thinking about the way that “hollering” commonplace African American practices of approach in public spaces, is frequently universally called “harassment” when there are significant variations in how it is performed.
Additionally, part of what I wanted to do with that piece was to revive the second wave feminist language of “talking back” or “taking back the night” or “speaking out” in ways that are useful for today. Unfortunately, in legal terms, the way feminist causes are sometimes recognized depends upon an idea of victimization that can discourage or implicitly punish assertiveness.
This is related to my interest in the gender dynamics that don’t fit into clear legal categories. For example, I think there is an under-discussed area of sexual trauma and woundedness that comes from women “going along” with sexual encounters. This is significantly different from rape and sexual assault, but still necessary to address. I’m thinking of instances in which they haven’t said no, and may have even explicitly said yes, but really don’t want to. I recall a conversation with two friends, many years ago, explaining how they’d both said yes a number of times because they were afraid that if they didn’t that they might be raped. That is technically consensual, but emotionally tragic. I find this heartbreaking, and the fact that we have a culture that socializes women into this kind of acceptance, infuriating. So I believe that it is good idea to encourage young women and men to feel empowered to say, “No, I’m not interested in you.” Or “No I don’t want this.” We want to create a feminist culture in which speaking out and claiming power is valued, and a society in which talking back and being assertive is safe.
A point also about my thoughts about the “waves” of feminism: I came of age during the third wave of feminism, and I think there were some important interventions: we were talking about feminisms in plural, about multiple women’s experiences, about how gender coexisted with race and class and sexuality, identities and experiences. However, somewhere along the way, certain branches of third (and fourth) wave feminism got caught up in the neoliberal fixation on personal choice and the individual experience, embracing sexiness without challenging the larger power relations that socialize the very ideas about what sexy is. We need to keep what is good about third and fourth wave interventions, but also keep alive the second wave focus on broader liberation and justice, alongside the truths from non-mainstream feminist and queer thought and activism.
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