the name's Diana

[Meg Larson]

> Somewhere in
> between there perhaps we can find a way to talk about the literature
> without getting defensive.  But until people stop pretending that growing
> up in racially and sexually stratified cultures hasn't affected them in
> the least, I fear we cannot.
> 
I'm not sure that the problem is the pretense that we didn't grow up in
stratified cultures, and that we're not affected by that fact, but, maybe,
some of us are trying to move beyond it (I said *some* of us).  I grew up
just as racially and sexually stratified as the next gal, coming from
Saginaw, MI, which is currently as racially divided as it could possibly
be, but I've learned to pick and choose the battles of race and gender that
I fight; I don't wave my white, middle-class, going-into-academia female
flag unless I've got a pretty damn compelling reason, because some battles,
like those on this list, just ain't worth the trouble.  If that means I'm
copping out on my gender, then so be it--I'm not the "femaleness" poster
child and do not wish to be, at least not in matters as benign as "Andrew
doesn't like COL49 because it's about a girl (woman, for those easily
horrifed by the word "girl").

At the considerable risk of becoming fodder for the flames, I would suggest
to those of us who have no patience for debates such as this latest one, to
either delete the messages before reading them; read them with bemusement,
secure in the knowledge of one's self-worth; or, quite bluntly, then get
the hell off the list (and this is not diercted at anyone
specific--really).  In the immortal words of Coolio: "If ya can't stand the
heat, get yer ass out the kitchen". 

Merely lurking no more,
Meg
> 
>