Reading that last entry, I realized that maybe...maybe I could actually start something while roadtripping. A journal separate from this one, because this one is just heavy and dramatic and contemplative.

We'll see. 

Date:	2007-11-28 20:15
Subject:	Once upon a time during a philosophy lecture...
Security:	Public
Mood:	aggravated
Music:	"History of Lovers"; Iron & Wine

I’ve come to realize that I'm not good at blogging. I've tried, and I just can't seem to do it. I don't know if it's because I'm cautious about sharing, or if I'm just plain lazy, but what it all comes down to is that Livejournal - as appealing as it sounds to me, who love to write, in theory - will never be a permanent fixture in my life (unless I really get into it while roadtripping this summer, but I guess that's for another time).

I think for me it all feels a bit pointless. At least the kind of blogging I do, and which a lot of people do, which is basically venting your opinion on some passing matter. We all want to believe that other people sit with rapt attention reading what we’ve written. More often than not, they don’t. But I guess I’ll keep this page just to hang on to some sort of illusion or belief that one day, people WILL care.

And this...this just kinda needed to be said. Because despite the importance this subject brings to my life, I've never thought about it in quite this way before. But just so you know, it's gonna be about feminism! And it's gonna be long! And it's gonna be about feminism!

So here goes another one of my once-in-a-couple-of-months-posts.

**

So I was sitting in Philosophy class one day (well, today), and my professor had decided to dedicate our last class on moral ethics to feminist ethics. Now, contemporary feminist ethics has been hugely influenced by Carol Gilligan and her book "In a different voice" (1982), so much so that my very basic introduction to moral theory wraps its entire chapter on feminist ethics around this one person (problematic? - probably).

To contextualize a little bit, she wrote this book in part as a response to Kohlberg's research on moral development. Very crudely, this theorises that there are 6 stages of moral constructive development, each more complex and up to the task than the one before (the task here being the ability to respond to moral dilemmas). They basically go from egotism to abstract thinking (sorry, all you social psychologists out there...). The last stage, at the post-conventional level, is "Universal ethical principles".

This got Gilligan thinking. Most of the big players in moral philosophy - Kantian ethics, Utilitarian ethics, even (although this seems to somewhat contradict itself) neo-Hobbsian ethics - are based on the notion of impartiality. When it comes to morals, there is a "view from nowhere" (Nagel). But when Gilligan scrutinized Kohlberg's research a little closer, she found that his "empirical evidence" were overwhelmingly based on interviews with little boys. He'd tried to include girls, but they just didn't seem to fit. So he put them aside (as you normally do when gathering empirical data...?). So Gilligan started her own project, with conclusions drawn from previous material she'd gathered on 1) the views of young men being drafted into the Vietnam war and 2) the views of Harvard women on the issue of abortion. What she'd found while conducting these two separate inquiries was that men and women approached ethics in completely different ways. Hence, she developed her theory on the (female?) 'Ethics of care' (personal responsibility, duty to care for those in need, contextual and particular) as opposed to the (male?)  'Ethics of justice' (universal abstract principles, duty to respect the rights of others, non-interference etc etc). She meant (or was interpreted by many to mean) that women didn't reach that sixth stage of Kohlberg's moral development, and that they didn't see ethics in terms of universal principles but in contextual and personal terms, based on feelings of sympathy. 

Now, whether or not Gilligan meant to argue that these two ethics, Care and Justice, could never be mutually exclusive (one things you learn in philosophy is that you have to define every word you put on paper, but Gilligan is pretty much all over the place), is that it implies a fundamental difference between men and women. Her work is part of the 'Politics of Difference' movement, which is opposite to liberal feminism and its strive towards absolute equality. Gilligan doesn't think we should reform structures and social institutions in order to reach greater equality, but that we should acknowledge the differences between the two genders and construct society according to those differences.

I know I've been going on for ages about Gilligan and Kohlberg already, even though this isn't actually what I meant for my note to be about. It's not even supposed to get into whether or not I am (in my heart of hearts) an equality or difference feminist, but rather my response to hearing someone say "men and women are different", or "women are supposed to..." or "men are supposed to...". Cause when my professor was lecturing on Gilligan's point of view, which is that women seldom reach the 6th stage of development, it produced the normal very me reaction inside me.

I got angry. I got defensive. It felt as if someone had insulted me. I probably looked sulky, and if it would have occurred in a conversation I was actually taking part in (as opposed to a lecture), I would have grown really quiet.

Some men are very afraid of being seen as 'girly'. Well, guess freakin what? So am I! Gilligan says that even though women view ethics through this lense of care instead of appealing to some universal law, it doesn't make them inferior to men, it just makes them different. I think this is, in the sense that nothing is ever truly non-biased, bullshit. Male philosophers have institutionalized the notion that abstract thinking is the way to God for so freakin long that it's become a rock. And I realized that what I always got so upset about when hearing someone say something which implied a fundamental difference between men and women, isn't actually that I passionately dismiss the notion that men and women are different. I don't yet know where exactly I stand on that issue. But for me, still, saying that men and women are different is like admitting to exactly what Gilligan claims it isn't. Inferiority. Because values aren't neutral. Even if we were to accept that more women than men approach ethics in this way, it would still be judged according to the ethics of justice. Women would still be Beauvoir's other, because universal ethical principles are held in higher regard (at least in many academic and educational circumstances) than....well, caring about someone.  

And I know that this response could in itself be a very clear indication that difference feminism has a point, namely that equality feminists are just striving to become like men, based on a scale created my man. I mean, reading this note to myself it almost sound as if I'm jealous, and not happy with just being the way I am as a woman. And if I could, I would very much like to be able to acknowledge the difference between men and women without feeling as if it's some sort of personal insult to me. I mean, acknowledging the difference doesn't have to imply that it's biological, right? You could say it's there but then explain that it's due to cultural or societal structures (which I DO passionately believe, and argue for nonetheless). Indeed, even if all of a sudden there would be evidence that it WAS all down to biology, in an ideal world that still wouldn’t have to mean that women were inherently inferior to men. Just different. But maybe I’m just not strong enough to take the stand and say that female ‘attributes’ are just as important and strong as those of a male in a world where this is clearly not considered to be true. Yes yes, if asked, maybe a lot of guys AND girls today would say that it’s better to care for someone than it is to be able to develop intricate, abstract thoughts. But while it might have been accepted that men are able to care (for one thing or another) just as deeply as women, it hasn’t always been accepted that women are just as capable of rational and abstract thought as men. And this holds even today. If you base your actions on feelings, you’re ‘girly’. So while caring might be more important, the one door is more often closed to women than the other is to men, hence creating a hierarchy.

It's like with Arts versus...well, everything. What I'm doing isn't as important as what the civil engineers are doing. Because get what? They might build a house in the future, whereas all I want to do is work with books. And I don't have as much difficulty arguing for the importance of Art as I have with countering someone's claim that "women always need to talk about their feelings at some point". Maybe this is because one is more shallow than the other, and when it comes to gender questions I need more time to think it through. Or that gender is everywhere, which means I'd be portrayed as even more of a radical feminist (which I'm not, actually) than I already am if I kept bringing it up.

I don't know. This is very confusing, and I don't know if this note made any sense to anyone else but me. It wasn't supposed to have any answers, cause what that moment in the lecture hall produced was just a hell of a lot more questions. Don't see this as an essay on feminism and what to do about the (still!) patriarchal society we live in today. It is, after all, just a post on Livejournal. Cause if it's something those damn philosophy classes make you do, it's think. Way too much.

Which is saying a lot when it comes to being me.

Date:	2007-10-23 14:45
Subject:	Memories and cracks in the pavement
Security:	Public
Mood:	gloomy

So I don't know if I will ever be able to create a photo album.

One of the promises to myself this summer was: 'get to know thy camera'. I was of the opinion that the reason to me being so incredibly shit at taking pictures (or even bring the camera along, only to ignore it) was that I was a neat freak who thought all the pictures came out looking bad. Which might be true (mostly because the pictures I take at this stage of my life all seem to originate in the pub), but that's no reason not to keep at it, right? I mean, professional photographers take rolls upon rolls of film to get that one decent pic. And if I could only understand all the little buttons on my camera (and it's a very nice camera, thank you Dad), maybe I could get into a routine where I automatically bring it along whenever I meet up with friends, go abroad, discover new places in a town I've been in a thousand times before etc. etc. Sure, I'd be known as the annoying papparazzi, but it's all in the name of memory, isn't?

Memory. That annoying, sentimental, nostalgic, wonderful thing. Is there anyone but me who feels pressured to capture those fleeting moments on film? Even though you know that's not right, that's not the way you're supposed to do it. It won't capture the cloying scent of a deep red rose, or the taste of ashes on a depressed man's tongue. It might capture love, and it might capture sadness, but not the way I remember it. I haven't spent my life trying to understand the world through a lense; you might've, you might've succeeded where I didn't start. I wish I could do it, but I have no interest in pursuing it. Maybe I'm just lazy.

Maybe this is just an excuse not to remember the camera next time. I know I'm going to be moving away from here soon. But I also know that the memories will fade, and when they do, it won't really matter if I have pictures of it to remind me. The picture might tell me where, when and who. But not why. And if an old lady read this she would probably go: 'bullshit!', but it's the way I feel right now.

When I go home in May, I'm gonna be hung up on the particulars; on the sound of a laughter, the line of a joke or the events of one night. But in the long run, the impression Cork has made on me will be found elsewhere.

Date:	2007-10-14 16:25
Subject:	Beginning again...and again...and again...
Security:	Public
Mood:	hopeful
Music:	"Your rocky spine"; Great Lake Swimmers

So. When I first moved to Cork, I didn't realize how important making the right choice would be for my health. Or mood, perhaps, that sounds less dramatic. When people asked me how I was finding it, I always automatically said 'great' and thought about all the cool, wonderful and generous people I'd met. Sure, it'd been absolute bollocks in the beginning, but that slowly faded away in a rhythm of the night (uh, or at least that was the case my second year, my first year was more a gradual feeling of safety and warmth in an apartment I find myself missing more and more these days).

Now, though, I'm tired. I don't want to start again. I DO like people...I think. But that doesn't mean I wanna look at them with new eyes every freakin year. And that's not really what this post was supposed to be about anyway, so you can just ignore the bitter tone of that one. Cause I'm over it, honestly. No, what this post is about, is that I've come to measure my happiness against those crappy days when I have no real connection to my work here.

Obviously, I came to Cork because I accepted a place at University here. I came to Cork to do English literature. And the simple heureka! is that I could never have stayed here if I didn't feel like what I got was what I had wanted to get (or at least a scetch of what would one day be the first step towards something great). And what I had wanted to get was an education which started and finished with books. With words on a page, worlds within worlds and dreams within reality. I think one of the biggest reasons I could never adequately explain my choice in subject resided in thoughts I had of the future, thoughts I had no intention whatsoever to share with other people.

I'm like that, unfortunately; a non-sharer. Working on it (...to a certain degree)!

Therefore, I really shouldn't blame people for not knowing what to make of my choice. I really shouldn't blame people for not understanding why I moved away. And I should be really glad that I have people who either accept without understanding, who understand because they feel it themselves (although the context might be different) or who just don't care since the world doesn't, after all, revolve around me. ;)

There's still those who can't think outside the proverbial science-box of course, but you can just go hide yourself in a bare room strapped of all things artsy and play with your Junior Chemistry Kit, alright?

Anyway. No matter the number of wonderful people who decided (and I thank you for that, every day) to enter my world here, no matter the number of quaint buildings dotting the streets of Cork or the yummy-ness of Koka Noodles, I wouldn't be here if I didn't feel I'd made the right choice when it came to closing my eyes and desperately praying that Cork had lecturers who appreciate literature the way I appreciate literature. And, well, I'm sure there are other unis just like Cork, and there are arguably the occassional black sheep in the English department staff (also known as 'boring dude who hates student teaching and would rather stay locked inside his little room of research forever and ever and ever').  And I'm not saying it's not the people who make the place, cause I think that's a rather crucial aspect of every location on earth, but this year - this year, when I've really decided to keep up with the reading, force the library to be my dearest friend and ponder the essay titles no less than 4 weeks before the essay is due (and freakin hurrah for me on that one) - I feel blessed that I know I made the right academic decision.

Days like yesterday, when there is nothing to write and nothing exciting to read, those are the crappy days. Cause they feel pointless. And there's gotta be a point to me being here, or I might as well go back to Sweden and chew gum for a living.

Date:	2007-06-24 13:30
Subject:	And down in the valley we go
Security:	Public
Mood:	listless

It's a bloody hole. It's like standing in a bloody hole, watching the walls and realizing that even though you know you know, you still have no idea how to start climbing. Or it's like looking at the dreary prospect of getting your fingers bloody before you can reach the rope hanging just where you can't reach it.

Tell me what I'm supposed to fill this with.

Date:	2007-06-19 14:15
Subject:	Managing something new
Security:	Public
Mood:	productive
Music:	It has to be summer/Det måste vara radio

"If one waits for the right time to come before writing, the right time never comes."
- James Russell Lowell