I am nearing the end of my MA thesis, and beginning to daydream about my PhD, which will likely focus on cultural studies rather than political science. I hope to look at the way media produces and reproduces masculinities. If I mention this to a certain type of person they immediately go on that classic tirade anyone interested in gender or animal issues has heard far too many times before. There are people dying in the world; what about homeless people?; so what if people can't access washrooms?; so what if children are placed into narrow categories; there are worse things in the world than having to be a girl or a boy.
The same sort of rant tends to come our of the mouths of people who don't want our tax dollars directed towards refugees because we should take care of Canada first. Of course this is usually the same person who refuses to acknowledge their settler privilege, and that they owe their lives to the bloodshed and continued colonization and erasure of indigenous peoples and ways of life.
As people interested in social justice we've probably all considered these things ourselves. I know I have. Last Friday night, during a long and fruitful conversation with VOMD, I admitted that sometimes I feel like all the work I'm putting into my thesis is pointless, and even my social activism, and my work for animals, are just bandaid solutions to a problem of inequity and systemic injustice that is so deep it will take a revolution to fix (uh oh, my communist is showing!). I worried that I should be focusing on something more immediate. I considered leaving the education system altogether to pursue activist work, and to remove myself from a system that has been largely co-opted by capitalist ideals. I ask myself those same questions that the conservative on a tirade asked "What about the homeless? What about people dying?"
We tend to create this hierarchy of injustice in our society... homelessness comes before refugees; sexism comes before bigenderism; access to housing comes before access to washrooms, and so on and so forth. But why can't we just see that all injustice is bad and that as individuals we must choose where to direct our attentions to maximize our effectiveness as scholars and as activists? Yes, I care that many people in Canada are homeless, and yes I care that people on many First Nation reserves do not have proper water, and access to healthcare, and adequate housing, and yes I care deeply that sex-slavery still exists all over the world and that the environment is degrading by the hour and that women still get paid less than men and that Jian Ghomeshi won his court case and that children are body shamed in grade school....
But for now, I am going to finish my thesis. I am going to argue that there is a problem with the strict adherence to a binary gender system that demands individuals fit within narrow categories of what it means to be a man and a woman. I am going to argue that the abuse and violence that takes place within public washrooms against non-binary and trans individuals must be addressed immediately, and in the right way, to ensure meaningful and consistent participation of all people in the public sphere, and especially in higher education in Canada. And I am going to recognize my place of privilege as a cisgendered white woman. And in my private life I will fight for non-human rights and I will rescue animals and I will continue to eat and live vegan.
And I will keep caring about all the other injustices in the world. But I am just one person. And you are just one person too. So, don't let someone tell you that your work doesn't matter because there may be something more pressing you could be addressing. Commit your heart and your mind and your life to your work. Do something.
Happy Wednesday,
J
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