Email from abroad

"One thing struck me about your thesis and your bibliography (this is me don't forget) and that is how are you tying gender into all this? For instance - something struck me about the football game ( and the same thing hits me again and again when listening to the news, looking at captions under pictures and soon). You talk about the number of "people" in the stadium and the"fans".

I've put those words in inverted commas because I wonder what those collective nouns are hiding - where they "people" or were they men with a few women? Were they fans or again where they actually men who happened to be fans? If you think about the way collective nouns are used in reporting events, especially from societies where men predominate - they hide lots of things...."

This is the second time in two weeks this topic has come up re:my thesis. Its true, when I look at my bibliography, that I have defined everything from a masculine point of view, and thus made assumptions about the subjects of my discourse. The only female writer I can say had an impact on my thinking is Silvia Federici (Caliban and the Witch), but she didn't get a nod in the actual text.

It is clear that I need to take these issues into consideration. When looking over my main theoretical arguments, particularly in relation to discrimination, gender has a significant aspect to contribute. Hmm, that sounds like I am belittling it. No, what I mean is that I cannot exclude it from the discourse; I cannot pick and choose.

To my critics, I say Merci; this is an ongoing body of work and mental evolution for me, and you are contributing to its shape. Weiter so...