Twice the Fun Means Twice the Work: Learning To Blog in University Course Assignments

To respect students’ desire for privacy, I’ve allowed them to choose whether they want their blogs to be private or public. While I don’t entirely disagree with one blogger’s point that private blogs are not blogs at all (Arvan), my decision was based on my belief that students might feel uncomfortable, and take fewer risks, if they are forced to write in an online public space.  

However, has not knowing how to create private blogs, how to add each other as readers, and how to respond to blogs in fact added more strain? Students must not only understand and follow particular formatting guidelines, structural and stylistic rules of writing, and standards of critical engagement; they must also learn how to use blogging technology in order to complete blogging assignments on time. This may be a confusing and overwhelming assignment for those who know little about blogging, or who have little time to learn about it. Knowing nothing about how to work fountain ink pens, if I had to write an essay using one, I’d only have frustration and blue hands to show for it.

So far, some have picked up the blogging tech more easily than others, due to differences in the time they have allotted themselves and in their individual abilities with computer technology. I am decidedly un-tech savvy myself. When I first started using Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop, I constantly wished for some little magical helper on my shoulder to instantly answer all of my questions. I also wished for a full week just to “play around” with all the little buttons. Learning how to learn to use technology is itself a valuable skill; but, when you’re very late, you’re far less interested in how the car runs than in how fast it can get you where you need to be.

A “cost-benefit” approach suggests that our efforts are worthwhile when we get out more than we put in. Of course, in the middle of learning those “benefits” are not always apparent. As we discussed in class, blogging is a valuable tool for learning about gender in a global context, in part because this activity allows everyone to bring to class their own interests and experiences. So, although I cannot be a little shoulder helper this weekend, I ask for students’ patience as they continue to learn about this new writing medium. On Monday, I hope to spend time as a class in the computer lab so that we can all be on the same (virtual) page.

Works Cited

Arvan, Lanny. “Teaching With Blogs”. Inside Higher Ed. 27 July 2010. Web. 16 Oct. 2010.

Sample Media Blog

“Women and their Maids: A Photographic Levelling” is a photography project by Justine Graham and Ruby Rumié that takes a feminist approach to understanding the relationship between two different groups of women. By making these women appear to look “identical” (Lisa) in their photographs, the project tries to challenge economic and cultural hierarchies in which maids are regarded as socially inferior to their employers.

On one hand, I like this project because it makes an effort to promote equality between women. It also makes viewers wonder who is the employer and who is the maid, which highlights other racial and cultural stereotypes upon which viewers might also rely. On the other hand, however, I have some reservations about this project because it risks suggesting, firstly, that all of these women actually are the same, and, secondly, that one photograph can effectively level out the economic, cultural, and racial differences between each pair of women.  

The photographers assume that these photos capture the “openness” and “pride” of the maids, as a report by Daniela Estrada quotes; however, while the photos might appear to promote female equality through representing sameness, what happens afterwards when these women return “home” to their prior labour relationship? They may appear the same here, but each maid is likely feeling something quite different from what the photographers—and her employer—might assume. Power, status, and privilege go far beyond the appearances that can be shown in one photograph, and the representation of “sameness” here seems to come at the expense of acknowledging these women’s actual lived differences as well.

While this project attempts to promote social change through representing equality, I believe that, ultimately, it ignores the fact of both white and economic privilege and alleviates what Shelby Steele describes in her podcast interview with Pamela Monk as “white guilt.” In my view, these photos encourage white viewers to believe that these women share a greater degree of similarity and equality than they actually do. This project makes me wonder how the employers and maids first responded to being asked to participate in this project, and how their responses might have been different. Would printing interviews of the maids alongside their photographs make this project more successful in achieving its anti-hierarchical feminism goals, because it would then acknowledge the value of both equality and difference?  

Works Cited

Lisa. “Women and their Maids: A Photographic Levelling.” Sociological Images. 13 July, 2010. Web. 10 Sept. 2010.

Estrada, Daniela. “Latin America: Photos a Leveller for Maids and Their Employers.” Global Issues. Thursday, June 17^th. Web. 10 Sept. 2010

Steele, Shelby. “A World of Difference; White Guilt.” World Of Difference. WPSU. Web Podcast. 10 Sept. 2010.