Intersectionality and Anti-Semitism

So I wrote this thing about intersectionality, BDS, and anti-Semitism over at the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. It's actually the cover story of the issue this week. It was probably the most difficult thing I've ever written--even more difficult than my dissertation, or my book on trauma (and by the way, I mean, check out that price--what a steal!). I have a lot of opinions about the topic, and honestly I talk about it all the time. But I almost never write about it. But when I was asked to review Cary Nelson's outstanding new book Israel Denial, there was no way I could say no. And so it morphed into this whole calling out of intersectionality and the ways in which it has devolved into something to be used against Jews.

There's a reason I almost never write about Israel (I wrote one piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education and I think that's it). It's challenging to avoid saying what's already been said, repeating the same lines over and over, preaching to the choir. I have no interest in that. What's the purpose? But I think I did something a little different here. I've gotten some amazing feedback for the most part. I've also gotten two nasty comments/messages from people in my field, and a few people on Twitter accusing me of saying things I never said. But that's the thing--people want to be outraged, don't they? All I know is that I'm trying not to be. I'm trying to see both sides of every issue, and I'm always trying to do the right thing. It's never easy.

Power in Academia

I wrote a piece on power in academia for the Jewish Journal as a response to the Avital Ronell scandal (and the equally offensive defense of her actions by celebrity scholars like Judith Butler and others). The original piece was 800 words over the length limit, and I still was not finished saying what needed to be said. But brevity rules in the world of soundbite journalism. At any rate, you can read my piece here.

Coincidentally, my original draft contained personal anecdotes, including a story from 2008 about a film professor named Lance Duerfahrd. Just days after I published my piece at the Jewish Journal, I happened to read this story about a student from Purdue University who is suing him and accusing him of sexual assault. There were multiple complaints of this nature against this man (who was also, I should add, a very poor scholar with a heavily padded CV) as early as 2008, but the English Department chose not to treat them seriously. I wonder what they think of those complaints now? I hope those who were complicit in burying them will have to answer for what they have done.

Speaking from the Margins: Me Too

I experienced a deluge of ambiguous emotions as my Facebook newsfeed was recently filled with women's #MeToo stories and accounts of victimization. I was deeply moved and astounded by so many of the stories. I felt an initial urge to be part of this mass movement of voices, but it was an impulse that quickly retreated back into my place of observation. Like many things, I wanted to be both inside and outside of this movement.

Truthfully, I have in my personal history so many repulsive #MeToo moments that I've forgotten most of them. The hand that reached into my blouse and grabbed my breast as I walked through a crowded bar in my early twenties; the man who slapped my rear end in a club before I pushed him down and kicked him over and over (I talk about this in my most recent column); and so many stories of forceful, pushy, and threatening behavior by colleagues over the years. The ones where no one actually touched me are, in many ways, more painful because the culprits were people from whom I expected more: academics, philosophers, intellectuals.

Even academia is not immune to the behavior people are wrongly calling a Hollywood thing. And it isn't always about traditional forms of sexual harassment. For instance, what about the professor at Purdue University who, upon learning I had won a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship, said to me, "Who did you have to sleep with to get that?" He said it with a smirk that told me he hated me for refusing his request to take me to lunch a few weeks back.

Is it sexual harassment? No, not really, I guess. But what he did was to minimize my intellectual potential and suggest instead that my value is only in my appearance and sexuality. A less confident woman may have been broken by that. I was just angry.

But here's the kicker: this same professor was recently let go from Purdue University because of sexual harassment--this time an undergraduate student. So maybe it's all part of the same thing.

But I wasn't compelled to tell any of these stories. As a way to work through why I felt this way, I wrote this piece for The Jewish Journal--it's my newest column. The title is regrettable, and it's not mine. I feel it pits one experience against another, which really is the opposite of what I was doing in the piece. But so it goes.