I <3 Kipnis

On thursday I went to class, had tea with a friend, and disrupted the hegemonic discourse.

Well, that sounds cool.

Although it was a rather clumsy execution on my part, I was a bit surprised at how much I felt empowered, and proud that I could take part in something collective, loud and feminist. I realize that within an all-encompassing hegemonic discourse, there is no escaping this heteronnormative, patriarchal, capitalist, and eurocentric system. However, I also understand more intimately now that the "cracks and fissures" Kipnis speaks about are vital and necessary to a popular culture that rocks the hegemony to the core, enough so that the core shifts closer to where we want it. I do grasp that we may not have "rocked the hegemony to the core" with feministeppin, but through the act of disruption, I got excited to think how with more and more of this agitaton, consciousness spreads, people's indifference can fade, and -dare I say it- revolutionary conditions can possibly form (someday maybe...).

This is very much the reason why Baudrillard frustrates me. He talks about how history does not exist, making our motivations, our goals, our shared experiences meaningless. I agree that the history we have been spoon fed in school, and what we have observed within popular culture is a part of the hegemony that dominates us. I also understand that meaning is disseminated everytime an event is reproduced to create something now so much like the original. However, what about the amazing (and completely destructive) things that have happened as a result of peoples' passionate motivations, goals, and shared experiences? And what about the reproducton of these events which have inspired more events that really do "rock the hegemony to the core"? There is uneven development within resistance to dominant powers, but it is the smaller, momentary "cracks and fissures" that ultimately create something more thoroughly connective between people, and bauldrillard just seems to want to rain on everyone's parade.

I just want to say again that I enjoyed feministeppin, as well as the beer afterwards.

Cheers.