{"id":373,"date":"2007-10-18T10:33:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-18T15:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=373"},"modified":"2007-10-18T10:33:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-18T15:33:00","slug":"girl-writers-write-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2007\/10\/18\/girl-writers-write-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl Writers, Write On&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_AjTpvPO_ddU\/RxdzLEklv7I\/AAAAAAAAAlQ\/Rdk4TL4m0Ww\/s1600-h\/bluemarine_logo.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left;margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand\" src=\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_AjTpvPO_ddU\/RxdzLEklv7I\/AAAAAAAAAlQ\/Rdk4TL4m0Ww\/s200\/bluemarine_logo.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>I love it when all things converge.  <span style=\"font-style:italic\">New York Times<\/span> columnist and writing teacher extraordinaire Verlyn Klinkenborg recently wrote a rather <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/10\/15\/college\/coll15mon4.html?_r=1&amp;n=Top\/Reference\/Times%20Topics\/People\/K\/Klinkenborg,%20Verlyn&amp;oref=slogin\">poignant reflection<\/a> on young women writers and authority.  Tonight I&#8217;m headed to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.girlswritenow.org\/gwn\/\">Girls Write Now friendraiser<\/a>. And this week the Woodhull Institute has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.campaignforrealbeauty.com\/woodhull\/course2.aspx\">online modules up on &#8220;Your Authentic Voice and Advocacy&#8221;<\/a> over at the Dove Real Women, Real Success Stories site.  To honor said convergences, I&#8217;m posting a long expert from the dear ole Verlyn here:<br \/><span style=\"font-style:italic\"><br \/>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve often noticed a habit of polite self-negation among my female students, a self-deprecatory way of talking that is meant, I suppose, to help create a sense of shared space, a shared social connection. It sounds like the language of constant apology, and the form I often hear is the sentence that begins, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My problem is &#8230;\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Even though this way of talking is conventional, and perhaps socially placating, it has a way of defining a young writer \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a young woman \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in negative terms, as if she were basically incapable and always giving offense. You simply cannot pretend that the words you use about yourself have no meaning. Why not, I asked, be as smart and perceptive as you really are? Why not accept what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re capable of? Why not believe that what you notice matters?<\/p>\n<p>Another young woman at the table asked \u00e2\u20ac\u201d this is a bald translation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that make us seem too tough, too masculine? I could see the subtext in her face: who will love us if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re like that? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard other young women, with more experience, ask this question in a way that means, Won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the world punish us for being too sure of ourselves?&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>These are poignant questions, and they always give me pause, because they allow me to see, as nothing else does, the cultural frame these young women have grown up in. I can hear them questioning the very nature of their perceptions, doubting the evidence of their senses, distrusting the clarity of their thoughts&#8230;.I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always struck by how well fitted these young women are to be writers, if only there weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t also something within them saying, Who cares what you notice? Who authorized you? Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you owe someone an apology?&#8230;.But whenever I see this transformation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a young woman suddenly understanding the power of her perceptions, ready to look at the world unapologetically \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I realize how much has been lost because of the culture of polite, self-negating silence in which they were raised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Thank you, Lori, for the heads up.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love it when all things converge. New York Times columnist and writing teacher extraordinaire Verlyn Klinkenborg recently wrote a rather poignant reflection on young women writers and authority. Tonight I&#8217;m headed to the Girls Write Now friendraiser. And this week the Woodhull Institute has online modules up on &#8220;Your Authentic Voice and Advocacy&#8221; over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21328,21395,21941],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-events","tag-girls","tag-writing-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}