Feminist reading group begins at Women's Center

On Feb. 20, a new feminist reading group at Tufts held its first meeting at the Women's Center, aiming to give participants the opportunity to discuss feminist works and feminism in general.

The group, founded by Julia Goldberg and Molly Rothschild, will be holding meetings every other Friday at noon. Rothschild, a senior majoring in international relations, said that the founding of this reading group was heavily influenced by Feminist Philosophy, a class taught by Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences Nancy Bauer.

"We wanted an outlet to talk more about readings and things that were on our mind … not just talk about [these things] casually, but create a space to do that with other people on campus," Rothschild said.

Goldberg, a senior majoring in biochemistry, added that in Feminist Philosophy, the students learned about consciousness-raising groups. These groups further inspired her and Rothschild to create a space where anyone could talk, share their experiences and discuss literature.

"In those groups women got together and shared their experiences, and through sharing their experiences … learned that they weren't alone, and that their experiences mattered," Goldberg said.

Rothschild and Goldberg were also inspired to start the group after deciding to read a challenging piece of feminist literature, "Gender Trouble" (1990) by Judith Butler, together.

"Professor Bauer had us read a chapter of ["Gender Trouble"], which was extremely influential for the feminist movement … but it's very, very challenging. Molly and I decided we were going to order it online and read it together … [That] started the idea," Goldberg said.

According to Goldberg, the two were unable to finish the book, and decided to focus on other pieces of literature in the book group. The first reading consisted of selected excerpts from bell hooks' book "Feminism is for Everybody" (2000), Goldberg said.

"We have some ideas for future readings, but … we want to take into account what other people want to read, and if other people have readings or topics they feel strongly about we want to explore those," Goldberg said.

Although the book group was influenced by Feminist Philosophy, Goldberg said that the group will be reading less philosophy-centered works.

Rothschild and Goldberg said that their goal is to create a group that will provide a safe space for people to discuss feminism in their lives, at Tufts and across the country.

"We want to have a space to talk about feminism," Rothschild said.

According to Bauer, Feminist Philosophy discusses myriad questions connecting feminism and philosophy.

"In the class … I have students read only primary source materials...and what we think about is the question of what philosophy is and what feminism is, and whether feminism needs philosophy and whether philosophy can do anything for feminism," Bauer said.

The class reads works by thinkers such as René Descartes, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Lawrence Kohlberg, Bauer said.

"I have students read some classic texts from philosophy written by men, and I show how various feminists have taken up those same texts by … using them for feminist purposes, challenging them, taking what they say and putting them in a totally different register, using feminism to highlight problems with these very influential views that wouldn't come out in a standard philosophical analysis of those texts and in the context of doing that students get an introduction to philosophy ... and feminist theory," Bauer said.

Bauer said that the course's popularity can be partially attributed to the relevance of what is discussed in class.

"We talk in a rigorous way about … things that really matter in students' lives right then. We talk about what it is to be a woman or a man, or what it could mean to be genderqueer, or intersex, or why we care so much about these things," Bauer said.

Bauer is humbled that her class inspired students to create a feminist reading group.

"I think it's fantastic that Julia and Molly want to keep thinking about these specific problems … Nothing could be a more wonderful result [of the Feminist Philosophy class]," Bauer said.