Care and Feeding of an East Coast Liberal

A little bit more about me.

Since people are taking the time to come on over and take a look at this, I figured I'd let you all know a bit more about me.

I am a suburban white girl that just finished four years of university at the University of Waterloo, and I'm going back to school next year for a post-graduate diploma from Humber College. I have a degree in English with a minor in Psychology (primarily focused on sexuality, abnormal psychology/clinical psychology, and social psychology).

I am also bisexual, kinky, atheist, and female (although I don't really think of myself as a girl/woman). Dating a guy, currently, though anyone who talks to me for five minutes knows I'm bi.

So in some arenas, quite privileged; in others, not so much (although, to be perfectly honest, I seem to have personally sidestepped a lot of the shit that others seem to catch in the bisexual-kinky-atheist-female arenas, thankfully).

In terms of feminism and what I know about it... aside from one philosophy course on "Gender Issues", I have little formal learning in the area. At the time of the class (in first year), I most closely identified with "i-Feminism", although nowadays it doesn't cover what I believe. I'm closer to the sex-positive, socialist feminist ideas. (To be perfectly honest, I prefer the term egalitarian, simply because of the fact that oppressions feed into one another; therefore, bringing people to an equal place is my goal.)

Politically, as a Canadian, I fall somewhere between the Liberals and the NDP. I think all our political parties need to look harder at what's going on with our Indian (First Nations) communities, and at what's going on with our minorities in general - despite the fact that it seems otherwise on the surface, Canada still has a problem with economically promoting (or at least supporting) White Anglo men, whereas (for example) Iraqi men are making about 63% of the average income, and some of the women (especially in our Indian (South Asian) communities) are making even less. And, of course, women across the board are still not economic competitors with men, save in select few circumstances (Iraqi women, I believe some of the East Asian groups).

I am a perennial worrywart.

I thought for a while that I was trans, but I have come to the conclusion (for now, anyway) that I am mentally "not"/androgynous (inasmuch as I can be, anyway). I'd be the sort of person that would gleefully buy pills that let you change physical sex for a certain amount of time.

I like to think that my parents were pretty good about not forcing gender roles on me - I wore blue and black (still love them), played with trucks and robots, was a monkey at the jungle bars, loved plays and musicals, and excelled at most of the arts in school. (I pissed my mother off once by telling her I hate math and science. No one ever told me girls were bad at it or that I shouldn't like it; in fact, all my science and math teachers save three were female (out of twenty-two). I just hate both subjects, with some specific category exceptions.) Nothing in my past strikes me as particularly forcing one way or another.

I love reading, so if anyone out there has recommendations for books I should be reading - well, hand 'em out; I can't promise I'll get to them any time soon, but I'll keep it on my list!

I'm also a roleplayer (in the non-kinky sense).

I think that's pretty well everything that people might want to know. So. If it's not, ask; I'm generally open about myself.

Next post: either my one major (ongoing) experience of queer oppression - from my mother; or a "test" based on antiprincess' recent question: what, exactly, does a man write like? or a woman? or a genderfluid person, or a trans man or woman? And can you tell, just based on reading?

I'm gonna collect up a few quotes - I figure fifteen or so - and it'll be a game of "spot the man"...

posted by Alex @ 6:00 PM