Some believe that Mike’s meme is patronizing or amounts to tokenism. How dare he highlight women who are doing good scholarship! The audacity! Seriously, I do understand the concern, but I think it is only tokenism if it is a token and nothing else. That is, if one has no interest in taking on the issue more deeply and doesn’t truly care whether women (or other minorities) succeed, or doesn’t genuinely seek parity in the field.
It is patronizing if you think the people who created these lists seriously had doubts as to whether women really are capable of scholarship. For example, if someone prefaced their list: “You know, when I started out in scholarship, I didn’t think women were capable of forming a logical sentence. I have since been pleasantly surprised that females have been able to do a few decent things. Boy, the gals in this list sure show some initiative.” It doesn’t have to be as blatant as all that, I know. But I think you get the point. For most of us who are participating in this meme, I don’t get the sense that we are either patronizing or offering mere tokens.
These have simply been lists of scholars who have influenced us and who also just so happen to be women. It is not that we are amazed that , “gee, women can write too!” Rather, it is that we want to recognize a few women who have changed the way we look at things. I affirm Mike Kok’s attempt at offering something positive and constructive while some others ratchet up the hostile rhetoric.
Update: Please see the comments below for clarification on James’ post and the “tokenism” issue. This update brought to you by the insistence of Stephanie Louise Fisher.
