What IFF?

S2, Ep. 1: Intellectual and Physical Feminist Self-Defense with Dr. Kris De Welde and Marissa Haynes

• CofC Women's and Gender Studies Program • Season 2 • Episode 1

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In this episode of What IFF?  we are joined by the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program, Dr. Kris De Welde, and the original podcast host, Marissa Haynes. With both show creators on the mic, we gain helpful insights on how to deal with first-year student stressors. Marissa looks back at some of her fondest memories from her time in the WGS program, and Dr. De Welde shares her current research projects that are influencing the future of academics. Together we discuss intellectual and physical feminist self-defense and share our personal reflections on awakening to the power within.

Music by Alex-Productions

Episode Resources:

- INTRODUCTION -

[Musical intro]

BRIA  00:03
Welcome to this episode of What IFF? A podcast where we imagine intersectional feminist futures and talk about the role social activism plays in our everyday lives. I’m your new host, Bria Ferguson. They/them pronouns, sociology and women’s and gender studies double major, Air Force veteran, and a new student to the College of Charleston. There are two phenomenal guests on the show with me today, and we get into a lot.  You’ll definitely learn a little something about the WGS program and student funding opportunities, but we’ll also look into the different tensions that we experience in social activism practice at large - like awareness fatigue. 

- AWARENESS FATIGUE -
 
BRIA  00:46
That term was a new term to me, so I started off my research by looking at the American Psychological Association’s definition, which says, “to decline in performance on a prolonged or demanding task that is generally attributed to the participant becoming tired. Symptoms may worsen over time due to the complications and barriers that arise when completing long-term tasks.” This made sense to me, but I wasn’t really sure how that applies to the context of a classroom. Luckily, I had an expert in the room to help connect the dots.
 
KRIS  01:18
One form, I think, of awareness fatigue is the constant new topic, new topic, new topic. In the confines of a traditional semester, it is exhausting because there’s no time to sit and understand and really digest.

BRIA  01:35
That’s the voice of Dr. Kris De Welde. She/her pronouns, Director of Women’s and Gender Studies, professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, and a professor of Sociology. So let’s dig a little deeper into her thoughts on why this happens in social justice practice.

KRIS  01:51
You start to then see the very powerful, inevitable linkages across those things that seem disconnected. That can be really overwhelming because it’s not just about addressing this one issue. It becomes about all of society and the ways in which our society is structured and the ways in which those are just invisible to most people. When you start to see that, where do you find your own way and how can you move through these systems in ways that allow space for your new critical ideas and critical questioning but that you’re not trapped there all the time because it’s just burnout.”

MARISSA  02:31
I think back to my freshman year, and I think back to my first women’s and gender studies classes and outside of the classroom, things that coincided with what I was learning in my classes. I don’t know if my family thought I was a very fun person to be around for a little while. We can get into the existentialism of it all, but that can definitely be tiring.

BRIA  02:53
That’s the original host and creator of What IFF? Marissa Haynes. She/her pronouns, recent graduate from the College of Charleston, and a double major of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies.

MARISSA  03:05
For me being aware brought out so many other emotions other than fatigue - it was just like anger and sadness and resentment - but a lot of times joy and excitement knowing that I’m not the first person here. There are actually people lightyears ahead of me that I can continue to learn from and be empowered by. I think of Audre Lorde’s uses of anger.

KRIS  03:28
Another piece that you’re bringing up is helping others be aware and wanting people that you care about to understand things from your perspective, and so often that is misinterpreted as opinion or being somehow hysterical, right, which has its own gendered and historic connotations. But when the work we’re doing is emotional but grounded in rigorous intellectual theory and praxis - that’s another piece of fatigue that ‘no, this isn’t just what I think or what I see,’ this is decades of research that are informing my positionality on this particular issue.’

BRIA  04:08
I’m definitely experiencing this to varying degrees, but it has helped that my professors are very patient, and aware, and compassionate in our learning environments.

- ACADEMIC KINDNESS -

KRIS  04:20 
So academic kindness is this term that’s gaining a little bit of resurgence. It was really in the depths of the pandemic that people were calling in the need for kindness. Early in your time as a WGS major, it’s really acute, and the anger is really palpable, and the emotions and the fatigue and the over whelm - they come in waves and you don’t have a lot of time to breathe in between them and catch your footing. And then those waves get further and further apart and you find strategies to deal with some of that. It’s a lifelong process; it’s not like I’ve got it figured out.

MARISSA  04:54
It is doing a student a kindness to hold them to a standard that maybe they’ve never been pushed to before. I think back to the people I’ve learned from the most, and it’s not the people who just were like, ‘You keep sitting there and doing what you’re doing. You’re so great!’ You know? It was the people who were like, ‘I think you could do this.’ And I’m nudging to the person to my left because that was one of the people who did it the most for me. Where it was like pushing you out of your comfort zone while also empathizing that it is out of your comfort zone and they get that. I mean it’s a pretty recipe for that other person’s success if you’re both giving and taking. And that also sounds like the point of academic kindness. That’s not all on the teacher; that’s not all on the professor.

KRIS  05:34
Feminist pedagogy is about reciprocity. My research on academic kindness in a piece that was published recently was about bringing together these notions of academic kindness with academic justice. I started reading about some of the ways in which folks were talking about kindness, and I was like, ‘Well, that’s nice.’ Precisely, it’s nice. But it’s sort of absent of justice. Let’s say in a faculty meeting or in a classroom, somebody says something that’s really harmful to someone, and I don’t say anything, and I just sit there and stew. Then after that class or after that meeting, I say to the person, ‘That was really terrible what that person said to you. Can I take you out for coffee?’ That’s kind, but there’s no justice there. If you had the positionality and the privilege and the status to intervene and make justice happen in that moment - that’s kindness that’s linked with justice, and that’s what I care about. I am always caring about equity and justice, particularly in higher education.

BRIA  06:37
I’m curious, then, for Marissa, if you felt the program having these priorities impacted your college experience.

MARISSA  06:45
Over the last several years, there were times when I didn’t know if I’d be able to continue my education (for financial reasons, for personal reasons), and during that time, Dr. De Welde was really looking out for me and the amount of times that I have heard of stories of Dr. De Welde saying to people even higher than her, ‘Tell me again about how we’re doing that just because it’s the way it’s always been done.

KRIS  07:08
‘How does that serve students?’

MARISSA  07:10
Knowing that there’s someone out there asking those questions and putting those people in those positions - that is the type of safety that students need. In moments of deepest imposter syndrome, which I have faced a lot over the last four years, Dr. De Welde has pulled me out of that and has led me to other academics that have said, ‘I feel that way still, and I’ve been in academia for thirty years.’ Knowing that helps me in my early stages of undergrad feel like, even if I don’t see that space for me there, even if I don’t picture it, doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

KRIS  07:39
It has everything to do with this notion of reciprocity. In that first class, I’m excited about every student in all of my classes… there are some students that meet that excitement and Marissa’s work has always been really grappling and doing that deep work intellectually and emotionally. There were these points of connection that just allowed that relationship to continue and to foster. It’s like any relationship. You meet someone new. You want to be in their life; they want to be in yours. You’re going to give some and then kind of wait and see (or you should be doing this). Wait and see is there something coming back. And in a student/professor relationship, it’s academic. It’s much more rooted in the intellectual work that I was excited that Marissa was capable of. Bria, do you feel something similar? It’s sort of odd there are three sociology slash WGS people in this space.

BRIA  08:33
I was always intrigued by psychology, and I think that stems from personal experiences with therapy and having family members with complex medical histories. So for a while, psychology seemed to answer every question about life that I had. And then, after joining the military and having an array of life experiences and challenges with systemic issues, I wanted to better understand the collective component of culture change. I stumbled upon sociology really when researching undergraduate programs, and it wasn’t until classes in the fall that I saw flyers around campus for Women’s and Gender studies. This semester I’m enrolled in two WGS courses, and they’ve already vastly expanded my awareness and vocabulary. The fatigue I’m experiencing right now is from finally getting some answers and then learning how to ask more specific and complex questions and coming to the realization that it’s going to be never-ending.

KRIS  09:38
I feel like when you think you’ve got it figured out, either 1. Life pulls out the certainly right from under you. Or you live in this place of ignorance. There was a session that one of our majors, Kristen Graham, organized, and it was about responding to anti-black racism - on campus and just in general, and I’ll never forget that she asked the question, ‘How do we get comfortable with being uncomfortable?’ We don’t get comfortable with the discomfort. That’s where injustice foments. That’s where things go awry. If we get comfortable with our knowledge and with our understanding of the world, it’s too dynamic, it’s too messy, it’s too unpredictable (and yet so predictable) that we don’t need to be comfortable with the discomfort, but we have to be comfortable knowing there will always be discomfort.

MARISSA  10:32
We have to not let that discomfort scare you out of going to those places in the first place. Also, shoutout to Kristen Graham. We love Kristen Graham. Everyone in this room loves Kristen Graham.

BRIA  10:45
Brilliant, yeah.

- SOCIOLOGISTS FOR WOMEN IN SOCIETY-

MARISSA  10:45
Last year, I was able to attend a conference with Dr. De Welde called Sociology for Women in Society and, from the conference, I got to learn from a lot of different people in academia who have been grappling with keeping feminism and women’s and gender studies and all that comes with that in the forefront of your brain when approaching social issues that we’re all facing. There was one woman that I was learning from, Oslum; I listened to one of her lectures talking about activism in Turkey during/around the time of the pandemic. She was saying that solidarity is not just ‘Thumbs up, I support you.’ Solidarity is ‘I’m willing to put something on the line for you. I’m willing to put something on the line for this movement.’ She talked a lot about activism as this bridge between the way things are and the way things should be. A bridge isn’t built in a day; I don’t even know how they make bridges, if I’m being honest. When it comes to bridges over water, I still don’t know how they do that. [laughter]

KRIS  11:47
That’s not our job.

MARISSA  11:49
So that’s the point. Bridging that gap is not giving up on the movement as a whole just because you can’t see the ending, and that’s a lot about What IFF? We’re putting our efforts into our present for a future that we may not benefit from.

KRIS  12:02
This circles back to the issue of fatigue because that’s a lot to sit with and to be comfortable with, and this notion that if you’re wanting to engage as an activist, you can’t actually make substantive change instantly or even in a few months or a year. The struggles for justice are long-standing. They will continue in perpetuity. We can imagine a utopia, and even if we can’t, that doesn’t mean that we don’t take steps on that path toward most justice. That’s not for everybody where it’s so much about instant gratification, and for a lot of WGS students, it’s so much more than that. And yet, they’re living in this world that doesn’t accommodate that or have space for that. So it’s a lot; it’s a lot to manage.

BRIA  12:52
With this framework, you’re talking about of it being this constantly moving and evolving beast, and there’s not just a finish line or destination - the answers will continuously change and evolve… How do you even do research on a topic when it’s a constantly moving thing?

- ONGOING EQUITY RESEARCH -

KRIS  13:06
That’s a great question, Bria. You try to capture a moment, a snapshot, and provide context and information for that moment and then be forward thinking about ‘What does this mean?’ And ‘How can these ideas be taken up in a more sustainable way?’ The research that I do is actually funded by the National Science Foundation right now, and we have a four-year grant to study processes of academic institutional change for gender equity. The National Science Foundation has supported, for over twenty years, these major grants to institutions of all types to address issues of gender equity - particularly in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), but as we see on a lot of campuses the spillover to non-STEM fields is really prominent. Campuses have found these really creative ways to use NSF funding for the STEM fields, but then maybe get supplementary funding from their institutions so that it impacts everybody, and then there’s a culture shift.

BRIA  14:09
This NSF grant is a collaborative effort between Dr. De Welde at the College of Charleston, Sandra Laursen from the University of Colorado Boulder, and Anne Austin from Michigan State University. Okay, so, do collaborative efforts impact the applications of research?

KRIS  14:26
What we’re curious about is how those things fit together. What are the processes that allow this suite of interventions for gender equity to be successful? That’s the kind of forward-thinking you’re asking about because it’s not just ‘This is what worked on this campus! This is what worked on this campus.’ It’s generating insights from a very large data set to say something about ‘Moving forward for institutional, organizational (maybe even beyond academia) projects that are aiming for more equity and justice. These are the things to be mindful of.

BRIA  15:00
It’s reassuring to know that there are faculty on campus that are working to secure the funds necessary to expand these kinds of initiatives. And on the topic of funding, WGS specifically, has created some local resources to ensure students get help with the financial barriers that can limit their educational experiences… So I was wondering if you could speak more on the students’ opportunities fund.

- STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES FUND -

KRIS  15:25
So the Student Opportunities Fund has a rolling deadline which means a student can apply at any time, and the awards are anywhere from 50 dollars all the way to 1,000 dollars. We have supported students in study abroad programs, in internships, in conferences with activism projects, and a whole range of activities - and we’re not limited to those. Let’s say Bria has an amazing idea for how we can spend some money that advances...

BRIA  15:58
I could probably come up with a few [laughter]

KRIS  16:01
Yeah! There’s a committee of faculty that review the applications, and to date, we have not denied any and thankfully, we continue to be successful with the fundraising and direct application for student success and experiences.

MARISSA  16:16
If you know Kris, you know that she is the definition of ‘put your money where your mouth is.’ We’re not going to have an institution that says they care so much about students this way and this way and this way and then not actually put those efforts there. She talks the talk, but she walks the walk through classes that she teaches but also by watching her do what she does. It’s that follow through and the commitment that makes a difference in students' lives but also… THE WORLD. [laughter]

BRIA  16:41
How are you able to inspire students the way you do and run such a robust program?

- COFC’S WGS PROGRAM -

KRIS  16:48
I had the good fortune of being gifted a program that had folks teaching in it, and mentoring students and advising in the ways that fit with my value system. It’s one of the reasons I was drawn here. I wouldn’t take credit for helping to create those spaces necessarily, but I do think that I have been very committed to expanding those spaces and that kind of thinking across campus, and a lot of the work that I am able to do institutionally is enhanced by and supported by and made better by amazing colleagues that I have. There are only two of us in the Women’s and Gender Studies program, myself and Dr. Domiguez, but there are 75-85 affiliated faculty across the campus. These are people that - we are like-minded. We are here because we see education as the practice of freedom, as Bell Hooks has suggested to us, who see that as an institution, we need to be student-centered. We need to practice equity and promote it in our classrooms and all these spaces. So while I appreciate that there are some things that I have been able to advance on as director of the program, there are a lot of people around me that decenter me as the catalyst for these things. Like, we do it together, and doing it together makes it stronger.

MARISSA  18:16
Oh yeah, we’re not trying to move mountains by ourselves here.

KRIS  18:19
I sometimes do a little bit.  [laughter]  Little mountains.

BRIA  18:25
I just think about how those perspectives from so many different professors in academics probably make those conclusions more well-rounded and stronger and applications of the more diverse.

[Musical interlude]

BRIA  18:40
I’d like to pause before this next portion of our conversation and check in. The following content will include mentions of harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, and self-defense. It’s okay if you don’t have the capacity or desire to tune in for this part of our discussion. I hope you’ve learned something new or even thought of your own questions during the interview. For those who do have the energy to keep listening, thanks for staying around. So another significant link I’ve learned between Dr. De Welde and Marissa is feminist self-defense.

- FEMINIST SELF-DEFENSE -

MARISSA  19:13
At the time when I was taking the intro to Women’s and Gender Studies course, I was also taking my first-year experience course, which was feminist self-defense. So it was two times a week on the mats in the gym, learning self-defense from a black belt in jujitsu. So I was really taking two different approaches to women’s and gender studies - an academic one and also a physically applied one as well. Some people see self-defense as a controversial issue. I’ve gotten into; I wouldn’t say, arguments… I’m actually going to coin this term on this podcast; it’s called a bickerment.

BRIA  19:44
I’ve never heard of that.

MARISSA  19:46
That’s cause it’s not a word. [laughter] My family and I always said it growing up. My mom was like, ‘You guys aren’t fighting, but it’s definitely not like a normal conversation. You’re bickering. Anyway, so I’ve had bickerments with people over this issue. And so when I was sitting in this class, and Dr. De Welde was talking about her research on this, already I was like, ‘that’s pretty well timed.’ And so when this girl was saying, ‘Well, I don’t think I should learn self-defense. I don’t think I should have to learn self-defense.’ And all those things, which are valid opinions, but she said, ‘because if someone wanted to attack me, they could.’

KRIS  20:15
‘I couldn’t stop them.’

MARISSA  20:16
I couldn’t stop them is their idea. And I remember Kris standing at the front of the classroom who stands at what? Five foot? Five one?

KRIS  20:25
Yeah, on a good day five one.

MARISSA  20:27
And I remember her saying, ‘I understand your perspective, but personally, I know I could kill someone.’ [silence] [laughter]

KRIS  20:33
I’m so arrogant. [laughter]

MARISSA  20:35
No, but the thing is - as an instructor of Jujitsu myself, I absolutely know that I could kill someone, and that’s something that we teach our students. That it’s a power, and we’re learning how to defend ourselves, but it doesn’t take strength. And so I remember her saying that matter of factly, and I was just like, ‘you’re right.’ And that’s the physical feminism. I’m going to stand here how tall I stand, and I know I am confident and comfortable in myself and also in my knowledge of this art form that I can protect myself verbally, physically… and that was something that I think about still when I teach the class. I think about it.

KRIS  21:10
I studied karate, and that is striking but striking from a feminist versus a masculinist perspective is very different. A lot of these self-defense classes that students often are encouraged to take are potentially really harmful because they come from a masculinist perspective about how and where to strike. It’s very choreographed and can produce this sense of confidence. But the feminist self-defense class that I studied, I saw a lot of women came through, and the place where I did this work, the city often provided a subsidy for people who had been victims of crimes, one of which was to pay for a self-defense class which is actually kind of forward-thinking for the time. There were so many women that had come through that had taken these very generic, very choreographed kinds of self-defense… ‘Poke them in the eyes, kick them in the nuts, yell 9-1-1, and run.’ Right? For a person who’s five feet tall and somebody attacking me, am I supposed to be like, ‘Could you bend down so that I can poke you in the eyes?’ and what if kicking them in the nuts quote-unquote is not an option? I saw so many women come through that had this false sense of confidence and were in a situation where they attempted to use what they had learned, and they were out of options.

BRIA  22:31
That’s even more scary, honestly. Think that you’re…

KRIS  22:32
It’s terrifying! Yeah. These were shattered women. And so, yes, the class was more about striking, all the things you’re talking about, and what I found - which I thought was most interesting - was the women who came through this class, I interviewed them. I did participant observation during the time that they were taking the class, which was usually four or five hours over the course of four or five days. Then I followed up with them six to eight months after to talk with them about ‘how has this information settled in your world?’ and ‘has anything changed?’ and what I found was quote unquote self-defense was happening in their everyday lives. It was happening in their workplaces. It was happening at the grocery store; on planes, in lines where women who previously felt like they couldn’t take up a lot of space, or that they didn’t need to be heard, or that they couldn’t assert their needs… They had this embodied confidence that, if needed (which in most cases it wasn’t needed), they could take somebody down, but that just propelled them to make their needs known. For some women, it was, ‘my kids don’t get away with shit in my house anymore.’ [laughter] ‘I’ve learned.’ Or people sitting down on planes and taking up the armrest. Like, why don’t we get armrests?! [laughter] That’s what was really interesting to me. The ways in which these physical lessons translated into non-physical interactions and encounters.

MARISSA  23:59
What I find is that there are some self-defense classes that approach it in a victim-blamey kind of way. And people go there seeking solace and go there seeking empowerment, and there’s language that’s like, ‘if you ever put yourself in this position…’ or ‘if you ever get too drunk, here, we’ll teach you how to save your own ass.’ It’s like, well, that’s not the way that we really are going to learn something that’s valuable. So in our class, we do teach how to… how to exist in your body. How to get to know your body. Jujitsu, for self-defense, really values mind and body. It’s like a chess game through your physical being. That is something that, again, you’re with all the time. You’re in your own body forever, right? I used to tell people who come through the class - even after the first or second day because Jujitsu uses leverage and science to help a smaller person overcome a larger person. How to use their body against them. How to put your body... Even just tweaking it a little bit helps you commit a move. For the first day, I teach them even just a basic wrist release. Someone’s holding onto your wrists, and you don’t know how to get them to let go, I teach you this little move. You can really do it against anyone, and you didn’t come here and lift a bunch of weights, and now you’re just huge and so strong to take on anyone. Your body was amazing the way it was, and we just taught you how to use it and how to maneuver within it. The instructors that I work with, Pat and Maggie McGuigan, they have been huge influences for me over the last four years. They taught me how to exist in a way that takes up space physically and figuratively, and that has been an absolute game changer. I know so many people since who have come through that class that leave feeling so much more empowered. I am doing a shameless plug for the self-defense class. It’s a PAEC self-defense class, and it is such a great course. By the end of it you could become close to a blue belt because it really is the basics of Jujitsu. We talked a little bit about Gavin DeBecker and the uses of fear and how fear and listening to your intuition (cause that’s another big thing that we teach in that class). Such a big part of it, especially for people who are socialized as women, our biggest strength sometimes is that intuition is our brains and our heart, but we’re not taught that those are strengths. [groans]

KRIS  26:06
Gosh, the opposite.

BRIA  26:08
Yeah, we’re taught to ignore it.

MARISSA  26:10
We teach them so much about de-escalation. I’m a huge advocate that if our police force were to be trained in Jujitsu that, I think, the relationship between police and the community would be completely different because we teach how to de-escalate without using violence. It is just such a useful art form more people could really benefit from. Personally, drawing boundaries with not just strangers but with your friends. We use practices of saying no to your friends. That was a game-changer for me! My therapist taught me that a boundary is not when you’re already giving your all. Your boundary is purposefully before that. That’s the point of the boundary. It should be before that because that’s my comfort zone, and that’s valuable, and that is real.

KRIS  26:51
And there’s a self-possession and a self-determination that is needed for that. There’s a lot of self-love that has to come from this work because if you don’t see yourself as worthy of defending, that’s critical. So it’s undoing so much of cis-hetero-normative gender socialization that people who are socialized to be women receive. And not just as children but our entire lives.

MARISSA  27:15
We teach the word no a lot. Which, during the #MeToo movement and Brett Kavanaugh’s trial, all that was happening during my first semester of freshman year when I was in Kris De Welde’s class, so I was learning how to work through all that in those spaces. Learning that when a man says no, it’s the end of a discussion, but when a woman says no, it’s the beginning of a negotiation. [silence]

KRIS  27:34
Oof, yeah.

MARISSA  27:36
And so it’s teaching the people in our class that when you say no from this far away, if they’re still coming closer to you… The first time I said no, and you disregarded it, okay, a little bit of a red flag. The second time, the third time? Now I know for a fact that you don’t have my best interest in mind, and you made that clear three times now. I’ve said no. Even with your friends, even with your family members… You don’t have my best interest in mind, so now I have to think about ‘What are my options here?’ Statistically, if you curse at an attacker, they’re more likely to leave you alone because cursing proves maybe you’re going to be a harder target than they had previously imagined. In Jujitsu, we try to create the distance here and have our hands up like this. This tells a stranger no. My hands are up like this. I’m not saying anything; you should know.

KRIS  28:18
And your face.

MARISSA  28:20
And my face and me making eye contact and me verbally saying, ‘EFF OFF. I’m so serious.’ Just the eye contact alone!

BRIA  28:26
Oh no, it’s intense. I’m like actually sitting back!

MARISSA  28:28
I know! [laughter] You’re like over here in the corner.

BRIA  28:30
It’s a simulation, but I actually instinctively moved back a little.

KRIS  28:35
And the energy, right?

MARISSA  28:37
And finding out someone’s intentions ahead of time. We talk about walking to your car in a parking garage, and someone is following way behind you. Don’t wait until that person is right up next to you to find out their intentions. If they’re way behind you and you feel they’ve been following you for a second, turn around. ‘Hey. Can I help you?’ What, they’re like, ‘oh, sorry, my car is right there…’ Now, this is kind of awkward.

KRIS  28:57
Feminine socialization tells us that’s rude. You don’t want to be rude.

MARISSA  29:02
But with that, also, we see women who are victims of violence and then are convicted for committing violence against their own attacker. There are so many women in prison for defending themselves. And so that’s another thing we add into the class as well is, adding that legal aspect. What are your legal rights?

KRIS  29:21
There’s a responsibility that comes with that knowledge and information. That is critical.

MARISSA  29:26
But again, we know the legal systems aren’t set up to protect and believe women.

BRIA  29:31
What I like, as this has unfolded, it almost ties back to what we talked about; performative activism versus actually living it. After going through trauma, at least for me, one of the hardest things is to trust the world you walk in anymore. You start to question the small things like going to the post office, going to the grocery store… it starts to add in all these new possibilities that become terrifying. And so, trust in yourself with the unpredictable with the unknown and at least knowing your capabilities rather than hoping that my instincts will kick in or that things just dissolve on their own. Getting to know yourself in a way that I think oftentimes women aren’t allowed to because it takes up too much space.

MARISSA  30:03
But I’m interested in your experience specifically, Bria, because as the listeners will get to learn about you over the next couple of episodes, hopefully, you served in the military. So I’m interested in what you’re experience is in seeing self-defense specifically. This kind of physical embodiment taking up space. Like, what that felt like what that meant for you. If you could give us a little bit of a synopsis of what that was like for you.

KRIS  30:25
Thank you for asking; yeah, I was curious.

BRIA  30:28
Yeah, no worries. A lot of it’s about hand-to-hand combat downrange. Here’s what you do. Here’s your weapons. Here’s your rules for using force if you need to. It’s not so much about the self-empowerment component - or even knowing how to de-escalate a situation. A lot of the time (and this probably is more in line with the student that was a little against the idea of self-defense), I think part of that comes from when you’re in cultures that can be misogynistic or can be sexist or harmful to women (in particular) there’s a sense of ‘Well you should have just known how to do this.’ Or like, ‘this is why women shouldn’t be here because now the stats are going up.’ It almost is used to shift accountability rather than empower. It doesn’t leave room for complexities that we were talking about before.

MARISSA  31:10
No, it’s victim blaming.

BRIA  31:12
That doesn’t mean we can stop doing work over here on culture shifting to not have these environments that even foster some of these particular people in power. That’s the part, specifically in my experience, that just completely gets thrown in the trash.

MARISSA  31:25
I think the most important way to approach this (we teach in the class) ‘I learn self-defense not because it’s my responsibility but because it’s my reality.’ And so I think a lot of times when people are against learning self-defense because they think they’re perpetuating a system of violence… We didn’t make up the system; we’re existing within it. There’s a bathtub, and it’s overfilling with water. You’re not going to just go use a towel to clean up the water. Step one should be turning off the faucet in the first place. Learning self-defense is cleaning up the water. But that kind of preventative education that comes with teaching consent, that’s turning off from the source. How are we actually addressing these issues in a way that’s sustainable?

KRIS  32:02
I published a book with a college called Disrupting the Culture of Silence. And we were sitting and talking one day, and she said, ‘How bizarre that you’ve gone from researching self-defense to now writing about gender inequality and ways of strategizing and resisting.’ And I was like, ‘NO. It’s self-defense in higher ed that I’m actually writing about and encouraging.’ I mean, there are a lot of advice pieces in that book for different kinds of inequitable and harmful and unjust scenarios. I really think it’s important to be thinking about self-defense as bigger and broader than just the physical. I might argue WGS provides intellectual self-defense to navigate a hostile world. We’re organized around questions of power, oppression, resistance, liberation, and we’ve talked about all of those, right? We interrogate the limitations of current ideologies, primarily the dominant ideologies. And here’s where What IFF? really plays a role. Can we imagine the feminist futures that can be possible? And we do this from an intellectual space but also from a heart space. We in WGS encourage students to, as Audre Lorde (we’ve quoted her twice now in this podcast episode which is totally appropriate) to find our work and do it. To find our work and do it. Whatever that looks like and whatever that means. And knowing that can change and sometimes has to change. There are these unbelievable trends happening across higher education - thought policing around what it is that is being learned in K-12 and in college classrooms. We need to be nimble [snapping] about what our work is and looks like in that sort of context.

- CONCLUSION -

BRIA  33:48
For you Marissa, now being a graduate, what do you carry with you every day? I mean, you kind of answered that throughout the duration of this whole interview, but what do you take with you from WGS that you’re most grateful for?

MARISSA  33:59
There is this infinite amount of understanding that is now ahead of me. There’s so much more for me to learn, there’s so much more for me to make those connections between. I don’t feel like I’ll ever stop being a WGS student cause I’ll never stop surrounding myself with people from whom I can learn and empathize with and collaborate. It’s a part of my identity. In my brain now, I’m going to approach every situation with this idea of contextualizing it in a way that makes sense but also in a way that’s valuable and in a way that moves us forward. I’m a sociologist! I will always put Women’s and Gender Studies and intersectionality and feminism at the forefront, and one of the biggest things that I will take with me forever is the idea of taking the most marginalized person in the room and approaching whatever issue it is, putting them in the center of it. That’s how I believe things are actually going to change. We’re gonna get stuff done. That’s one thing that I definitely tried to practice and will continue to practice forever.

KRIS  34:55
I’m reading this book called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

MARISSA  34:58
My roommate is reading that right now! Oh my gosh.

KRIS  35:02
Serendipity. And she writes in the context of ecosystems and particularly plants. She’s a trained botanist, but she’s also an Indigenous woman who comes at the understanding of plant life and plant flourishing from a much more holistic perspective. And she writes about this concept of mutual flourishing. Plants live in a system, and they survive and thrive when there’s mutual flourishing. Not just when one of them advances. So I said what I was reading, Braiding Sweetgrass, what are you reading?

MARISSA  35:36
I just picked up Lies My Teachers Told Me. Let me learn even more about all of the false histories that are still being spread in our schools, so, Lies My Teacher Told Me. It’s great.

BRIA  35:47
I’m reading mostly for class right now, but Hospicing Modernity is a book in the Women’s and Gender Studies class that we’re reading, and it’s highlighted up already. I started taking notes, and then I was writing down almost every other paragraph so I was like, well…

MARISSA  36:03
Cambria, thank you so much. The podcast is in incredible hands, and I’m very excited to see and hear what the future of the show is. Thanks again for having me as a guest.

BRIA  36:15
Thank you for making time to be here and for trusting me with handing over your baby. I will try to do the best that I can. You’ve left an incredible framework, so I really appreciate that.

MARISSA  36:13
And thank you, Dr. De Welde, for the constant support and enlightenment.

KRIS  36:29
You are welcome. Thanks for meeting all of that! And thank you, Bria, for your willingness to take this into the next stage. I’m excited to work with you, and it’s such a joy to have this extension of our program that’s dynamic and invites people in, and we’ll touch on a whole array of topics - so stay tuned!

BRIA  36:58
To more information about the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the College of Charleston, go to wgs.cofc.edu and follow us on Instagram @cofcwgs. I’m Bria Ferguson. Thanks for listening.

[Musical outro]

- WORKS CITED -

People on this episode

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Brin/Bria Ferguson (they/them)

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Marissa Haynes (she/her)

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Molly Dickerson (she/her)

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