Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Flaunt It!
BOOK REVIEW Special to the online edition of Windy City Times
by Yasmin Nair
2010-11-03

This article shared 3507 times since Wed Nov 3, 2010
facebook twitter google +1 reddit email


By Therese Quinn and Erica R. Meiners, $24.99; Peter Lang. Publishing House; 134 pages

In Flaunt It! Queers Organizing for Public Education and Justice, Chicago-based Therese Quinn and Erica Meiners, long-time social justice activists and educators, examine the range of issues that surround our youth, queer and straight, in the educational system.

In general, works on queers and education have focused narrowly on matters of inclusion and tolerance. But advocating only for inclusion and tolerance for queer students, and for "safe spaces" where they might feel welcome, does not address the multi-layered issues facing students. Quinn and Meiners look more deeply at the educational system and its failures to address queer needs, but without isolating queerness from economic and political issues. Flaunt It! considers how and why queer bodies are more vulnerable in a system that furthers the disenfranchisement of students already under threat from poverty, racial discrimination, and the rapid militarization of the public school system.

Quinn teaches art education at the School of the Art Institute and Meiners is a professor of Education and Women's Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. Quinn is a founding member of Teachers Against Militarized Education ( TAME ) which challenged the militarization of Chicago's Senn High School, and Meiners teaches and coordinates an area high school for formerly incarcerated men and women. The two are no strangers to the intertwining of education and social justice, an approach that is not always amenable to either the right or the left sides of the debate on education.

In their introduction, they acknowledge that they are privileged to be tenured faculty who can take on the twin tasks of organizing and education. That still does not address the larger issue of whether academics ought to take on such dual roles—the book assumes that activism and social justice are an integral part of education. But what do we call it when right-wing teachers agitate for more inclusion of Christian or religious teachings in schools? Is it a social justice curriculum when implemented by the left but proselytizing when the right takes on a similar agenda? Debating such questions may lie outside the scope of the book, but they are useful to consider when we look at schooling environments.

The greatest strength of Flaunt It! is that it contextualizes "queer issues" within the political realms in which they exist. In a chapter titled "Straightening Unruly Bodies through Military Education," the authors consider the militarization of public education. They are critical of the mainstream gay movement's focus on overturning Don't Ask Don't Tell at the expense of a critique of the military's targeting mostly poor youth of color: "… we are offered only the normative choice of advocating for participation in a military that depends not only on poverty and racism but also on our revilement for its existence. This narrowed view of 'queer issues' derails us from the goal of justice and should be rejected." In light of the apparently always imminent withdrawal of DADT, it's likely that the first issue of revilement may soon be moot, but the larger issue of the military's increased manipulation of those mired in poverty should interest queer and straight leftists who have tended to ignore the larger economic and cultural contexts of DADT.

In a chapter on gender and teaching, Quinn and Meiners point out that the profession has not only been historically feminized but also raced through " [ t ] he white lady bountiful teacher archetype" ( think Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds ) . The archetype, with all its straightened ( and constrained ) sexuality and behavior is held up as the embodiment of the teaching professional. This "inhibits certain people from entering the field…Where are the flamey queer men? The crips? The radical black feminist activists?" For queers, there are costs that come with having to cleave to "professional" stereotypes of propriety—to this day, gay men who want to work with young children are suspected as potential pedophiles.

Flaunt It! will not satisfy everyone, given the nuance and the complexity of the issues it considers, but it is essential reading for anyone interested in education, straight or queer.

Quinn and Meiners will be addressing the issues raised in the book at a public event of the same name, along with Gender JUST, Thursday, Nov. 4, at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Residents Dining Hall Building, 1st Floor, 800 S. Halsted, 4:30-7 p.m. See www.genderjust.org .


This article shared 3507 times since Wed Nov 3, 2010
facebook twitter google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Gerber/Hart Library and Archives holds third annual Spring Soiree benefit 2024-04-19
- Gerber/Hart Library and Archives (Gerber/Hart) hosted the "Courage in Community: The Gerber/ Hart Spring Soiree" event April 18 at Sidetrack, marking the everyday and extraordinary intrepidness of the entire LGBTQ+ ...


Gay News

BOOKS Frank Bruni gets political in 'The Age of Grievance' 2024-04-18
- In The Age of Grievance, longtime New York Times columnist and best-selling author Frank Bruni analyzes the ways in which grievance has come to define our current culture and politics, on both the right and left. ...


Gay News

Women & Children First marks its 45th anniversary 2024-04-11
By Tatiana Walk-Morris - It has been about 45 years since Ann Christophersen and Linda Bubon co-founded the Women & Children First bookstore in 1979. In its early days, the two were earning their English degrees at the University of ...


Gay News

UK's NHS releases trans youth report; JK Rowling chimes in 2024-04-11
- An independent report issued by the UK's National Health Service (NHS) declared that children seeking gender care are being let down, The Independent reported. The report—published on April 10 and led by pediatrician and former Royal ...


Gay News

Judith Butler focuses on perceptions of gender at Chicago Humanities Festival talk 2024-04-10
- In an hour-long program filled with dry humor—not to mention lots of audience laughter—philosopher, scholar and activist Judith Butler (they/them) spoke in depth on their new book at Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., on ...


Gay News

Kara Swisher talks truth, power in tech at Chicago Humanities event 2024-03-25
- Lesbian author, award-winning journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher spoke about truth and power in the tech industry through the lens of her most recent book, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, March 21 at First ...


Gay News

RuPaul finds 'Hidden Meanings' in new memoir 2024-03-18
- RuPaul Andre Charles made a rare Chicago appearance for a book tour on March 12 at The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave. Presented by National Public Radio station WBEZ 91.5 FM, the talk coincided with ...


Gay News

Without compromise: Holly Baggett explores lives of iconoclasts Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap 2024-03-04
- Jane Heap (1883-1964) and Margaret Anderson (1886-1973), each of them a native Midwesterner, woman of letters and iconoclast, had a profound influence on literary culture in both America and Europe in the early 20th Century. Heap ...


Gay News

There she goes again: Author Alison Cochrun discusses writing journey 2024-02-27
- By Carrie Maxwell When Alison Cochrun began writing her first queer romance novel in 2019, she had no idea it would change the course of her entire life. Cochrun, who spent 11 years as a high ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Women's college, banned books, military initiative, Oregon 2023-12-29
- After backlash regarding a decision to update its anti-discrimination policy and open enrollment to some transgender applicants, a Catholic women's college in Indiana will return to its previous admission policy, per The National Catholic Reporter. In ...


Gay News

NATIONAL School items, Miami attack, Elliot Page, Fire Island 2023-12-22
- In Virginia, new and returning members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board were inaugurated—with some school board members opting to use banned books on the topics of slavery and LGBTQ+ ...


Gay News

Chicago author's new guide leads lesbian fiction authors toward inspiration and publication 2023-12-07
- From a press release: Award-winning and bestselling lesbian fiction author Elizabeth Andre—the pen name for a Chicago-based interracial lesbian couple—has published her latest book, titled Self-Publishing Lesbian Fiction, Write Your ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Tenn. law, banned books, rainbow complex, journalists quit 2023-12-01
- Under pressure from a lawsuit over an anti-LGBTQ+ city ordinance, officials in Murfreesboro, Tennessee removed language that banned homosexuality in public, MSNBC noted. Passed in June, Murfreesboro's "public decency" ordinance ...


Gay News

BOOKS Lucas Hilderbrand reflects on gay history in 'The Bars Are Ours' 2023-11-29
- In The Bars Are Ours (via Duke University Press), Lucas Hilderbrand, a professor of film and media studies at the University of California-Irvine, takes readers on a historical journey of gay bars, showing how the venues ...


Gay News

BOOKS Owen Keehnen takes readers to an 'oasis of pleasure' in 'Man's Country' 2023-11-27
- In the book Man's Country: More Than a Bathhouse, Chicago historian Owen Keehnen takes a literary microscope to the venue that the late local icon Chuck Renslow opened in 1973. Over decades, until it was demolished ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor
Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.