Chapter 8

Over the next little while I need to concentrate on fine tuning the two courses I am teaching. This is a challenge with which I am familiar and takes my mind off Sammy’s death, and indeed off my intense embarrassment over Hemi. I am teaching a second year course (they don’t use the terms ‘freshman’ and ‘sophomore’ here) entitled International Perspectives on Women’s Empowerment. I had taught a similar course at Ambrosia but the international coverage needed to be readjusted to suit a New Zealand context. In particular, North America needed to be a focus and a section on the Pacific Islands needed to be introduced, which took a lot of work as it was largely a new region for me. I started off with a section on the Indian subcontinent, which was able to be retained ‘as is’ and worked very well. Prior to the first class meeting I was provided with a class list of thirty-seven members. I was pleasantly surprised when exactly thirty-seven students showed up on the first day, but then discovered that only thirty of those thirty-seven were present and, by chance, seven others were having a look to see if they wanted to transfer into the class. Some of the missing students showed up over the next week or so and some of the extras did in the end enrol. I ended up with thirty-eight on the roll, though two of them were barely present. Practices are looser here than at Ambrosia.

I also have a graduate class of seven called Postmodernist Feminist Literature: a Re-evaluation. I was surprised to learn that this is the largest graduate course ever in gender studies at the university. The gender balance is six female to one male. The male, Jason, is an earnest pākehā in his early thirties, balding with a scruffy beard. In a way, he is one of the better students. He has come through sociology and gender studies as a mature student, having previously been a business entrepreneur in packaging after leaving school at 16. He sold up and must be quite wealthy but he certainly doesn’t show it. He makes good contributions, or at least always has something to say, but tends to be domineering and thus upsets the spirit of the class. Some of the women react against that and try to take him on but end up doing it ineffectively which just adds to the general frustration. Two or three of them, in particular, have a strong emotional commitment to women’s issues but seem a bit naive from an academic point of view. Graduate students at Ambrosia are usually more polished, though not necessarily smarter. The best student in the class by far, Matilda, is quiet. Not that she is shy, more aloof. She smiles, or the less charitable might say ‘smirks’, behind her long dark hair. Her command of the reading is remarkable. If I am looking for a passage she seems to know the page number immediately. She seems to regard Jason with amusement but won’t respond to the points he raises. She could run rings around him if she chose to. She might well become an academic but I hope she acquires some empathy if she does teach.

I think back to the beginnings of my university career. It had a slightly delayed start. In my last year of high school, five of us formed an all girl heavy metal band with the English language name, “Satan’s whores”. Oh dear. The name seemed very cool at the time. I was the second guitarist and back-up singer. One of the band was an exchange student from Boston and she managed to arrange a tour of sorts for us in several minor venues around New England for the summer after we completed high school. The plan was that we would make it big and go professional. Well the tour was eventful, it was how I initially met Maria, but the band fell apart at the end of the summer.

I had omitted applying for university as I was destined for rock and roll fame and fortune. A few weeks before the university year began, I managed to land an appointment to see a gender studies professor at the University of Helsinki. I hoped to impress her with my enthusiasm so that she would bend some rules for me and allow me to enrol for the upcoming year. My grades were good but not outstanding and I really should have applied at the proper time. She was, in retrospect, very kind to me but at the time she was rather intimidating. It became clear early on that there would be no rule bending but she was happy to spend a little time with me to talk about my plans. She asked me what I had read in the area. All I could come up with was The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, which my mother had read and left around the house. That didn’t sound so much the wrong answer as not enough of an answer. She proceeded to recommend some books to me, starting with Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality. I hadn’t expected a male author. “Can you read French?”

“Not well.”

“Volume 1 has been translated into English and I think volume 2 as well. I take it you are fluent in English.”

Well I was good at English, not just from school but through American movies and English language rock and roll. She also mentioned work by Susan Brownmiller, Susan Orbach and Andrea Dworkin and others besides. I got the impression that university was pretty serious business and, though I would not be attending that year, I could spend that year stepping up and getting on top of the knowledge and skills required. While I had a series of waitressing jobs in the intervening year I did indeed follow those reading recommendations and became fairly proficient in reading academic English. On being admitted to university in the following year I found that I was indeed well prepared and was able to shine. That delayed entry probably gave me the head start and confidence I needed to start on the road to an academic career.