Bridging Matriarchal Order and Patriarchal Culture in a State Institution: The Evolving Femspec Kitchen on the Eighteenth Floor

Abstract

What follows is a discussion of the issues that arise editing a modern progressive feminist journal in the midst of a public university that seems at times to operate more in the paleolithic hunting tradition. 1 This article by an outgoing graduate assistant and the editor-in-chief of Femspec 2 explores conflicts between feminist and mainstream approaches to the work life of the journal. We show how by adopting an historical perspective along with perseverance, commitment, a little understanding and goodwill, the conflict can be resolved. Although fitting the gender stereotype, our office is like an institutional kitchen – hot, cramped, and chaotic. Well, while we were sitting in the midst of it writing this article in the summer in the fourth year of our small journal’s existence, our quarters looked like a small kitchen. We were surrounded by To-Do lists. Scrawled on a countertop white board were unfinished assignments along with the interns from spring semester who abandoned them. There was a bulletin board with the fall issue, and cryptic notes like ‘Ritch already has this – being revised – withdrawn, Helford Dec. 5, 01,’ a photo of a departing editorial board member’s husband, Paco, who helped put up the web page last summer. There was an unexpected suitcase on the floor, filled with promotional material for the Octavia Butler visit. After her visit, the luggage arrived here, in the English Department, in the Femspec office, where it now sits, waiting to be unpacked. The editor’s daughter needs that bag. She’s going to overnight camp. Got the picture? Amidst this chaos, we decided to make a list; we make lots of lists here. We want to itemize the ways we can move, in Adrienne Rich’s