About Face: a feminist weapon

It's been really difficult this semester to intervene in hot and amped up discussions in class. At the graduate level, students have joyfully abandoned the hierarchical and regulatory power (?) of "hand-raising" in class in favor of the liberties of free form discussion. My experience with this set up, however, has been less than ideal. In place of an institutionalized and obvious conversational hierarchy, the one activists all know, love, and fear has risen in its place: interpersonal dynamics.

It's funny, for example, that in a class particularly concerned with "Power, Ideology, and Domination" people would so unconsciously embrace the power of their own voices to the detriment and drowning out of others. I mean, people actually raise their voices in this class and cut each other off. But, of course, we're studying domination "out there," you know, by colonists, not in the classroom. Nobody here but us progressive and radical Diaspora scholars... No culprits here. (To be fair, my major gripes have not been with this class--but the example is still fitting).

I've been learning to use my face as a means of intervention in these sorts of situations. Whereas, in earlier years in school, people learn not to make eye contact in order to avoid getting called on, a newer revelation has found me. The ugly face. The best way to stop someone conversationally in their tracks is to make a very serious face, one of revulsion, incredulity, something that says--you really believe that? Upon recognizing this face, people will begin to stumble and comment on what's going on with those furrowed eyes and eyebrows. "What? You look like you have something to say."

Yes, motherfucker! Don't you ever take a breath?

I understand now why women and subordinates on the job are expected to perfect the art of emotion-management. You face can make spaces in places that your voice simply cannot.

I admit, it sucks that so far the best means I've found in order to create space for my own voice appears to be nonverbally insulting whoever has been thumping their Bible for too long but, so far, its been more comfortable than cutting someone off mid-thought. Besides, their thought is not necessarily the target of my attack; the target is their skewed perception of adequate space allocation. Basically, the idea has been to help them cut their own selves off.

Works on bad dates, too.