Girls On Girls Gone Wild (defining each other)
9 06 2007Chris has been on top of liberal ps-supporting women defining homeschool women by class and calling for our status to become a matter of public policy concern, so I’m following his blog closely and urge you to, if you can. I just posted this comment there:
Since connecting the Pandagon essay (and comments on it all over the place) with the law prof’s Reich-inspired manifesto declaring home education to be a “public function” obliging State regulation to protect kids from learning from their own moms, I’ve been up to my ears in (unpaid) debate in some pretty diverse communities.
Here is what I’m learning — when you finally cut through the waving tall grass in any field liberal or conservative, and get to the (grass)roots of those trying to define me and my kids into or out of their agenda, you can put your face down to it and clearly identify the smell of the same old fertilizer.
(There is only one basic formula all the brands use for their special blend: ignorance-fortified dogma, specially packaged to attract a certain market in whatever shiny soundbites are selling best to that demographic this year.)
The main producers of this dangerous but glibly advertised product, at least for our homeschool demographic, are: 1) theocrats — whether Christian, Muslim or other saviors, and 2) educrats — whether public school, private school or even HS-labeled advocates.
[added thought -- dogmatic women tend toward both, maybe because they walk a narrow,linear, hierarchical path; they were taught and now teach others that belief equals incontrovertible fact; they see strength in uniformity and obedience to the Rule, see danger in ambiguity and choice except in rigidly controlled doses; were taught it's their solemn duty to actively go out and save people from their own sin, weakness and foolishness, etc.]
They all know best how to grow and tend our children, and if they can either woo us or force us to choose sides between their failed methods, they can keep our third way from spreading and thriving in new fields, and (as they fear) supplanting and marginalizing the demands of both theocracy and educracy.
Which imo makes organic education for the next generation (grown respectfully and holistically and close to home, free from theocratic and educratic contaminants, not to mention mob sabotage) a matter of life and death — not just for home education families but for everybody’s children.
Maybe they are right to fear homeschool feminist moms like me then. Religion is a private choice; schooling is a public mandate, hurting worst those least able to escape it and forcing me to support with my taxes its continued infliction of damage, in the name of social salvation. Sooner or later they will have to defend THAT as public policy, from me, and not just to opt out my own, but for everybody’s children to live and think free.
[cue patriotic music!] 
Speaking of grassroots tribes parsing statistics and fine print to define and then attack others in supposed defense of their own freedoms — young feminism versus hs moms for not taking public money in any form and young earthers versus hs moms for taking public money in any form — see how and why grassroots killed the immigration bill, not just “stirring up the hornet’s nest but actually changing the dynamics of this issue for the future” –
[...] good! Let’s actually focus on the kids and their learning, not just exploit them in the name of helping their exploited m… or any other political agenda. Let’s leave prayer and religion out of it, too, since most [...]
Satirical author Christopher Moore blogged a good gift idea along these lines (after some funny stuff abour parents being secretly replaced by government robots):
[...] or not, queer or not — had better learn about and start responding to effectively, WITH unschooling moms and daughters rather than against us for not being in public [...]