Marie Cartier

If You’re Lucky You Get Old—Part One by Marie Cartier

This year two significant shifts happened inside of me: I realized I was getting older. And I wanted to protect my body/mind. These may seem to be perhaps the same realization– but both of these realizations came from very different incidences.

Realization #1

Let me explain the first realization—realizing I was getting older. I am 56. Perhaps since I am a professor and while I have been getting older, my students stay the same age as each new crop of undergrads greets me in the fall. Perhaps because I have chosen to not have children of my own. Perhaps because I do work out—jogging (albeit slowly). Whatever the reason in my mind I was still not “older,” whatever that is — yet.

And then I went for a long over due eye exam. When my new glasses arrived I admired them in the large mirror across the room. But when I sat at the desk and looked in the mirror directly in front of me, I gasped. “Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “What are those?” I was staring through my new lenses at the wrinkles above my lip. I stared at the eye glass specialist — a fabulous gay man (and partner to my ophthalmologist) who helped me pick out the frames. “Do you see those wrinkles?” I asked. It was only after he said, “Oh, honey, $900 you can fix that– I know someone,” that I realized I was assuming he would say, “What? I don’t see anything.” But you can rest assured a gay male friend will not lie to you about your looks. If that dress make you look fat, he’ll tell you (and help you fix it). In any case, in that moment of corrected vision I saw my wrinkles for the first time. And I hated them. Continue reading “If You’re Lucky You Get Old—Part One by Marie Cartier”

Feminist Ethics Class and Final Problem Solving by Marie Cartier

This spring I taught “Feminist Ethics” at California State University Northridge. I have posted two blog on this site regarding the students’ projects for that class: April 4, 2012: The Feminist Toolbox by Marie Cartier, and May 12, Change My Mind, Move My Heart: Feminist Ethics in Practice by Marie Cartier.

In the original blog I explained that the students were asked to identify a private or public a problem that they could find a full or partial solution for and that their actual final had to actually implement their proposed solution. Students had to use “The Feminist Ethical Toolbox,” or what they call “Cartier’s Toolbox,” in their solution. The toolbox addresses questions such as, “Is everyone affected by the decision (the solution to the problem) at the decision making table?” and “If they are not at the table, are they represented at the table by someone who will speak to their interests?” among others.

The second blog addressed combining art with scholarship/activism so that we do not only change minds but also move hearts. Students had to attempt to combine art with their problem/ solution-consciously using art as a “toolbox” element helps facilitate social change. It is in the integration of both art and scholarship that the most poignant and effective social change strategies are birthed. Continue reading “Feminist Ethics Class and Final Problem Solving by Marie Cartier”

Change My Mind, Move My Heart: Feminist Ethics in Practice by Marie Cartier

As some of you know, this spring I am teaching “Feminist Ethics” at California State University Northridge. I recently posted a blog on this site regarding the students’ project April 4, 2012 The Feminist Toolbox by Marie Cartier. If you read the original blog you know that the students have been asked to find a problem in the public or private world that they will deconstruct and then find a full or partial solution for. For their actual final they must actually *do* their proposed solution.

Students must use the tools described in the earlier blog, in what I call “the Feminist Ethical Toolbox,” or what my students call “Cartier’s Toolbox.” The toolbox contains questions such as “Is everyone affected by the decision (the solution to the problem) at the decision making table?” and “If they are not at the table, are they represented at the table by someone who will speak to their interests?” among others. Continue reading “Change My Mind, Move My Heart: Feminist Ethics in Practice by Marie Cartier”

The Feminist Toolbox by Marie Cartier

This spring I am teaching “Feminist Ethics” at California State University Northridge. For the students’ midterm and final we are doing an innovative project that we want to share with the “Feminism and Religion” blogging community. My students have been asked to find a problem in the public world, or their private world, that they wish to interact with and provide a solution for. The solution can solve the problem or a piece of the problem. They must deconstruct the problem and then construct the solution for the midterm. For their final they actually must *do* the solution.

In creating their solution, they must address and use the tools in what I call “the Feminist Ethical Toolbox.” These tools are ones we have been extracting from the class readings (so far we have read the anthologies Feminist Theological Ethics, and Feminist Ethics and Social Policy, and Carol Gilligan’s philosophical treatise on the patriarchy, In The Deepening Darkness, and the students have been using the toolbox and its accumulated (and accumulating) tools throughout the class, in their own lives, and interacting with the toolbox in the reading response journals in terms of looking at wider world issues.

The tools in what my students call “Cartier’s Toolbox” are as follows: Continue reading “The Feminist Toolbox by Marie Cartier”