#but maybe they do! maybe they simply........ don't have access to the language (testimonies and studies) about it

[daddy-socrates]

okay I'm curious Why did you mention salior uranus in your thesis?

THANK you for asking because i love to talk about it hehe >:3c buckle up

back in undergrad, i was invited to do a senior thesis. i wanted to do mine on language and gender because my (problematique fave) professor whose class got me into the field at the start just... wouldn't use my pronouns. she's very bad at using pronouns and frankly i think she does not understand limits. a philosophy of language class does not mean you get to just say ~whatever.~

basically, this project was borne out of "hey! use my fucking pronouns :))" i had (have) pretty severe "i can fix her" disease :// i....... was not a really great student in undergrad. people who have followed me since then can probably attest to that through my personal ramblings. my advisor (a different professor) was disappointed in me like the whole way through and i live in constant fear that she will find this blog and go "oh! thats why you didnt pay attention in class, dumbass :)" (though maybe she would see this post and say "oh.... growth :)" who's to say)

but see, though i struggled to get myself to stay engaged in my advisor's class, both she and that problematique fave had assigned texts that would lend themselves beautifully to my dream project - even though i just..... had a terrible habit of misunderstanding readings to basically an absolute inverse degree. like it's a chronic issue. maybe i should have figured out "this is what im understanding so the opposite is probably more correct." i'm working on it, though, and i'm better at getting it the second time around now that im in grad school. ^^;;

SO this brings me back to my thesis: basically, why does language matter? one of my chapters was about representation. i talked about janet in the good place reminding people every day, "not a girl." i talked about haruhi fujioka from ouran high school host club, "i don't care if people see me as a guy or a girl. it's what's on the inside that's important." i talked about stevonnie from steven universe, being the first fusion to be addressed with they/them pronouns. i talked about jesse and james from pokemon and their frequent "gender swapped" costumes. and, at last, i talked about sailor uranus - tenou haruka - using both masculine and feminine self-referential language and presentation.

the thesis statement of my tragically mediocre thesis paper is basically "when you have access to language, you can better describe your experience and understand the experiences of others." you can come to a stronger self-understanding, form connections with others who share some traits, discover community, come into support, enact change, and so on.

the paper im writing "writing" right now for my epistemology class is pretty much an elevated version of that, though i'm focusing less on gender identity and discussing like.... more like the "concept of identity" itself. one of my first grad classes was hermeneutics - the study of meaning, where it comes from and where it leads - and there is so much ~delicious~ overlap between the texts for that class, those from the undergrad class on language, the undergrad class on gender and intersectionality, and my current class. my current paper is on "epistemic injustice;" that is, lack of access to language (whether deliberately or unconsciously through systems that no single individual person had set up) puts people at disadvantage for the huge sector of life that they otherwise could understand.

ALL THIS to say, i was a snarky asshole in undergrad but i have very real investment in media representation. if i had watched she-ra before i presented my paper, i would have included double trouble (my beloved), and i have yet to watch owl house but i see there's another they/them? we love they/thems <33 i am always thinking back on when korrasami became canon, how that was a huge moment of positive bisexual representation. i think about sophia in orange is the new black, introducing to a more adult audience different layers and kinds of violences that she and other trans women, especially she as a black trans woman, are uniquely at risk for.

my graduate school thesis is going to diverge a bit from the language of justice and of personal and group understanding to an even broader scale, though i am going to have a lengthy chapter on the matter. (literally like one hour ago i emailed my county representatives to say "hey, the training material for my substitute teaching agency Fucking Sucks, how can i help bring appropriate language and subsequent recognition of mentally ill, neurodivergent, and disabled folks to the stage?")

the many forms of the philosophy of language is what sparked my passion for the field, and i want to give language to those who may have difficulty understanding texts like i do. i want to take all that i am learning and share it as best i can with others, or at the very least, use it to aid my interactions with others. that's why i have this stupid tongue-in-cheek blog in the first place! academic shitposts and some current social and political events are so important to share.

i do have a side blog for fandom shit since i wasnt smart enough to make that the main and this the side, so fan artists see @/daddy-socrates liking their posts and i am So Sorry About That but like... i don't want to take everything in life so, so, gravely seriously. OBVIOUSLY there are subjects and scenarios that are not to be joked about, but i think we get so bogged down in the severity of all the global problems that we forget to play around a bit. purposely putting a handful of anime characters into my undergrad thesis was my way of being both playful and highlighting how fun is a critical social learning tool. it may well have been the only really solid thing about that project, honestly. i hope that in the future i can revamp it, using what i have now.

so............. that was WAY more than you asked for, but there you have it, my whole raison d'être. :'^) thanks for asking, hope i made sense