Gender? That just means lady parts, right?

Academic bitch session approaching: I was in my subaltern studies seminar yesterday, which is a faculty seminar (read: me and seven faculty -- I spend a lot of my time shutting the hell up), and is taught by an insanely smart expert in the field. Here is an example of an exchange at the beginning of class:

Professor: That reminds me of that interchange [theory guy I've heard of] had with [theory guy I've never heard of in my life].
Every Single Other Faculty Person At The Same Damn Time: Oh, yes, THAT interchange! That was simply marvelous! (much chortling and pipe-lighting and rubbing of elbow patches)

We read some articles this week on "women" by several of the big names in the field, Spivak, Guha, etc., but all were from the early volumes of the Subaltern Studies Group in the 80s. So I asked my one, prepared-in-advance, grad-student-trying-not-to-look-totally-stupid-or-mute question about what effect the last few decades of gender theory on relationality, performativity and gender construction have had on the group's treatment of gender in their work. I was trying to ask about work on trans issues, queer theory, sexuality, masculinity, whatever. Gender, in other words. The answer I got was "women...women...women's issues...some women think...women...feminists say...women." I'm not saying Joe Schmoe on the street has to know that I was specifically NOT asking about "women's history" (especially since "women's history" was precisely what the articles we were reading from the 80s were dealing with), but I do feel like it's indicative of a general tendency in academia to know a ton about certain areas and blissfully ignore others. I in no way exempt myself from this. But I feel like I, along with most grad students, at least try to remain aware of how supremely ignorant I am of the current thinking in disability theory, for example -- I know just enough to know I don't know jack about it. And I know there is plenty of work that's been done in the last ten years on gender theory and subaltern studies. The professor, however, seemed totally convinced that he'd answered my question. He might as well have given me a cookie and a pat on the head and told me to keep working on my embroidery, the other ladies would love to have a look at it. Ahhhh....

It also reminds me of what my feminist legal theory professor in law school described as the "ten-year gap" (for ages I thought she said tenure gap and was all worked up about that, but that's a different beast) -- legal theorists and historians, subaltern studies theorists, Marxists, whoever, are for the most part just now digesting what feminist theory was saying ten years ago. So feminist legal theory is just ten years slow. And vice-versa, with regards to feminist theory or historiography, or whatever, comprehending where, say, subaltern theorists or legal theorists or critical race theorists are. I guess it means we need to be having constant conversations (whoa! momentary flashback to my revolutionary days!). But it's also, when you're trying to comprehend how much you still have to read and understand before you ever even need to worry about a tenure gap, just freaking depressing.