I'm always shocked (and I should really quit it, because it's old hat at this point) when I hear stories of people disbelieving other people's actually-happened-to-them lived experience. There's this great line in an article by Amira Jamarkani, where she's telling the story of paying for a coffee while holding Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, and the barista says, "Arab feminism! That's just an oxymoron to me." REALLY, BARISTA, YOU ARE THE UNIVERSE'S JUDGE OF WHETHER A THING EXISTS? GOOD TO KNOW.

I have to say, I'm really proud of my students--so far, all of their impulses have been to draw connections between their experience of gender injustice in their American contexts, and the injustices in the readings. Obviously, this sort of universalism is problematic too, but I'd much prefer it to the alternative.