When Your Writer Is Writing about You

By Sandra Carpenter, M.A. in Women's and Gender Studies

I often find myself approaching students' papers through a much different lens than the ones through which I approach my own work. As a feminist researcher, I am in a critical discipline and am constantly dissecting power relations, particularly in terms of identity. So it becomes especially challenging for me when writers bring in projects that reinscribe certain power dynamics that may have a personal effect on my own lived experience. 

To paint a much clearer picture of what I am discussing: I’m a fat woman. I say fat in a reclamatory way that challenges the idea that fat = bad. So it becomes an interesting, sometimes amusing, but always trying, experience when students bring in papers discussing “the obesity epidemic.” Most of us have experienced an instance or two where we feel like the writer is analyzing some part of our lives or experiences, but what happens when the writer is explicitly criticizing an aspect of ourselves that we cannot hide from the consultation? In my case, I can’t shrink my tight fit in the armchair I sit in beside them. As I’m sure you know, the “obesity epidemic” is a popular topic, so I’m faced with this particular challenge often.

What, then, can we do during situations like these? Where we feel like the writer is writing about us? For me, it becomes useful to remind myself of my own growth as a writer (and as a cultural critic). Doing so allows me to somewhat remove myself from the situation—despite the fact that my thighs betray me—and approach the project as just that: a research project. I can then feel especially equipped to suggest opposing points of views that the writer should consider in order to strengthen their own arguments. Much of my growth as a writer and as a researcher has resulted from moments where my reviewers identify holes in my projects and rationale, so I try and do the same for projects such as these.