She’s back on the blogging horse! You can read that to refer to me, or to LC:

A Bad Feminist Confession: I aspire to be am the hostess with the most-est. My friends find it endearing, my lover thinks it insufferable. (Theme parties: really not my stoic German’s cup of tea.) This weekend, I’m hosting a start-of-summer/end-of-Pride-Week BBQ. There will be rainbow flags and summery cocktails and finger foods galore. What a perfect way to marry my love of all things domestic with my passion for social justice, doncha think? Getting all the ingredients today … and maybe even finding a costume for Hamlet. Can’t wait for the Parade this Saturday (my first Pride in Boston!) or the after-party to come …

Now I went to a progressive Catholic school growing up, so it’s entirely plausible that the definitions of “social justice” and “social justice work” I subscribe to are different from LC’s. And my high-school Spanish is way rusty, so it’s also possible I misread that passage in A Theology of Liberation where Gustavo Gutierrez recommends winning over policymakers with canapes and white-wine spritzers in pursuit of a preferential option.

I will just say that in my universe, working toward social justice means engaging with marginalized people (real people! not people on Twitter!) to help alleviate individual suffering or address more systemic injustices.* I am not sure where “summery cocktails” with friends factors in. Lena, remember that bowling for abortions thing you kept going on about? That was good! Good job! You worked hard for a real cause, and you’ve earned the right to host a barbeque for your friends. Just stop trying to label it a selfless act already. (If educated, twentysomething Bostonians got do-gooder points every time they hosted a dinner party for a handful of gay/ally friends I’d be Dorothy fucking Day by now.) Not everything in your life can be branded (although that strategy seems to be working well for you), and frankly, I find you co-opting the “social justicey” label to get your name out there kind of repugnant. 

Also, what is with all the references to this lady’s bf being a dour, anti-social curmudgeon? This dude sounds about as fun as I would stereotype a German sociology professor-in-training to be. Can we blame him for the evolution of Lena Chen from interesting sex blogger/memoirist to Super Cereal Feminist Academic?

Whew, I knew if I dug deep enough into this I could find a man to blame it on. Lena Chen solved!

*Edit: My school also did not refer to any volunteering as “service” unless it involved working directly with the individuals an organization purported to serve. We had strict service requirements that required us to document as much. I realize not everyone subscribes to this hyper-Catholic school of thought on service, and that no thoughtful actions or donations on behalf of the underserved should be discounted. But my educational experience did give me one hell of a bullshit meter.