I have a bit that I would like to pick apart with Ocampo on the basis of liberation and emancipation. I found it interesting that she leans more towards liberation. I also find liberation more accurate, as I’m sure many others do. However liberation means the attempt to achieve equal rights or status, where as emancipation means to free someone from the control of another. Now in most cases liberation seems to be the more obvious word, yet Ocampo continues on to describe how men occupy women, that “woman is a colony for him to exploit�(229).
I’m also curious on what people think of Ocampo’s statement “we are not interested in taking their place (this is an error that our extreme reaction to their attitudes may have contributed to creating) but in taking our own completely-something that has not happened yet� (231).
I love the question that Castro-Klaren give on feminist practices. On if we are more reactionary then action? Have our practices of feminism become more reactionary? Is that in our system to do? I also love the questions from Farina’s poetry of “How will I be able to represent myself, to rewrite myself? How do we think ourselves? Where does our thinking belong, how is it received by a discourse…that leave us out?� (273). What a fabulous creation of questions. If we are to think in terms of D’Bevoir, then the definition of women changes. Who we are is predefined, thus how do we come to know of ourselves under a predefined world, of which we were not apart of the creation of such a definition? What does it mean for us to be?
I’m wondering what people though to Flax’s critique? I liked the piece taken from Lacan, so I’m wondering if others did as well? She (Castro-Klaren) seems to be very much going off the work of Iriaquay when she discusses the phallic realizations of the mother. On a side note I love the term womb envy!

When she says that along with the changes of gender identities in the public and private spheres, the meaning of family, in fact, the transformation of thereof, will have to take place – how can it not? Sooner or later it had to become obvious that women cannot be present everywhere, and do everything and in the meantime be the happy wife and mother of all. Philosophy, although it should be contributing to this emancipatory project, has in fact in the past rather undermined it – as the ideas and visions of cultural identities were only cut out for men, rather than keeping in mind that women are the vast majority on any continent. But since it has in fact always been so separatist – how does one make it truly interactive with other ideas, how do we change the understanding (and implications afterwards) of what philosophy is and how it should treat one subject or another? This just kind of merges in with the whole idea of power relations and the impossibility (or am optimistic enough to say difficulty) of its change for the nations?

Ocampo-- Is it because women would be directly affected by men that she prefers to calling the issue ‘liberation’ rather than ‘emancipation’? Can women disconnect from men and just make emancipation/liberation happen on their own? I really enjoyed her sarcasm when she says: “women have learned to enjoy letting men mistreat them….women themselves will have to take the initiative and “deprive� themselves of the delightful narcotic to which they have become no less addicted�. Could we also in her debate on page 228, where she is trying to change the way of the discourse – “by constitution� to “by force of habit� – replace it with “by culture�? And this would sort of bring us back to the veil…

She is determined also that women aren’t interested in taking men’s place but rather just occupy their own that has belonged to them and yet they weren’t able to get a hold of it as of yet – but doesn’t that happen with regards to where the man’s place is – where women can find theirs? Yes, we might not want to interfere on ‘their’ territory but doesn’t women’s territory just depend on what men allow women to have?

Roy-Féquiere -- I was just wondering when the survey that is referred to in the text has been done in Puerto Rico - it seems that the article has been published in 2004 – which means it is as current and contemporary as possible (though I know little about feminist movements there). Yet the ideas that these men AND women have shared seemed so outdated – to me anyway. Are we again arguing against culture? It seems that we aren’t ever going to be able to just dis-connect all these issues from it unless we would learn (which probably means create) to deal with discourse on human/feminist rights on their own, disconnected from that which is known and/or accepted.

Hopefully I am not the only one, but I was very surprised to read about all the benefits afforded to women in Cuba. I was very impressed. It reminded me of how skewed and biased information can be, because here in the U. S., I am frequently given the idea that Cuba is bad. It’s just that simple. Castro is bad, Cuba is bad, and it’s a backwards place. And yet seem to understand some of the obstacles that women face, and are taking actions to help the situation.

The Castro-Klaren article was a very difficult read for me (though not as tough as Spivak). I am interested to see what people may think about the discussion on male/female sexualities on page 286. It is stated that “male orgasmic “pleasure ‘normally’ entails the male reproductive act� while the female does not necessarily�. How can this be used to theorize? Is she saying somehow that female sexuality is more developed in some respect? I don’t quite understand the point of bringing this up.

An idea touched on by both Ocampo and Schutte that bugged me a little bit was that women as mothers suffer when injustice and violence are commited against their children. Ocampo talked about how women oppose war because of this, and Schutte mentioned the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo organizing to protest human rights violations. Schutte also writes "Women who are the sisters, mothers, wives, or loved ones of victimized men and children identify strongly with their suffering" (217) I don't really understand whether she's saying that women identify with the suffering of others more strongly than do men, or if it's just the opposite, that the widespread poverty and violence in their societies cause poor Latin American women to identify with other oppressed poor people rather than with other women, (especially since they are sometimes being exploited by other women).

"It is she who can contribute powerfully to creating a new state of things since all her physical and spiritual being is concentrated on teh very fountain of life- the child. She lives, therefore, closer to the future man, since the childover whom she exercises her power, consciously or unconsciously, is that man" (231).

Like Naomi, I thought of women's responsibility to raise "little men." I also thought somewhat of Republican motherhood, or women's traditional role of raising good male citizens. I think she means we should try to change men's thoughts when we have power of them- as their mothers when they are young. Like she says, "Most grown men don't change, they only wear disguises" (232). I think women have begun to do this. In my experience, I think the some of the generation of men raised by mothers from the feminist era have different attitudes toward women and gender roles.

Roy-Fequiere mentions a similar theme with respect to the writing of Mercedes Solá. Solá seems to think that it is women’s job to create a new world through their work as mothers. I’m wondering then, since both of these women come from highly privileged places, what would happen to the children that they were raising. Since women with a solid education and independent income would have more intellectual pursuits, wouldn’t these same women be away from home, leaving their children to be raised by lower-class nannies and such and thus not raising the future generation themselves but rather leaving this important job to other women who certainly would not have the “moral training� of the upper class women. While Roy-Ferquiere compares Solá’s feminism with that of Luisa Capetillo I don’t see that she clearly explains the latter’s ideals. Since it is so clear that Solá played into the patriarchal system, even taking “great pains to show men what advantages they will derive from feminism,� I think it is important to have equal information regarding Capetillo. I have read some excerpts of her writing and believe that she was quite a deviant in her time in her dress, lack of conventional marriage and mix of self-education and working-class status. What were her takes on motherhood I wonder?

Anyways, I was trying to contextualize her writing as I was reading along, so I went on Wikipedia and looked her up. Here are some interesting little facts I found:

1. Ocampo came from a fairly well-off Argentinean family. They believed women should not be formally educated, so she was taught at home by a French governess. However, her family did let her sit in on a few lectures at Sorbonne when they traveled to Paris.

2. Wikipedia says she was married in 1917 “briefly� – I’m assuming this means she got a divorce, or her husband died.

3. She was an important Buenos Aires intellectual during the 1920’s and 1930’s – she wrote much of her work during this time period – In 1931, she founded the literary magazine Sur.

4. She was imprisoned for speaking out against Perón in 1953 for a short period of time.

5. In 1976, she became the first woman to be a member of the Argentine Academy of Letters.

The significance of all this info is that when I was reading, I kept in mind that this lady was from the upper class and that, while not trained in a formal school, she nonetheless appears to have been fairly well educated. Plus, she had access to an immense amount of Argentinean literature and contact with many Argentinean intellectuals.

I think it’s important to note that she does touch on class issues, but it is still from a position of privilege. I think it’s equally necessary to point out that she herself does not mention this. In fact, I had no idea where she was coming from until I Wikipedia-ed her. I don’t know how many women writers were doing this kind of thing during the 1930’s though, so I suppose I shouldn’t expect it.

Also, and I could be reading this wrong, but did anyone else get this sort of post-structural feeling when reading over some parts of her essay? I’ve been reading ungodly amounts of post-structural writing for my senior paper, so it might just be that I’m so overloaded that I see post-structuralism everywhere. I guess, specifically, I’m looking at the part on page 228 where she says, “The English thinker who affirmed that the masculine sex is sadistic by constitution and the feminine sex is masochistic has found, as I see it, part of the explanation of the problem – but only if you take away the words ‘by constitution’ and substitute ‘by force of habit.’� I read this as, men and women are a certain way not because there is something inherent inside them that makes them act the way they do, but that because they have done a certain act so many times (“by force of habit�), it has appeared as if it is something that comes natural. Or rather, the meaning of their acts is shifting and not tied to anything biological. I got this feeling on page 230 as well, where she’s talking about certain abilities meaning different things in different contexts. Again, I saw this as evidence of her understanding of meaning as unstable.

If I am reading this right, Ocampo seems ahead of her time. I didn’t think post—structural thought came into being until much later in the century. Could be wrong. Alright, I have written an obscene amount. Time to stop.
Love,
Sarah

It is interesting to me to see how women from other cultures seem to disconnect themselves from the idea of feminist conciousness, some rather denying it or just openly questioning its definitions and effects. Her description of self as a hyphenated feminist seems to follow the ideas that we were seeing in some of the other emigre feminist's beliefs.

When she brings up the interviewing processes, i find her reaction sort of predictive - as she concludes that the process needs to become one of depersonalization of both the source and the "source-getter", as she concludes as too that she can't escape the hierarchical order of the interviewer and interviewee, making the latter subordinate to the first. So the power relation question really never stops coming to surface.

However, her becoming and willing to become the subordinate in the relationship shows power in itself. And her willing to be the one to invest her own identity and her already accumulated knowledge of the relationship that she was engaging herself in.

In her conceptualization of African-Canadian feminism, in her effort to homogenize women of her kind, ones that are just as her feeling the entrapment of the two (or three, of four or five) identities, she is sort of left with a very similar conclusion that some of the other texts read in class. Through the whole reading of the article, I found myself asking what her particular project was, what she thought the main challenge was - only to find an answer to it- as she shares that the only way should be to search holistic approaches that would be taking into account all the different factors. She ends her thoughts saying that incorporation of the state and institutions that the state creates would be necessary in telling how feminism can/will be manifested. Based on the assumption above, I can't quite see how this can happen as part of a unitary movement - are we just talking Canadian state or state in general? Wouldn't one want to incorporate into the project rather those institutions that are not provided to women by the state in order to allow for more variety of opinions and spice the project up a little, including different 'flavors' of opinions?

When she quotes the woman who she asked for a definition of African feminism, Amina says that African-Canadian feminism challenges the mandate of those with advantage over us. Does that mean that any sort of a belief is merely a challange to the other? Would that mean that everything is a continuence of the never-ending power relations struggle? ...

Just some thoughts - I started working on this a really long time ago, I got interrupted so many times it's not even funny. I will know not to try to do this at work ever again. I meant to comment on some of the other readings, but since it’s so late I am just going to post this and comment on the other stuff during the discussion in class. Sorry.

I was wondering while reading this, however, how different sexual orientations are treated in this Oyo society. I realize that it is not a gender-organized society, but I wonder if there are any distinctions made between sexual orientations and if so, how they are treated. In a society in which gender does not exist, I would presume that sexual orientations would also not exist in a hierarchy. I wish Oyewumi had addressed this and satisfied my curiosity.

I also think the folowing quotes could be good for discussion:
"Black patriarchy, deciding on legitimate portrayals of black gender relations, does so in the name of racial solidarity. Those who control discourse, whom a culture authorizes to speak, will not tolerate exposure and, indeed, will construct it as treacherous and politically unsound" (47).

"Thus the whitre womans position is South Africa is unique: her liberation, unlike that of her European counterpart, does not necessitate a change in gender relations. Her man, joyously secure in his continued domestic comfort, has not needed to rethink traditional sex roles; his behavior has not had to change" (49)

I'm confused by the "womanist" aspect, I thought i knew what that was but i think i don't now?