As we discussed in class, here it is:
Don't be surprised if this link doesn't work after long! Of course "they" are editing things all over the place.
In reading the selection Bodies that Matter in Gender Trouble I thought about how to vsualize some of her ideas of performativity and bodily inscriptions, and also kept thinking of her explantion of gender as being a copy of a copy with out an original and I tried to do that with my representations as well.
FYI: Here is the QPOCC Call for Proposals for a great conference coming up this spring.
With this annotated bibliography I wanted to focus primarily on sources that dealt with the gender binary and children through the lens of punishment and consequences. I came across this first source because my sister had an issue of Elle magazine and said I really needed to read this article, it sparked my interest as far as the pressures put on children to comply to strict gender roles and how adults in the midst of child rearing get very caught up in it as well, so I shaped the rest of by bibliography around it. Most, if not all, children do not fit into these normative standards of gender but they are socially constructed into them over time and I think it could be hypothesized that it is the root for a lot of problems in our society, hence punishment and consequences.
Girl Crazy: Women who suffer from Gender Disappointment
Shalit Barrett, Ruth. "Girl Crazy." Elle Magazine 291 (2009): 242-46.
I couldn't find an actual direct link to this article but I have linked to another article by Barbara Kay at the National Post that responds to the article and outlines a lot of it, this article is problematic as well but whatever...it gives you an idea. So this article called "Girl Crazy" is a super disturbing recent segment in the Psychology section of Elle Magazine that is supposed to highlight a new made up condition called Gender Disappointment. The article is about women who have had only male children and are basically obsessed with trying to conceive a female child, hence Gender Disappointment. They try a variety of homeopathic and scientific methods (and some stuff that just sounds like a home science project) to try to achieve their ultimate goal of having a "little princess." Throughout the article the author proceeds to "discover" an underground nest of women who have met online to swap stories and techniques and to commiserate about their failed attempts at getting a girl (they talk about their sons as "failed sways"). As the writer interviews these women she finds stories of incredible disappointment and debilitating depression. The women go so far as to discuss aborting their male fetuses and giving their existing male children up for adoption because they can't love them the way they deserve to be loved. Then it goes on more about whether this is a real condition or not and then even further into the latest technology to specifically implant girl embryos and blah blah blah. Never...at any time...does the writer indicate how god dam off kilter this all is.
So I'm going to try to keep my temper cool with analyzing this, but it's a doozy and I knowingly cannot look at this from all the angles possible...you could write a dissertation on this one I think. It's a must read. I think articles like this are useful for analyzing the way the pink/blue culture has infiltrated our society and the consequences of focusing so heavily the binary gender framework, creating incredibly rigid stereotypes of what it means to be a "little boy" or a "little girl." These ideals of pretty in pink girls and rough'n'tumble boys are unrealistic (kids aren't that simple); they put an unreasonable amount of pressure on children and can have major consequences for families and individuals. At the end of the article one of the women interviewed that was able to conceive twin girls through scientific sorting and was STILL not happy:
"'In the end, my expectations of what it would be like to mother a daughter were not fully realized." Eliza and Jamisyn don't like to play with dolls, don't enjoy ballet. "Neither is really frilly," Lewis laments." (pg.322)
Middlesex
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. New York: Picador, 2002.
Middlesex is a fictional novel by Jeffery Eugenides that chronicles three generations of a Greek-American family to tell the story of Cal (Calliope) Stephanides (our narrator) who is an intersex individual. The story spans all the way from Cal's paternal grandparents fleeing their Greek village in the 1920's to Detroit, Michigan where their family grows over the course of fifty or sixty years. It is a coming of age story for the main character as they struggle to find themselves amidst immense family and societal pressures. I chose this book to add to my bibliography because I think it works in a couple of different ways. As Cal was raised female, even before his body began to change his mother was frenzied first about having a girl, then later about correct clothing, behavior, activities, and looks for a girl, none of which Cal necessarily wanted, embodied or even liked. When it came to the moment where Cal was faced with receiving sex assignment procedures and medical treatment he simply just ran away from his family at fourteen years old. A couple of things arise in terms of Punishment/Consequences: One being the frenzy surrounding "girl lust" on the part of the mother and the enculturation of "appropriate" behaviors according to gender, this can cause stress, tension, and anxiety amongst other things, its incredible pressure to comply to a strict binary. Also, the whole controversy surrounding "sex assignment" surgeries and medical treatments which are determined by some doctor whose goal is to categorize individuals as either male or female (in the book Cal lies a bit, out of fear, leading to a "mis-diagnoses," proving in just one of the many ways the problem with this), in the real world outside this book and as I have outlined in other direct engagements there is a lot of politics surrounding this very issue. And lastly, the issue of Cal running from his family completely removed from the only life he knows, Cal goes on to see the world and become successful but as we know from activists like Dean Spade, this is not usually the case for young runaway intersex individuals, they are often exposed to a barrage of violence. I don't know how this book was received by the intersex community, especially it's inciting of the "incest taboo," but I do think it can be helpful in some ways, even in just asking questions.
Gender Lessons for Adults by Barrie Thorne Pgs.254-57
Lorber, Judith, ed. Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Roxbury, 2005.
This is an excerpt essay from feminist theory book that was highlighted in a chapter called Social Construction Feminism. In keeping with my "theme" for this bibliography which centers around children this essay focuses on the some of the practices in schools that enhance a gender binary with children and encourages unhealthy competition, stereotypes and behavioral issues. The author, Barrie Thorne, is a professor of Sociology and Women's Studies that has spent time doing research regarding gender in a couple of schools and has highlighted several techniques that are regularly used in school settings that can be troublesome. Some examples are: Lining up children by "boys" and "girls," seating your classroom by the same standard or letting them seat themselves can cause a split as well (mostly because binaries have already been made habit), creating teams or classroom competitions by "boys" and "girls," blue nametags for boys and pink name tags for girls, stereotyped graphics displayed in classrooms, verbally separating them by scolding them in groups "you girls get busy!" So these types of practices used to maintain order in school settings often if not always perpetuate extreme polarization and the notion that they are opposites. It focuses on differences rather than similarities which encourages stereotyping and objectification of each other that often leads to teasing and fighting. The author highlights a few alternatives to these practices, like lining kids up according likes/dislikes or hot lunch/cold lunch, using gender neutral colors, nametags or classroom graphics, and assembling groups and teams according to ability. So in terms of consequences of this, I work in a public school and obviously was a kid myself once so I see how it creates environments prime for teasing, bullying and sexual harassment among other things, which is bad enough in itself but also causes anxiety, stress and low self-esteem (among other things) in children and into adolescence. Just a little personal story to highlight this, I actually spent my last couple of years of high school at a private boarding school which housed girls in "girls dorms" and boys in "boys dorms." Basically, the girls dorm was the only dorm with a security system on it to keep us in or keep people out (not sure which) but the boys dorm was not secured and they were allowed to roam free and sneak out etc. As well, the girl's dorm parent schooled us in proper hygiene and cleaning habits while the boy's dorm parent did not (his form of education came by way of telling the guys to "wrap it up" and "stay away from the sluts"). Needless to say, this created a lot of tensions and inequalities, ones that the headmaster oddly never felt the need to address.
I just got a link to this article from a friend and thought I'd share it.
I'm way too tired to even begin commenting on it, but I thought you'd all be more than capable of having some fun with it.
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