Wost1001Sec2

Next Wave of Feminists

I think that it is very true what Neuborne says in her article about how the "battle" for women's rights and equality seems to have been victorious because women have gained a lot more rights, but it is not over yet. Forms of oppression have simply changed with time and are not as recognizeable as they used to be. I don't think the fight for any individual rights are really ever over even though it seems that the majority of the battle has been won. For example racism may seem like it does not exist because people are less outwardly racist, but unfortunately it still exists. Neuborne talks about programming and how that works against her and I believe that is very true. Socially constructed notions of women, men, race, class, religion, etc. will iinterferre with social movements for equality until they are removed. In lecture, Amy said that there are unmarked hierarchial notions of almost everything and until we are able to acknowledge their existence, nothing can ever be completely won. Eileen mentioned how even though in lecture Amy was talking about dichotomies and how to recognize them, she still said "nice white Jew" and "black woman". These social constructed views are "programmed" into our minds and ways of thinking that it is almost impossible to get rid of. Until we are able to, social movements for equality will always be in "threat" and therefore must continue fighting back.

Alito

Hey, sorry, I know this has been answered like 80 times, but is the Alito paper due tomorrow or Wednesday?

Programming?

I guess I feel like Neuborne's article makes a good point, but I'm not sure I fully agree with the way she makes it. It depends on how, exactly, she defines "programming." I think that, for one, societal expectations of gender roles exist for men and women, and it is the way social constructions play out in the work and other parts of society that affect the way one reacts, male or female, strait or queer, etc. But I feel like her initial example, when she apologized to her boss, may have come from a different place. It can be argued, sure, that there was a gender struggle there, and I think that's probably true. But, because he WAS her boss, he probably also saw her arguement as a threat to his authority. I that anyone in a position of power over someone else would react similarly, male or female. I know that the main point of the article was not that her boss told her to lower her voice, but rather her apology. It is important that we learn to stand our ground, but I think that everyone needs to learn to do this, and I just imagine it's possible that anyone would be likely to apologize to a person of authority.

Muslim Women

I just wanted to make a comment on the article about “Hindu Women’s Activism in India and the Questions it Raises” by Amrita Basu. Reading the article made me realized that every time I encounter a Muslim woman who is wearing a veil, I automatically have this idea that the person is being oppressed through her religion. I believe this is because within the Western society we’re taught that the Middle Eastern women are lacking certain freedom thus we (liberated, assertive Western woman with voices) must help them. I know a lot of Muslim women who don’t veil themselves so why is it that Americans associate Muslim women with veils so completely, and why does the media seem to pick out only these women? Is it because this is how we vision them??

Dance Revolutions

I don't know if anybody saw the dance concert in Rarig Center's Whiting Proscenium Theater this weekend, entitled Dance Revolutions, but it was fantastic. There was one piece, The Bleeding Heart (choreographed by Carl Flink) that was particularly interesting. It was a rather gender nonspecific piece, in which the costumes were the same for both the male and females. The only unusual thing was that the costuming was a dress-type-leotard. It had a turtle neck, gray sleeveless see-through top part that went down into a skirt-type bottom that cut off a little above the knees. The only difference between the male and females costuming was that the women wore black bras under their dress.
At first there was an obviously startling reaction from the audience, including my roomates who both gave me a look of just a light awkward acknowledgment of this GENDER MADNESS that was taking place on stage. But as the piece went on, I think the audience learned to accept it, because the dance was designed to be question raising, and at the same time, proving of society's view on gender specific garb. The piece had no real message (I thought) except to proove that u can put male dancers in skirts and have it be ok. It wasn't an openly gay, transgender, flaboyant or intentionally shocking piece... sometimes boys danced with girls, and since there wre more girls than boys, the girls partnered up with each other. I just thought it was interesting because I had never seen a piece that flipped the roles like that,.

An example

The article by Ellen Neuborne intrigued me. Am I going to encounter such difficulties when I enter the workplace? I actually have thought about that since middle school probably. Now I have decided to enter a male-dominated career field, filmmaking, and am actually excited to break down gender barriers. I took an intro to film studies class this semester and guess how many female directors, producers, cinematographers, screenwriters, and on and on we learned about? ZERO! (Don’t worry, I definitely mentioned that in my course evaluation.) I’m sure there are some female filmmakers out there that have made successful movies…but apparently they are not worth discussing when compared to the “greats”look at the credits in all classic movies basically. I was very disturbed that my professor did not research any female filmmakers, or perhaps discuss the noted absence of women…but again, he apparently deemed that unnecessary. To get back to the article, I would say that my film studies class in the fall of 2005 is an example of what Ellen Neuborne is talking about. My professor was very subtle and by not mentioning ANY women (besides BRIEFLY touching on a FEW actresses), he made his thoughts about women known.

Human Rights

Amy stated today in lecture that cultural and traditional practices cannot be used to say that certain people are not observing human rights. I agree with that statement, but where do we draw the line between what is "okay" to practice and what goes again human rights. One of the girls in class said that genital mutilation is against human rights and thus is wrong, but polygamy is okay because it is not really going against anyone's human rights. It is important to look at individual cases, but it is still impossible to set up guide lines for what counts as against or for human rights. What about those people who want to partake in traditional practices that may "violate' their human rights? What do we do with them? Do we force them to not do it becuase that would mean that we are violating their rights by not allowing them to violate their own rights? That sounds a bit weird, but things like that do get complicated. I was also thinking about men and whether their are certain practices that violate their rights. It seems as though most traditional practices are for the benefit of men and thus do not violate their human rights. Some people feel that marrying more than one wife is bad because it is not fair for the women, but what about women who can marry more than one men? I am not exactly sure how those kinds of marraiges work, but I was just wondering whose rights are in question. I think that human rights seem simple when you think that every human should be entitled to them because they are human, but then you think about all the other parts of the picture and it gets complicated. Besides that, other cultures may view human rights differently based on their cultural beliefs. It is important not to force U.S. views of what are human rights and what are not onto non-western countries.

Genetic = Social = Natural

Porn. My friends like porn. One of them wants to start a porn magazine and is actually going in for a meeting with some kind of publisher today. I remember when they all passed around 'The Happy Hooker' which many loved. I remember conversations about exactly how much we would sell ourselves for. They, as do I, dance and grind on each other to get attention.

Now I could sit here and defend their ability to do what they want or argue that they would probably be this way if the world hadn't preformed any socialization on them (both of which I believe are winnable arguments). But instead I'd like to attack the concept that socialized things are not acceptable. We talked in class about how just because something is socialized into people doesn't mean it's not real. But it more then just real.

For starters, the idea that we can realistically study what is and is not socialized into people is untrue. We all remember those cases of parents trying to bring up their kids without gender and how ever time it was attempted it didn't seem to work correctly, that is the kids were still exposed to the effects of the outside society and the gender that it displayed. Those are biased studies and until that bias can be removed, there are no solid conclusions that can be drawn. And those are well prepared and forethought studies. To say that we can look at women in general and say which ones would have done what had they been brought up differently is absurd. They were not brought up differently and any prediction of how they would have acted imparts so much of what the observer would have done into the observed that it becomes nothing more then talking about ones self.

Beyond this, the difference between genetic and social manipulation is immaterial. To say that something is genetically bred into us and that makes it ok while something that is socialized into us may be incorrect and in need of change is to break up what are both evolved behaviors. It really only is the different in terms of what is easy to change and what is difficult to change. It doesn't mean that one deserves to be changed more then the other. And we're not going to be able to get away with making that difference when genetic engineering makes it possible to determine behavioral characteristics before birth. Socialized is just as ingrained in people as genetics are. Not to say they don't both deserve to be changed, but it's not just real, it's a valid part of human life. We really can debate what the ideal human can be, that's a valid conversation but let's not kid ourselves into believing that intentionally socializing a person for an intended outcome is different then genetically engineering them. It is a debate over what a human should be and we would be telling not just ourselves but someone else how they're allowed to build humans.

Also, I'd like to attack the idea of what is natural. We talk about how some things are and are not natural. This is an absurdity. We're studying people, the culture and evolution of people. When we say 'natural' we're really trying to express the idea that a vastly more intelligent force didn't interfere to make the outcome of the observation come out one way of another. Well barring a god, humans are the most intelligent life form and as such no vastly more intelligent one can interfere because they don't exist. When you're studying humans, whatever happens is whatever happens naturally. Our culture is natural as is everything we do. Unless you run to the supernatural, all things are natural. I only bring this up to defend the evolution and 'natural' nature of our culture. So many times certain ways that people act are cited to be unnatural. If people are that way, they got that way naturally and it is a natural state for a human to be in, no matter how terrible it is.

To reemphasize, it is reasonable to have a conversation about the way that humans 'should be' (after all there are many practices of humans that are bad enough that they are generally unacceptable to have in a human who is expected to interact with other humans: serial killing for example) but to have such a debate over if this is the way that humans 'are' entirely misses the point that humans already are that way.

Me and my friends dance and grind and think and talk about sex just like any number of people do in their free time. Why shouldn't we?

great art

Nochlin's essay "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists" reminded me a lot of my intro to cultural studies class, in that it deconstructed the question and then tied it into various social issues, such the implications of the question, art in families, demands and expectations placed on certain members of society, and the notion of genius. Some people have incredible skills, but unless they are allowed to develop and hone them, they wouldn't be able to get to a level that could be described as genius. I liked how she likened the lack of artists who were women to the lack of artists who were aristocrats, because it separates it from being just a 'woman' or gender issue and puts it in a larger social context.

owning the porn industry

There has been a lot of discussion about the issues concerning the morality of the porn industry. The previous discussions have focused on the mentality of women inside the industry. While I feel that these issues are very important i feel that a larger issue is being missed inside these discussions. It is the issue of whom owns and has the power inside the industry. It is here that women (whom could be argued that they are owning their bodies) completly lose their power and control. There is a documentary (whose name i forget right now) that follows a group of strippers who work at a strip club on their journey to develope a union at their strip club. IT is a journey that digs into the hash reality of strip clubs but also gives a voice to the strippers and challenges the roles of power inside the industry. It is inside this documentary that we are exposed to the truth that women in the industry rarely are not given any power inside the porn industry and have to fight to recieve any control over their own bodies. While a woman may choose to become a striper of a porn star very rarely does she have the power to control how her body is represented in the industry ultimately rendering herself powerless to the male gaze or the gaze of the public. Therefore, i don't believe that we can discuss the issues of women inside the industry or prostituion (for it is often a male pimp whom controls the prostitute) until women have control over their own bodies inside of industry.