Wost 3002 Blog

McClintock's assertion that the sense of nationalism comes from masculinity is an interesting one. I really agree with her statement that women were seen as part of the nation, not members. This is an important distinction, especially for women traveling without men outside the U.S., and to women that would like to join the armed forces. Also, this idea that the nation is seen as a family (fatherland, motherland) and it's other citizens as siblings is something that I had never stopped to think about before. Especially the social hierarchy that is justified by family (both racial and gender) is very interesting and a complex thesis. The assertion that the social and political realms were tied into each other for women because of the man she married is bold, but interesting. The story of the Afrikaner history involving the barring of women from institutions is incredibly disgusting, not to mention the Tweede Trek. What is this about feminism and patriotism being compared, but both in a negative light?

"It is difficult to start a revolution, more difficult to sustain it. But it's later, when we've won, that the real difficulties will begin."

O.K> here's my question. Now that I am armed with all these theories that gender, race and class are all social constructs. And any knowledge that I have acquired thus far in understanding these abstact issues has been a product of the dominant discourse and my position within my culture according to race, gender and class, (and any privilidges that might or might not go along with this placement) is a product of my being, if not an underwriter of the racial contact then certainly a beneficiary of this. And my understanding that everything I have come to understand about race, gender, class, has been based on an underlying myth created to keep those in power, in power and those with no power out of any sort of dialogue or shaping of any policy that would allow them to have a share in this power. Taking this then to another level of a international view of ourselves in our place in the global economy is also shaped by these myths, and the perpetuation of these myths is again, solely to benefit those in power, therefore shapes all interactions with these other cultures. It then also perpetuates these myths as natural, for example Said writes about in "Oreintalism" that the orient is a European construct. Just as any race or culture of people is a construct of one pervailing dominant discourse over another.. Is there than any validity, anything good or positive that can come out of studying any other country or culture or race or gender other than our own. Because we cannot escape our distoration and inaccrucy in viewing any other peoples, cultures and races because the lens we are looking through is already distorted. Should we then even bother studying other cultures and people at all, or should we allow them to do all the studying and acquiring of knowledge about themselves to themselves without any input or voice from out siders what so ever. And then what of those who have vested vasts amount of time and passion and themselves into studying other peoples, or as Said writes on pg. 77 "....the whole series of interests which by such means as scholarly discovery, philological reconstruction, psychological analysis, landscape and socological description..." Do we then throw away all this knowledge, this body of work and those who benefit from it. Does Said ever adrress this or acknowledge this in his writings