Follow Up to Lisa 3/1

Susan Douglas’ chapter titled “Lean and Mean”, to be honest, really annoyed me.  It might be that she has progressively started to annoy me over the semester while reading Enlightened Sexism, or just this particular chapter.  I feel as though I have been preached at my entire life about how awful our generation is and how it never used to be like this and Douglas did it as well.  I fully admit that our generation is more obsessed with plastic surgery, appearances, etc. than any previous generation but I do not feel as if I can do anything about that.  I also feel as though I cannot do anything about the cattiness that is all too present in today’s teenagers.  I am often times very embarrassed to admit it, but “Mean Girls” was based off my high school, it is set in my area.  That is the exact environment I grew up in and although I was already in high school when the movie came out, I do not think that the movie helped eliminate the stereotypes girls face today and the exclusivity in the middle schools.  If anything, it made it “cool” to act even more like that because that’s what the popular girls in the movie did.  If we want to work towards improving our generation and our society, we need to not produce movies such as “Mean Girls”.  Even if the producers aimed to use the movie to show the country how ridiculous it is (which I highly doubt was the case), if did not come off that way.  If we want to get rid of cattiness and this size zero, 36D stereotype I believe we need to simply ignore it.  We need to eliminate it from all mainstream media outlets and we need to come up with a new body type to advertise.  This is, however, easier said than done.

Follow Up Post 3/1

Fausto-Sterling discusses the stereotypes of women who are going through menstruation and menopause and some of the historical aspects of this. She talks about how women were seen as in capable of doing many tasks because of this fact of life and how the symptoms of some women were extrapolated to all women, which helped to encourage these stereotypes. She also talks about the types of studies that were done on this issue and how they were biased throughout history until recently. These biased studies also helped to prolong stereotypes. I think this essay gives an important context to the types of thoughts people have and what the origins of these thoughts are. I think that stereotypes about menopause and menstruation are prevalent today and while people may now say that they know better than to say things about all women in general, these types of jokes are some of the most prevalent I feel about women today.

Douglas in Lean and Mean talks about the way that women today are given extremely thin women as idols and also how these women are voluptuous. This type of idol has women rushing to plastic surgeons and the rise of many reality TV shows about plastic surgery. She then speaks about the ways that the risks of plastic surgery are not showcased and therefore people may not know what they are getting themselves into. She talks about the rise of beauty products and the market for women in improving their looks to fit an unattainable standard. The most interesting part of this to me when when she dicussed Dove and their attempt to have models who were real life people, but that Dove was owned by the company who makes SlimFast. This to me showed just how bad things are because I had personally thought the ads by Dove were great, but to find out that they were still just a marketing ploy really can make you feel tricked.

Douglas continues to talk about the current fad of mean girls and how movies such as Mean Girls and shows like Gossip Girls made it seem like the world’s high school girls are all living their lives through hurting other high school girls. She talks about how ridiculous this is to think of in reality but how much people fall into the traps of these shows and how the portrayal of the mean girl is seeping into reality.

These readings were very interesting and had a lot of truisms. It is interesting to see Douglas’ perspective and see how she views the media and marketing world we are all living in.

Follow Up Post 2/24

The two readings today discussed the way that homosexuality and in particular lesbianism is perceived. Rupp’s article talked about homosexuality and how the views on this issue have radically changed from their being nothing odd to anyone about same sex sexual interactions into today’s world when things are seen in a very different light. The most interesting part of this article to me was when Rupp speaks about how homosexuality is simply another form of difference in sexual experiences that are looked down upon. She cites gender among things as differences that are not viewed in today’s world as acceptable bridges to cross when engaging in sexual activities. This type of comment seems to contribute to a theme of non-acceptance of things that are not viewed as normal or usual such as we saw in our discussions of intersex people. Rich talks about the perceived differences in men and women’s sexuality and how men have many advantages in the current ways that sexuality is practiced. These two readings made me consider how people just accept the world they live in without questioning the origins of widely accepted thoughts and constructs and how maybe if more people challenged the things that are fed to them from birth then the word could have a different spin on it.

On a different note, I came across some interesting articles from the same woman who I wrote my news flash on and a few others on two different topics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcmillan/why-youre-not-married_b_822088.html

http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/02/22/why.not.married/?hpt=Sbin

these two articles are about women and the choice or need to get married. The first seems to portray that every woman wants/needs to get married and that there are only a few reasons why a woman would not and the second is a response from an unmarried woman.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704409004576146321725889448.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth

this article is by the woman I wrote my newsflash on and it talks about strong women and how this effects men.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704409004576146321725889448.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth

Main Post 2/24

Leila Rupp’s article is an attempt to understand how our world defines “same-sex sexuality”.  She begins by acknowledging that the term “same-sex” is often very problematic and that there are often very different definitions of it around the world.  Differences in age, class, and gender all attribute to the differences in definitions and practices across cultures.  These “differences have in more cases than not structures what we call same-sex acts in ways that are far more important to the people involved and to the societies in which they lived than the mere fact of the touching of similar bodies” (288).  She gives two examples, one from an ancient Athenian society and one from Japan, where men were engaging in sexual acts with boys and, due to the age differences, this was allowed.  Rupp continues on to talk about how “transgenerational same-sex relations” were simply part of the culture and norm.  For example, in New Guinea, a boy could not become a man without being inseminated with the semen of an elder.  Thus far, Rupp has only given examples of men. One example of women, however, is in Melanesia during which lactating mothers nourish girls who are not their daughters.  This nourishment is their way of helping a girl transition to a woman.  She notes our commonly thought of construction of same-sex interactions would be a completely foreign idea to these cultures.  On page 292 she dives into the issue of a third gender role.  She gives many examples and tells us of how they are called different things in different cultures: “mahus” in Polynesian societies, “hijras” in India, “travestis” in Brazil, etc.  Each of these different cultures has their own interpretations of this third gender—some underwent surgery and some did not.  On page 293 Rupp comments that “sexual relations between two genitally alike (or originally alike) bodies are in many cases better defined as different-gender than same-sex relations”.  The second half of her article deals with how we define “sexuality” and what is or isn’t “sexuality” in an interaction.  Rupp notes difficulties in figuring out what exactly occurred between many women because people didn’t document it and due to the difficulty in distinguishing a best friend from a lover.  She concludes by saying that she has spent the entire article undermining our term “same-sex sexuality”, but believes it is the best one we have right now.

Adrienne Rich notes that lesbianism is often so taboo of a subject that it is not given any consideration by the media, religious groups, etc.  Her first section deals with the various books that do not touch on lesbians in society.  Some books, such as the one by Ehrenreich and English and the one by Jean Baker Miller, do not deal with lesbianism at all.  Others, like Nancy Chodorow’s book, come close to acknowledging the existence of lesbianism.  However, Chodorow eventually denies the existence of lesbianism and instead insists that most women are heterosexual.  The second sections deals with the male power over women.  She lists off Kathleen Gough’s eight characteristics of male power: to deny women their sexuality; to force male sexuality upon them; to command or exploit their labor to control their produce; to control or rob them of their children; to confine them physically and prevent their movement; to use them as objects in male transactions; to cramp their creativeness; and to withhold from them large areas of society’s knowledge and cultural attainments.  Rich continues on to describe how the porn industry has negatively affected relationships between men and women because “it widens the range of behavior considered acceptable from men in heterosexual intercourse” (20).  Her next example is of how male bosses treat women in the workplace and how women cannot do anything about this if they would like to keep their jobs.  Through pornography, sexual harassment, rape, female slavery, etc. women are ingrained with the idea that men are superior to them and that heterosexuality is the only option.  Compulsory heterosexuality makes it so we as a society are more likely to stay with the man that abuses us, the man that abuses our children, etc.  Section three deals with the terms “lesbian existence” and “lesbian continuum”.  Lesbian existence is simply to acknowledge the historical lesbians in our society.  Lesbian continuum is including a range, not only through history but also through each woman’s life, of “women-identified experience[s]” (27).   If we are to use the lesbian continuum, all women, including heterosexual women, will fall on the continuum somewhere.  This, arguably, would allow for more integration into our society.  Rich concludes saying, “…the absence of choice remains the great unacknowledged reality, and in the absence of choice, women will remain dependent upon the chance or luck of particular relationships and will have no collective power to determine the meaning and place of sexuality in their lives” (37). 

Main Post 2/22

Susan Douglas starts her chapter Sex ‘R’ Us by discussing what the impact of the furthering of women’s rights has done for the sexuality of women and the implications in the world of women. She discusses how women now were free to dress in as little as they want and to be a free with themselves as they want. But she says the paradox is that women were given freedom and then went and did exactly what men wanted – sexify themselves – while feeling like they were making the decisions and were empowered. She talks about how this played out in advertising such as Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch, how this effected younger and younger women making its way into children’s beauty pageants and the tragedy of Jon-Benet Ramsey, and also how this new sexuality invaded women’s reading materials especially focusing on Cosmo. Douglas continues her discussion by focusing on the male’s version of Cosmo, Maxim. She says that Maxim was crucial to her ideas of “enlightened sexism” because in this magazine, men were able to objectify women and joke about how a woman is at times in control of a man because of how they played it off by saying that’s it was all a joke because our society was so far beyond this (24).

She continues by discussing the large role Sex and the City had on our society and how the other TV shows of the era made sex more accessible and acceptable to younger and younger audiences. She goes on to talk about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and how this allowed America to discuss sex at all times in all places and how this played into the popularity and acceptance of Sex and the City. She discusses the irony at times of Sex and the City and how this show paved the way for others shows that would have been unacceptable a generation before.

This leads Douglas into a discussion of Janet Jackson at the Superbowl and the following ways the black women were portrayed and portrayed themselves in things like rap videos. She goes onto show how these black women were made out to be sexual and harsh and how this had(has) an adverse effect on the young black women that see their works such as music videos.

Douglas concludes by talking about how all of these factors have come together to have an adverse effect on all women and how while the increased sexuality of women could have been a good thing, the way that things have played out have left women in a tough position where nothing they do is quite right or good enough.

Collins talks about Black women and how they have been seen throughout history and how this has shifted in some ways throughout history and in some ways remained the same. The two biggest characteristics she feels black women are given in the collective minds of the world are animal-like and sexual. She talks about how this has been embraced by women over time and discusses how a woman like Jennifer Lopez – a Latina – can flit back and forth between both groups. She talks about how this image is not restricted to women and the fact that it goes to men as well is part of a racism that is influenced by white people having a majority of the media that the world sees. She then connects the struggle of black people to escape these stereotypes to the struggle of many types of people who want sexual freedom and to live in a nonjudgmental world. She continues by telling us how these sexual behaviors that some view as not right are showcased to the extreme on shows such as Jerry Springer. She concludes by discussing how these factors all play into the ways that blacks and other minorities are repressed.

Follow Up to Jocelyn 2/22

I found Collins’ first chapter titled “Why Black Sexual Politics?” to be very unique.  I felt as if I could relate to a lot of what she was saying in the chapter and that makes the topic all the more interesting to me.  The one part that really caught my eye and made me reflect on our society and how I have been unintentionally perpetuating all of it was when she spoke of contradictions in our society: “For example, well-off White teenagers can drive expensive cars to…college campuses that admit only a few handpicks African Americans, all the while booming the latest sexually explicit lyrics of their favorite Black hip-hop artist” (43).  This is Colgate.  This is what we do.  Whether or not we like it, I feel as if this quote can be applied to the majority of our school population and this is an issue.  We do not realize we are participating in a form of new racism because it doesn’t fit the definition of racism that we learned in elementary school, but we are.  I do not believe there is a way to change what we listen to necessarily since so many of the famous music artists are black, but the way to change our society is to change our actions and thoughts.  However, at this moment I do not know what actions could be taken to improve this since we so unknowingly participate in it and it is so embedded in our society.  Many people, including me until I read this chapter and reflected on it, do not realize it is even an issue and I would guess that is where we should start.  I would be curious to hear if anybody has any ideas as to how we can bring this issue to light and begin to deal with it.

News Flash 1 - Helping or Hurting?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/14/hymowitz.valentine.proposals/index.html?hpt=C2

On this previous Valentine’s Day, Kay S. Hymowitz wrote for CNN a piece discussing marriage proposals and the outdated traditions that linger in the process of a man asking a woman to marry him. She joked about the stereotypical man and woman in today’s world and spoke on how the process of the marriage proposal is inflated today. Hymowitz’s article is meant to be a funny social commentary that would interest many people because of its insightful thoughts on the state of women’s rights is actually an example of Susan Douglas’ “enlightened sexism” ideas and serves to allow people to fall into the trap of thinking that our society is more progressive than it is (24).

The first thing about this article that struck me was how Hymowitz referred to our lives in “the post-feminist world” (Hymowitz). As we discussed in class, there are conflicting views on whether or not all of the goals of feminism have been achieved. For an opinion piece to truly reflect the current state of affairs in this country and the world it would need to show conflicting ideas on the issue. As we saw in the works Manifesta by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richard, and Becoming the Third Wave by Rebecca Walker, these women do not feel that complete equality for women has been achieved and that feminism still has much work to do. Their ideas of how much work is still to be accomplished directly conflicts with Hymowitz’s implication that women’s largest problem is not being able to propose to a man. In her statements she inadvertently belittles the work of current women’s activists.

Susan Douglas might say that Hymowitz is perpetuating the idea that feminism is no longer an issue that needs to be considered except for in minor instances. Hymowitz is displaying Douglas’ idea of “enlightened sexism” by making it seem that our society is so far removed from the issues of the previous feminist movements that it is laughable that this still exists (24). She says “The proposal temporarily reasserts instinctive sex roles in our egalitarian, hyper-civilized age” (Hymowitz). In reality, this tradition is symptomatic of the way that our lives as women really are. It is only socially acceptable for men to ask a woman to marry him not vice versa and there are many things that in our society are still something that only men do. This idea is echoed in Frye’s ideas in Oppression of many social constructs compounding on each other to form a “birdcage” that women face (3). The inequality in the expectations in marriage proposals that Hymowitz’s discusses seems to me to just be another example of discrimination of women by others (male and female) to add to many others. Both women and men would find it forward of a woman to propose to a man, but why should she not if she is an equal partner in the relationship. Douglas may see this article as either evidence of our society and Hymowitz being lulled into the façade that women have gotten to a place of equality with men or evidence of the media’s attempt to make us feel that sexism is no longer and issue and therefore we can joke about it.

Hymowitz continues in her opinion piece to say “young dudes will…gaze up adoringly at the treadmill-enhanced lawyers or surgeons or account executives” (Hymowitz). In this statement she is telling people that it is the norm for a woman to be both successful in her career and also be in excellent shape. This kind of idea is reminiscent of Douglas’ discussion of characters such as Xena and how this type of character gives the impression that women should be able to kick butt while being gorgeous. Hymowitz adds to this Xena complex by insinuating that these normal women also have a stable relationship in which they are the dominant partner except for in one antiquated way. The fact then men still principally propose is so out of touch with the rest of the ways the world works it is laughable according to Hymowitz. But this is not the case.

As we have discussed in class, women do not have the significant role in companies as Hymowitz suggests and there is a large gap in the salaries of men and women. The statistics show that women do not have these high-powered jobs that the television, popular culture, and this article espouse. Instead women are suffering along with other minority groups from the lack of equality with white males in many aspects of their lives.

Hymowitz’s article also showcases another one of Douglas’s ideas in that she shows how a crazy and violent woman is newsworthy. Hymowitz describes “a Chicago woman threatening her boyfriend that if he didn't propose, she would call 911 to say he was attacking her” (Hymowitz). Douglas touches on this issue when she talks about Amy Fisher and Lorena Bobbitt, both violent and unstable women. What is ironic in this situation is the lack of press that men who resort to coercion and violence receive especially when there are alarming rates of assault (sexual or other) against women even on Colgate’s own campus.

The article ends with Hymowitz’s cheeky comment that “The proposal provides a ritual forcing him to show that he is thoughtful, capable, loving and sincere. In other words, that he will be a good husband and father. And willing to accept his wife's proposal that he fold the laundry” (Hymowitz). While she discusses the fact that the simple act of a marriage proposal has been blown up over the years, she does not once suggest that this issue is a sign that perhaps the goals of feminism have not been achieved and our society is not in the place that our popular culture makes us believe. Even in her last comment she is glossing over the fact that women not only now work outside of the house for less wages than men, but then come home and do the majority of the housework. She is maintaining the false ideals that men and women would in general share the work of the household just as she earlier makes it seem as though men and women enjoy equal power and compensation in the workplace.

Although Hymowitz points out a social construct that is antiquated in its sexist underpinnings, she does not acknowledge that this is merely symptomatic of the way the world is still run today and because of this lack of recognition, she perpetuates the idea that women have no more battles to fight except to overcome one last traditional aspect of life: the proposal. Her position as a successful woman writer gives her an opportunity to speak out about what she should see as a sign of the many ways that women and men do not have equality and could offer a suggestion that we change some of the ways we collectively think about the roles of men and women. Her paper’s comments do not reflect the actual statistical evidence of the state of women’s power in the work place and does not acknowledge other conflicting opinion on these issues. While her paper does appeal to many people because it is easily related to our lives, it lessens the power of the fight for women’s issues by perpetuating ideas of what Susan Douglas calls “enlightened sexism” in which popular culture gives the impression that feminism has been achieved (24).

Hymowitz, Kay S. "Why Men Pop the Question - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 18 Feb. 2011. .

News Flash 1: Invest in Girls!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2046045,00.html

As I was perusing the Time website, I was instantly drawn to an article titled “To Fight Poverty, Invest in Girls” published on February 14, 2011.  Nancy Gibbs began by talking about how girls are the way our world can be changed and how, despite the fact that more aid than ever is being sent to women, the women that are receiving it are not the ones that need it.  In talking about the developing world, Gibbs states that it is frighteningly common for a girl to be married and tending to the house by the age of 12.  Many cultures across the world are not conducive to a girl’s education because men see it as a waste of time and money.  Gibbs continues on to state that not only is “rescuing girls” the “right thing to do”, but it is also the “smart thing to do”  (Gibbs).  There are proven statistics showing that the longer a girl stays in school, the less likely they are to get married young and the fewer children they will have.  Additionally, she claims that, “Fewer dependents per worker allows for greater economic growth” (Gibbs).  Gibbs also quotes Larry Summer, a former chief economist at the World Bank: “‘Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world” (Gibbs).  The article continues on saying that we, as in the world, need to learn how to listen to women, regardless of how difficult it might be for some cultures.  Her last major claim is that success is contingent on the entire community.  Success will not happen without enlisting men, women, teachers, religious leaders to aid the women in seeing their potential and ensuring they do not see themselves as “prey” (Gibbs).  Her last two paragraphs describe a group of twelve to eighteen year old girls whose goal is to raise awareness, and money, to help fight a myriad of prevalent issues.  This group is called Girl Up.  The goal of this group of American teenagers is to show other kids how hard it is to carry a jerrican of water across a village, or how donating a mere $5 will help a health-clinic in places like Malawi stock feminine supplies.

While reading this and pondering the impact that this movement could have, I began to realize the connections between our country’s struggle for women’s rights and a developing country’s fight.  Our history is their future.  It is our responsibility to educate ourselves on not only their current conditions but also our history so we can help them to make the same progress.

In the fourth paragraph of Gibbs’ article she notes that if a girl were to stay in primary school for only one year longer, her eventual wages would be between 10 to 20% higher.  Similarly, if a girl were to stay in secondary school just one more year, her wages would be between 15 to 25% higher.  If a girl were to stay in school a total of seven years she will typically get married four years later and have two fewer children than girls who do not make it through primary school.  Additionally, she claims, “Fewer dependents per worker allows for greater economic growth” (Gibbs).  While reading this I could not help but think back to Sojourner Truth’s Two Speeches.  Truth was able to use a stereotype to make it appear as if women aren’t a threat to men with her pint and quart example (64).  If it is indeed true that the less dependent a woman is the greater the economy will grow, why can we not use Truth’s claim that a woman’s pint will never match up to a man’s quart to convince men to educate the women?  While it would obviously be more beneficial to convince a man of a woman’s true value and that they are capable of the same things, this could be a start.  Truth’s era and the era we are in now are clearly very different but a similar rhetoric might work to convince men to educate women to allow for greater economic growth, if nothing else.  If we can accomplish that, we can build off that to help accomplish “full” equality in due time.

An additional point Gibbs makes in her piece is that in order to successfully fight poverty it is not only important to raise money directly for the women.  Restructuring the core infrastructure and enlisting the help of the whole community is also critical in this process.  I took this as it is not only the responsibility of the entire community to fight poverty, but the entire world.  As Baumgardner and Richards remark, it is crucial to “see activism not as a choice between self and community but as a link between them that creates balance” (425).  From these we can see that it is every individual’s responsibility to help join in this fight for women’s equality, regardless of whether it is in our country or in a developing country elsewhere in the world.  Baumgardner and Richards further this argument because it is important for all developing countries to realize that this fight to end poverty and women’s inequality is not an attempt to destroy their preexisting culture and replace it with our “better” culture, but an attempt to improve it.  Helping a country in their fight for women’s equality is not an attempt to push our own ideals upon them, but it is an attempt to create a link between us to share information.

If Girl Up, and organizations similar to it, are able to raise awareness and money to “make the difference in a girl not being married when she’s 10” (Gibbs), we need to support these organizations.  From our own struggle as a country we realize how little can be done without enlisting the help of everyone, and we were a developed country at the time.  The struggle of these developing countries will be even greater and I believe it is our responsibility to help.

Gibbs claims that if we want to “change the world [we need to] invest in girls”.  After reading this article and comparing it to our class readings and notes, I would agree with this claim.  In order to fight poverty, we (as the population of the Earth) need to invest time and money into helping the girls.  We need to help the girls that are married off at the age of ten to become more educated, which will in turn not only help their own well-being but the well-being of the entire country and economy.  Therefore, it is true that in order to fight poverty we need to invest in girls.

Follow up Post 2/17

In the third and fourth chapters of Sexing the Body, Fausto-Sterling discusses the topic I brought up in my last blog post about the way parents should respond after giving birth to a child who is intersex. Fausto-Sterling also discusses this in context of how doctors, psychologists, and the law should respond. After reading her thoughts I found myself agreeing with her that the correct way to respond to children like this is to not make rash decisions and to wait for the child to be able to decide for themselves. This seems to me to be the most apropos way to handle a situation like this and judging from the evidence that Fausto-Sterling gives it seems like this gives the child the biggest chance to feel like themselves. I do also agree with Fausto-Sterling that in order for this to be an good option for children there must be a change in the acceptance level of people in general especially people who do not fit into sexual “norms.” It is hard to consider how the world would go about changing their collective mindset because of the diversity of people and the preconceived notions people have. Also, many people are not educated on people other than themselves and therefore cannot put themselves in another’s shoes and do not want to make the effort to do so. It seems as though if/when people are able to try to not put their thoughts and notions onto others that we will be able to be a more accepting society and many problems that stem from issues of not liking the way someone else behaves or not liking the fact that someone is different from you will be able to be put aside for a more peaceful world. It is an interesting to think about how this issue fits into other issues of persecutions such as religious ad how many people on this earth have been touched by some sort of feeling of not fitting in. If people could realize that changing their attitudes toward others would help them as well, maybe some change would happen.

Follow Up to Lisa 2/17

Fausto-Sterling’s third chapter was very detailed, to say the least.  When I took Modernity sophomore year and had to read Dude You’re a Fag I felt very uncomfortable reading it in the library, and found this chapter to be the same.  While I know it is something that we should not feel uncomfortable about, a lot of the drawings and pictures in this chapter made reading it in the library slightly awkward at times.  Having said that, I did find this chapter to be interesting and I learned a lot about intersex individuals.  Prior to reading this chapter I had always heard about “hermaphrodites” but never knew what classified one as a hermaphrodite or the differences between a pseudo and a true hermaphrodite.

I do not personally know anybody who was born intersex, or know if somebody was, but one example I kept thinking about was an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy”.  I know Grey’s is not real life, and they exaggerate many of the cases a great deal, but one of the episodes included a teenage girl who came in with what she thought was a tumor.  After running some tests the doctors concluded her ovary was a testis. (At least I think I’m remembering this correctly….)  This particular teenage girl had always felt different than the other girls and wondered why she never fit in.  The doctors first told the parents of the test results and the parents requested they not tell the girl.  In this case, and something that is opposite of what Fausto-Sterling describes in her book, the doctors felt uncomfortable with this decision and felt they should tell the girl.  Eventually it came out that it was a testis and the girl felt nothing but relieved that she was actually a boy.  (The accuracy of this statement that she is a boy depends on my memory and on the overall accuracy of the TV show, of course.)  This episode was several seasons ago and I did not know what I know now about intersex individuals, but found it interesting that something like this was on national TV.  I think that if we have more media outlets that included issues such as these the discussions will not be thought of as taboo and the lives of these intersex individuals will improve.

Follow up to Lisa 2/15

For some reason I did not find Anne Fausto-Sterling’s first two chapters to be as interesting or compelling as other works we have read.  It might be because I am not as interested in science as other aspects of our world, but it did not grasp my attention as other readings have.  She might, later in the book, dive into some deeper issues but the speed at which she went through many different topics did not help either.  I think it will benefit our discussions overall to have a science behind the issues we are debating, but I would like Fausto-Sterling to first narrow down some of her arguments.  One point at which I noticed her seeming vagueness to topics was on page 5 when she begins the “Real or Constructed?” section of the chapter.  She describes how she identifies with three different groups (biologists, scientists, and feminists), but I would like to hear more about these different groups and their thoughts and how they all relate together to prove something to us.

A part of chapter two that I found particularly interesting started on page 36, “The Making of the Modern Intersexual”.  One of my roommates is taking a class where they are learning about intersex individuals and hearing about their discussions has intrigued me.  I hope that we have a chance to continue to discuss this and read more about it as well.

Follow up Post 2/15

The first two chapters of Sexing the Body by Anne Fausto-Sterling are an interesting overview of the gray area in the defining of gender and the way that women and men are not the only way that people can and should be defined. Fausto-Sterling’s points make one think about the way that people such a as a hermaphrodite are thought about in the world and how hard these people much have it. Fausto-Sterling seems to represent that there are many of these types of people and that these people have had a hard time throughout history. This whole reading made me think of how a parent would handle the situation of having a child whose sex is not very clear. It must be a hard situation to be put in especially when a parent would be wanting to make the life of the child as easy as possible but not knowing how the child will feel about the situation when they are old enough to understand. It also makes you think about the world in how it is not welcoming to people who have issues like this and how it is sad that people have to feel like they need to change themselves drastically to fit in and to be accepted by the general population. The way that hermaphrodites are treated is symptomatic of the way that all people who do not fit into gender and cultural norms are treated and it is sad to think that many people are treated like they cannot be themselves in this world. Reading works like this can open a persons eyes to issues that are foreign to them and can really change how you think of people who are different from you and realize that they may have been born the way they are just like you have been born the way you are. What may seem unnatural to you is the only way they have ever known themselves and just like you cannot change the circumstance of your birth, neither can they.

Main Post 2/10

McIntosh starts her paper by talking about how there are similarities in the sexism and racism fights. She talks about how both have similar enemies in the white male and how this white male has power that he is given just for being who he is and that when he works for the causes against racism and sexism he is not as effective because he cannot see that sexism and racism not only put down women and non-whites but also bolster him and put him above in a way that in order for their to be equality he would need to take himself down a bit while bringing up minorities. McIntosh continues through her paper by giving examples in which she feels that she, as a white person, has a right that other racial groups do not. She gives many examples of things she feels are not recognized often but are things she feels she has that others don’t. McIntosh also comments on how as a white female she can observe how whites get things other races do not but she can only recognize this by knowing how males have things females do not. I thought this paper was interesting but some of the rights she lays out seemed to be a stretch and seemed also to be outdated in this world. This could be seen though as a sign of hope that things have changed in black/ white relations so that ideas that fully applied in the past are now not concerns. On the flip side of this, my thinking that there are no longer as many issues with this could be seen as proving her theories of people not knowing how high they are up in the world.

Lorde speaks about life as a feminist African American lesbian and how hard it is to be involved in a fight when not only is the world against you but also many involved in your movement who allegedly have the same goals are also against you. She discusses things she has encountered in her work and how underrepresented people with her identity are. She also mentions how this underrepresentation is displayed in a forum that is supposed to be dedicated to the understanding of why feminism is necessary. I thought Lorde has some interesting points but also seemed a little radical in her words.

The Combahee River Collective talks about black women and how their fight is intertwined with other movements and also how other movements can be a detriment to theirs. The women talk about their relationship with black men and with white women who are at times sexist and racist respectively. The women continue to talk about how they will stand up for themselves and keep fighting to be equal to other groups and how they will stand by the black men in their fight against racism.

These three readings seem to share a common thread of trying to open people’s eyes to how even if they feel they are not purposefully trying to keep a certain group down, they may be just by living their lives the way they do. Another common theme I saw was how a group who is supposed to be a friend in your fight can also be an enemy in the way they behave or they was they go about helping you, and also while another group may be with you on one side of your issue they may contribute to your down fall on the other side.

Follow up Post to Jocelyn 2/10

While reading the three articles for today on the black feminism movement I couldn’t help but think back to a book I read over winter break by Kathryn Stockett titled The Help.  It follows a group of privileged white women in their 30s and 40s with families and follows their “help”.  Their help consisted of older black women who did everything from cooking and cleaning to raising their children.  I first began to make this connection while reading Audre Lorde’s piece.  In The Help one of the white women, Miss Skeeter, who is not married, becomes intrigued by the lives of the help that her friends have employed and rely on daily.  She is the only one who realizes how oppressed these women are and has an idea to help them: interview them on what it is like working for a white privileged family and write a book containing all the very candid interviews.  The time period that this book is set in is well before when Lorde was writing, but I saw many of the same ideas coming through.  I first noticed the similarities between the two when Lorde says, “…how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend to your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of Color?”  This is exactly what happened in the book as well.  The women met in weekly meetings for various clubs and organizations while completely disregarding that the help might also like these same freedoms.  Much of the book focuses on the civil rights movement and not on the feminist movement, but the ideas that Lorde presented were similar, in my mind at least.  She mentions that the white feminist movement was not doing a good job of acknowledging the differences between different groups of women and the women in the book were not dealing with them either.  There are, of course, the few women like Miss Skeeter and Peggy McIntosh who realize the unfair privileges that white people enjoy and who try to do something about it.  While both Lorde and McIntosh wrote in the 1980s and we have made progress since then, we still, I believe, need more women like them to speak up.

Main Post 2/8

In Marilyn Frye’s article she explores the idea of oppression and how it is conveyed in our society.  She begins by stating that “it is a fundamental claim of feminism that women are oppressed” and that many people believe that men are oppressed as a result of this supposed oppression of women.  Frye details in the second paragraph how the word “oppression” has lost all value and meaning in our society and how if one were to ever deny that someone was “oppressed” people would think they were implying that “they never suffer and have no feelings”.  This is obviously not true.  The basis for the rest of her argument begins to form when she says, “Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict or prevent the thing’s motion or mobility”.  She notes that one of the primary features experience by those who are oppressed is that their options have been severely reduced and that each option exposes them to penalty and/or deprivation.  Her first two examples are that one is required to be smiling and cheerful while being oppressed and the fact that women is criticized and objectified for both being and not being sexually active in today’s society.  She continues on to discuss how women are caught between a myriad of factors that all tie together in one way or another to prohibit all of the supposedly available options they have.  Frye notes that the “experience of oppressed people is that the living of one’s life is confined and shaped by forces and barriers which are not accidental or occasional”.  She supports this claim with the example of a birdcage.  Individually, any one factor may not seem to restrict a woman drastically, but the combination of all the other factors does—too look at everything macroscopically instead of microscopically.  For example, the tradition of the man opening a door for a woman does not seem like a huge deal.  Frye argues it is when we take a step back and look at what this action really means and what it implies (when we look at it in a macroscopic way) that we notice how restrictive this is.

Jonah Gokova’s piece describes how men need to be equal participants in the fight for a “gender-sensitive society” (Gokova 422).  He begins by introducing the thought that gender issues are not only important for women but men also.  He states that men have done little to help women gain the equality he has been fighting for over the years and that all gender issues require participation from both sexes.  Men have largely allowed themselves to ignore many issues when, in reality, it is their responsibility to end these very same problems.  Gokova notes that, upon an inspection of the traditional male role, “men have been living a myth that needs to be challenged” (Gokova 421).  Men need to fully realize how much our patriarchal society is hurting them and how they will benefit just as much as women from creating this “gender-sensitive society”.  The myth of male superiority has resulted in unnecessary stress on men as it restricts their creativeness, restricts their emotions, etc.  He also notes correctly that this talk of gender inequality does not only apply to heterosexual people—it needs to also apply equally to gay men and lesbian women.  Gokova remarks that a new definition of manhood is emerging (423) and that it needs to be challenged while cooperating with women to help them in fighting the gender inequality that women experience.  He concludes with, “Our vision for the creation of a society established on gender justice requires the involvement of every man and woman” (Gokova 423).

Johnson begins with the claim that if we have any hope of clearing up the confusion in our society on gender roles and what “patriarchy” means, we need to “realize that we’re stuck in a model of social life that views everything as beginning and ending with individuals”.  He notes that when we think of society only in terms of individuals we are trapped in the idea of thinking that these bad things happen only because the people in our society are bad, not the structure of society itself.  Additionally, we cannot simply blame “the system” for all of our problems because this does not allow us to understand what our problems might mean.  Johnson argues “we cannot understand the world and our lives in it without looking at the dynamic relationship between individual people and social systems”.  This relationship, he argues, has two parts: “As we participate in social systems, we are shaped by socialization and by paths of least resistance” and we, as individuals, “make social systems happen” as well.  This idea of the “path of least resistance” is dangerous to society, and especially a patriarchal society.  The reason we have had a patriarchal society for so long is because men are often persuaded by the path of least resistance, which is to simply go along with the traditional gender roles and not fight for gender equality.  Johnson begins a new part titled “The System”.  He defines a system as “any collection of interrelated parts or elements that we can think of as a whole”.  One important thing to note about any social system, including patriarchy, is that it is something that people participate in: “It’s an arrangement of shared understandings that connect people to on other and something larger than themselves”.  To further prove this point he uses the game of Monopoly, a capitalist society, and soldiers as examples.  He notes that in all three of these examples the participants might not fully realize how each system works, and therefore not much can be done to improve these systems.  Perhaps the reason not all the participants realize how each system works is because we are still using the individualistic model (and we are still using the individualistic model because it is the path of least resistance).  It is important, Johnson argues, to find a “clear sense of what patriarchy is and what it’s got to do with us” in order to find a way out of it.  In the next section Johnson describes what patriarchy is, in the attempt that understanding what it truly is will ultimately help us identify the aspects of the system that are problematic.  He notes the defining elements of a patriarchy are it “male-dominated, male-identified, male-centered, and control-obsessed character”.  Johnson explains various ways in which this male-oriented society is present today and why the various ways a patriarchal society are critical to understand.  Next Johnson explores the idea of how patriarchy shapes us and how we, in turn, play a hand in shaping it.  He notes that each and every one of us occupies many different social positions and we use these social positions as a way to construct who we are and who other people are as well.  Johnson says, “We can think of a society as a network of interconnected systems within systems, each made up of social positions and their relations to one another.”  He continues on to note how patriarchy only exists through people’s lives and says, “We’re involved in patriarchy and its consequences because we occupy social positions in it, which is all it takes”.  Johnson concludes this chapter with the example of male violence towards women.  He points out that while all men who act in a violent way towards women should be punished appropriately, “violence against women is also a pattern of behavior that reflects the oppressive patriarchal relationships that exit between men and women as dominate and subordinate groups in society as a whole”.  His concluding statement is, “The choice is how to participate in this system differently so that we can help to change not only ourselves, but the world that shapes our lives and is, in turn, shaped by them”.

Follow up Post 2/8

The three readings for today discussed how the world today contributes to feminism and to the way that women have to behave in our society. Johnson discusses patriarchy and how men and women are involved in the society that we live in and how we all perpetuate this system while Gokovo talks about how men in Zimbabwe need education to know how to keep themselves and women safe. Gokovo also talks about the culture in which these men live and how that contributes to their behavior. The paper by Frye was most interesting to me because of how she used the metaphor of the birdcage. I thought this metaphor really made sense especially in how she talks about how things can pile up against someone or some group of people but depending on how you choose to look at the situation it may seem that things are not bad. After reading this I saw on CNN.com an interesting article about women who work and have children. It showed that the children whose mother’s worked more weighed more and also showed a response from a blog of a group of women who called themselves “Working Moms Against Guilt.” This seemed to fit into what Frye talked about in that these small things add up to keep women down in some cases and although this is a small thing to some minds it can also be seen as adding another reason why women should revert to the older times and they way women used to behave. I thought the blog was an interesting way for women to get together so that they could be take solace in knowing many other mothers felt the way they did and also that they were not alone in working and having a family. This blog is most likely a comfort to many women.

The link to the article is http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/02/04/children.bmi.moms/index.html

And the link to the blog is http://www.workingmomsagainstguilt.com/

Main Post 2/3

Chapter 4 of Enlightened Sexism is all about TV shows and movies made in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Douglas begins using Clueless as an example.  She remarks that it is a “turning point in the depiction of girls and women in film and TV” (Douglas 102).  She continues on to describe the plot line and how it was the first movie to use the female voiceovers, which truly describe the inner thoughts of a female on a day-to-day basis.  By the late 1990s a new form of feminism had emerged—one where girls could dress scantily while fighting for equal opportunities for women.  Despite the popularity of Clueless, the real groundbreaker was Ally McBeal, Douglas argues.  She notes many places in the plot of the show during which Ally gave the viewers a new perspective on a woman’s place in society, while still struggling with the many other issues that go along with being a female (wanting a husband).  Douglas then goes on to explain Bridget Jones’s Diary, Miss Congeniality, and Legally Blonde and how these three movies have also advance the perceived role of women in and out of the home and workplace.  She comes to the conclusion in the last paragraph of the chapter that while all the examples she has given all have strong, career-minded women, “…such professions offered precious little satisfaction or fulfillment compared to the love of a man” (Douglas 124-5).

Chapter 5 begins with Douglas explaining how Wanda Sykes is almost perfectly able to “code switch”.  Through this ability to “code switch” people like Sykes and Chandra Wilson’s character on Grey’s Anatomy are able to be both a professional woman living in a white world while still maintaining some of their cultural background as well.  By employing the so called “Black Speak” Douglas argues that Sykes and Wilson are able to be a lot more upfront with the issues at hand than a white woman would be able to.  After discussing Sykes and Wilson, Douglas explains how our society has been able to “get to a place where a TV show can have a black woman as a surgeon” (Douglas 133).  She goes through various stages of the hip-hop movement, including the female artists, and how the lyrics in hip-hop songs were able to tackle real issues about sexism.  Douglas continues on to explain how many TV shows of all black casts appealed to both races, and then notes that “By 1995, four of the top ten sitcoms…had female leads” (Douglas 143).  Once Douglas had segued into black women on TV, she turned her attention to Oprah.  She acknowledged that many people today do not first and foremost consider Oprah’s race when describing her, but instead acknowledge all she has done and her success.  Douglas explains how Oprah is also able to “code switch” and how she is also a huge contradiction—on the one hand she “embodies embedded feminism as the richest woman in the entertainment industry, who renders such success for women a given and seeks to use her power to provide role models for other women. On the other hand, she is an entertainer, and what she produces…must sell products or they will fail” (Douglas 150).  Douglas ends this chapter seemingly confused about how to truly feel about all she has just described, and hesitant to tell us to learn something from the likes of Sykes, Oprah, Queen Latifah, etc. because they pretend “we don’t need to take on the burdens of feminist political struggle” when they all serve as examples of how truly unequal the black women still are.

Follow Up Post 2/3

Susan Douglas continues in chapters 4 and 5 of Enlightened Sexism to tell us about the media and other outlets have developed women into a place of non-equality and subservience to men. I particularly liked Douglas’ interpretations of Miss Congeniality and Legally Blonde because these movies are two of my favorites. I am very familiar with them which helped me to fully understand Douglas’ meanings. Douglas helped me to see why these movies have subtle digs at women and poke fun at strong women and how masked these things are in the fact that the movies are supposed to be funny. I also like how she described Oprah’s role in this and how Oprah has been a great role model for many women she also plays into the world of men and plays into doing things for the money she can get from people. But through all this Oprah is a black woman whose opinion is respected and she has a lot of financial power that she shares with downtrodden people. In thinking about Oprah it is sad how much she has risen from her childhood yet she is still controlled by money and what other people want from her. She may now have the financial freedom to leave her show but if she wishes to keep making money she must still conform in some ways. I also like how Douglas described how Oprah and other black women used different ways of talking in different situations so that they were relatable to both black and white people and how this was representative of how black women felt they needed to behave in the world in order to be accepted/respected. I also enjoyed when she discussed Bailey’s role in Grey’s Anatomy and how she was unique because of her positions as a married black working mother and woman.

It seems as though Douglas is moving towards even more present time so I am excited to see what she picks out of things that I will be even more familiar with.