ginny t. 10/31

(ok, this is the last last-ditch blog effort)

Thank God I came to class last week, otherwise I'd still have no idea what Louis Althussur was talking about.

"Ideology represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to their real conditions of existence." (C 44)

Me thinks Althusser must have spent some time exploring either American high schools or the "typical" American office--office life is just like high school, only with smoke breaks--in order to come up with this theory. While that is probably not the case, he sure did he nail the cultures.

Both the high school and office cultures are about organizing individuals into neat, clearly labeled categories that force us to function obediently inside whichever group we are placed. At school, ideologies take the shape of cliques: the jocks, the preps, the drama freaks (that was my particular pigeon hole), etc. In the office people are divided not only into categories by rank--director, manager, the lowly admin assistant (me again)--but we're categorized by department as well.

In high school, ideologies only work if people allow themselves to be dictated to by the ideologies...and, they do. It's good practice for when we're introduced into the working world, when we have less of a choice about subscribing to ideologies. In the office, you either conform to the ideology that governs you, or tragedy ensues.

The hapless middle-manager Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) from The Office is a perfect example of what happens when people step outside the roles set for them by ideologies. He is always getting into cringe-worthy predicaments when he blurs the lines between manager and subordinate; when Michael steps outside his ideology as a manager to cavort with his staff, instead of tragedy, we get hysterical buffoonery.

ginny t. Herman & Chomsky

(note from 11/27/06: thus commences my last-ditch effort to not kill my blog grade)

Wow. Reading this text yesterday made me experience one of those weird, blinding moments of clarity in which I was actually able to see outside of myself and my little sphere of awareness to realize that the lives of a good portion of our (post)modern Western society revolves completely around money. These people aren't trudging to a factory every day, toiling away at producing tangible, actual commodities...I'm talking about the people who go to work every day to trade stocks and analyze markets and invest dividends and orchestrate corporate takeovers. Every day, millions and billions of dollars are being made and traded; something that doesn't even exist in reality...just as a concept (and supposedly there's supposed to be the tangible gold that backs up the value of the dollar, but no one ever sees it...) I never really thought about the ephemeral nature of our economy. But maybe that's because I don't really have a whole lot of money myself....

I guess since I have spent the majority of my work life sheltered in the non-profit community, I never really gave these professions much of a thought. Sure, I know money is out there, that it's a thing that people bust their asses to amass, but I never really put much thought into the business of making money. The concept itself seems to absurd to me. The fact that money has no real value other than what we ascribe to it seems criz-ay-zee. It very well may be that I have no idea what I'm talking about...but that, my friends, is why I am a Psych major.

Captain PMS, 11/14

Captain’s Blog Stardate 11/26

Currently Deep Thunder is in our kitchen explaining feminism to his eight-year old daughter. He is much more diplomatic on the subject when presenting it to her. You should hear his definition of the patriarchy, it’s downright enlightening.

The class with the experiment was interesting to me because of the extreme differences of opinion within the class. I always think it illuminates some of our societies helplessness when you see how differently twenty people can feel after experiencing the same event. Its all in your perspective. I can side with no one in the class’s opinion because my perspective is unique, as is each of yours. How can we do anything except acknowledge all of our differences and agree to disagree. The most interesting thing about the class to me though, was the fact that we have discussed some of the most sensitive issues such as, race, politics, and religion, and nothing has heated up the room like the basic differences between men and women. The subject just inspires debate because we can never understand the perspective of the other. We cannot possess hormones that we don’t, and the fact is we are very chemically driven. It is as difficult as asking a duck to feel like a penguin when he has never even seen the snow. Or something. Whatever, you think of something better. Penguins and ducks…that’s what it boils down to for me.

Well on that brilliant little gem I’m off. I always say leave them with a bang.

Beam me up ROG. I’m out.

Deep Thunder- 11/14- The Estrogen Revolution

OK, ladies, I’m sure that you would like me to admit that after this class experiment I am enlightened as to how you feel as women being silenced. Um, sorry, but, not so much. What me and the other men (all fine specimens of manly manliness, I might add) learned from this experiment is that being instantly and completely marginalized is a horrible thing to live through and that power can corrupt in an amazingly short period of time. For you ladies that were surprised at our reaction, please take the phallo-logo-centrism out of the equation here, you would have acted the same way. In addition, it was our last class to discuss anything and although I appreciate Dr. Rog’s genius, the timing was bad.

Also, I must say that I am disappointed in a few things, Ladies. For one, you were entirely too happy to oppress. One of you “others” even asked if you should let the men speak at all, recommended that you “take a vote on it.” How democratic of you. And the anger that you let fly at us was a bit unwarranted as we do not sum up the patriarchal control apparatus; we are just as subject to it as you are.

I have to add that through the experience of the class I have gained tremendous insight into reality as we know it, and even though you (my classmates) never show up for the study groups you announce, I have enormous respect for your intelligence and insight (even you, ladies j/k). I think that we have moved far beyond the party, sex, and racial lines and identified our common interests and needs. If we could teach this to the world, perhaps, we would not sound like such freaks when we attempt to discuss these topics outside of class.

I wish you all the very best.
Big-ups

JOH The Lost Blog

Greetings ~

I missed a blog, I think the first one of the second half, so
when I heard a news report on the way to work this morning, I figured I would pass on the example.

Earlier in the year we discussed the PoMo characteristic of view them, or OTHERS, or the ALTERITY as having less value, or deserving of less consideration than we Americans. Relating to Zizek's statement:

"It is surprising how little of the actual carnage we see [...] in clear contrast to reporting on Third World catastrophes [...] The real horror happens there, not here" (M 232)

a clear message was sent yesterday in the realm of U.S. military justice. Check out this bit of information -

[A US marine has been sentenced to 18 months' jail in a Californian military court over his role in the kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi man in April.
The sentence of John Jodka III was reduced yesterday after he pleaded guilty to his part in the killing of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad. The military judge in the case, Lieutenant Colonel David Jones, said five years in prison and a dishonourable discharge were appropriate, but due to a "very fortuitous pre-trial agreement", the sentence was reduced. Jodka III is one of seven marines and a navy corpsman accused of kidnapping and murdering Awad, a retired Iraqi policemen, in April this year. The crippled man was picked up, taken to a roadside hole and shot dead. The soldiers later conspired to cover up the incident.
The 20-year-old soldier, the youngest and lowest ranking member of the squad, had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice, while charges of murder and kidnapping were dropped. As part of his plea deal, he has agreed to give evidence against the other defendants in the case.]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1949429,00.html

Wow.

Wow.

Life really doesn't mean as much over there. I was shocked this morning while listening to the report. LOOK, I am in real touch with the idea that I have NO IDEA what pressure U.S. soldiers are under over there. I can imagine that being over there could be close to a living hell. I got it. I also know that humans are capable of some f'ed up stuff under duress, pressure, and out of fear. Got that too. Additionally, I know that the media can alter the perception of the message in order to achieve the impact they are aiming for. Yet this incident appears to be about a man, a human (yes, though he's from the land of sand and the AK-47, he is human) being abducted, murdered, and the attempted cover up.

The sentence was reduced, from ~5-8yrs to 18 months, because he said "Ok, ok, I did it. That was bad. Oops!" No dishonorable discharge?!

How might this trial/sentence look if the group of American soldiers abducted, say, Bob Jenkins from Plymouth, MA, out of Toyota Camry, took him to a roadside hole, shot him in the back of the head, and tried to cover up the story - obstructing JUSTICE to save their own ass, preserve their code?

Now, I do have this in perspective. I do not plan to chew my day with anger over this. It is just interesting to see some more of this theory in action. What an intriguing (frightful) experience it would be to have, for a minute, or hour, but not much more, a glimpse of foreign emotion when considering cases such as this one. I wonder how Arab-Americans feel when they see this subjugation of human value.

ix. Final Blog

I came up with this blog while I was eating sushi, so probably ideas of other (regarding to food) and exotic probably coursed through my subconscious and I grabbed a napkin and wrote down these thoughts, which I am reproducing here:
Is being attracted to the Other only a sociological defined imperative or could there possibly be some physiological basis for such proclivities in societies. In a fairly recent medical journal, I think it was in JAMA or some such journal??, a test was conducted where several women smelled t-shirts men had worn around for a couple of hours. The objective was for each woman to choose a shirt from the samples that she thought smelled “best/good.” Having compiled all the date, scientists found a pattern that the women tended to designate best/good to shirts that belonged to men whom were more genetically dissimilar than the individual designating woman.
Of course sometimes the “Other” is so sociologically implanted as too different, that it can be unappealing. I remember the scene in The Gods Must Be Crazy where the bushman protagonist spies the white female anthropologist undressing behind some bushes and she quickly covers up her body from his “gaze.” The irony is that the whole time he was looking at her he was merely reflecting how unattractively maggot-colored this woman’s skin was.

That’s all folks. And I must say, that it has been…

PetalswiththeWind 11/14/2006

In Tuesday’s class some of my fellow human classmates, Shaun, and Kyle, were infuriated at the point, why men of their generation are getting flak because of their forefathers? And meanwhile, R.B., kept on probing, “What’s the solution?” Not to mention Steve-O’s ranting and raving down there in blog cyberspace! It is so obvious, Feminism and the “Other”, are still controversial topics. Their questions and commentary have been floating in my head ever since class, and I can't shake it off. First, recognizing there is a problem instead of always shaking it off is one of many steps to multiple solutions. I mean there is a “problem” isn’t there? Can we all at least acknowledge that? Or are we all just arguing about nothing? Furthermore, alternatively there is not just one solution, as the patriarchy has led us to believe.
I suppose we’re all tired of the limited roles that the signs of the patriarchal hegemony has gagged and bounded us to: man, woman, girl, boy, Black, White, Hispanic, straight, gay, heterosexual, homosexual, facts, science, lies, truths, answers, hypothesizes, possibilities, assumptions, potentials, weak, strong, red, yellow, white, green, blue; face it, these are just defining noun heads with its describing and limiting parts of speech “crafting our reality for us”(Dr.John DeNigis,Leadership and Management Class Lecture).
There are flaws in this metanarrative structure of the patriarchy, it has a binary system that destroys the nature that science can’t hide: man/woman, male/female, hermaphrodite/hermaphrodite; thus, this is where the system falters; this is where it hesitates and exposes its flaws, for the whole world to see, through the speech of the patriarchy. hooks declares, the present narrative of racism in western culture has been socially converted not transformed:
"And even though the focus is often on the ways that this past was “superior” to the present, this cultural narrative relies on the stereotypes of the “primitive,” even as it eschews the term, to evoke a world where black people were in harmony with nature and with one another. This narrative is linked to white western conceptions of the dark Other, not to a radical questioning of those representations"(M 370).

A social reform of the Other can not take place until the language used to represent human beings as a whole is altered. Macherey affirms hooks declaration, by acknowledging the presence of prejudice already embedded in language, transcended to us through speech and writing:
"A prejudice is that which is not judged in language but before it, but which nevertheless offered as a judgment. Prejudice, the pseudo-judgment, is the utterance which remains imperceptibly beyond language. Yet this proposition has two meanings: speech evokes a prejudice as judgment; but equally, by the fact of evocation, it holds it up as a prejudice. It creates an allegory of judgment. And speech exists because it wishes for this allegory whose appearance it prepares for" (C 19).

Human beings often miss out on all types of opportunities for love, be it romantic or platonic; due to what only appears to be minute vocabulary;however,really are astronomical monstrous ideologies lurking and hiding behind those little itty bitty words(now that sounds like a bully to me)…
He let go…
For only I alone could find the essentials elements of me…
And even though it was there all along; the outside space had displaced my real insides…
Positioning of the political undermines us personally!
Alterity, tear off the construction smothering our realities…
The Ones’ that stifles our individualities…
and binds them to Generic Type Personalities...
Trapping and holding our mentalities to a degreeless SEVERITY…
And then, has the audacity to claim that’s rational sanity?!?
“Crazy”, “paroles” the untamable and the under-domesticated!
Even the “materialisticities” have a higher subverted place in our realities…
Brand Names: Persons, Places, And Things…
I let go, and stopped hiding behind those signs, you know!
Nor, will I allow them to hang signs above my head so low…
That hanging STILL takes the life out of me..
Without my instincts I’m brain dead, ya see...
So we let go, in order to embrace and accept love in its many forms, at love’s fullest capacity, without barring or limiting its potentialities!
Each reality is an individualized masterpiece, not a generalized photocopy!
Only we have the ability to paint our own realities.
The only “CULTure” that accurately represents the human race is humanity.

May Peace Be With You All!
POMO RULES!
HOOH RA!

TyG - Hebdige - R.I.P. Common Sense

According to Dick Hebdige (spell it, maybe; pronounce it correctly, never), ideology's normal, healthy home is "beneath conciousness," that it's transformed into what is popularly referred to as "normal common sense," the underlying personal but societal map that each person follows unconsciously. The idea that this ideology, this so-called common sense, may hide from daylight sounds likely: although he disparages the idea of ideology as "world view"(148), I rather like that term for the thing -- as I understand the concept, our world view functions much as does a pair of eyeglasses, influencing (focusing or blurring) our perceptions and affecting our interpretation of everything we encounter -- EXCEPT that we do not consciously don our worldview, it's more like RK surgery done while we sleep.

So, why do I feel common sense is dead? Many years ago, a boss complained to me of the difficulty he had finding workers with "common sense" (he was not criticizing me, he was happy with my "rare gift"). I replied that common sense had died out long ago, and that what is necessary today is to clearly and unambiguously outline for employees exact, measurable expectations, then to follow up with periodic check-ups, and, finally, to tweak instructions as needed (thank you, Philip Crosby). He hemmed and hawwed, and I went away before he could find something wrong with my performance.

Common sense, per Hebdige, is one thing to the ruling order, and another thing to each of the subcultures or counter-cultures around that hegemony -- in effect, common sense is no longer "common" between the ruling class -- ie employers -- and the ruled class -- employees. My "rare gift" was a product of my family upbringing, my race, my education, all the things that comprise what I know as worldview and Hebdige titles ideology. Others that this middle-class white male had hired were less similar to him, and their "common" did not match his. The only solution, besides hiring only people who pass the "just-like-me" test, is to draw a clear picture of job requirements and follow through on the process -- or maybe to keep hiring "losers" so you can complain loud and long about what the world is coming to...

R.I.P. Common Sense

RB, Bourdieu

The media’s “audience ratings mindset” (333) is little different than corporation’s shareholder appeasement mindset. In fact, audience ratings are important in order to create ad revenue which is important in order to appease shareholders. Bourdieu writes that journalism has a distinguishing characteristic: “it is much more dependent on external forces than other fields of cultural production, such as mathematics, literature, law, science, and so on” (333). This is disturbing considering mass distribution of information is, arguably, more important than anything else on that list. After all, the media is a filter through which math, lit, law, science, and so on pass.

However, someone once told me that the media is a good indicator of how free a society is. The more the news is openly critical of hegemony, the freer the country. Though US news isn’t without propaganda and censorship, it isn’t without criticism of hegemony either: corporate media control is no secret, Bill Moyers still works for PBS, and people accuse our president of engineering the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Even Fox News outfoxed itself in a segment meant to disprove accusations of water boarding being torture. In the segment, soldiers tip an anchorman’s head back and pour water on his face and the anchorman says something like, “This isn’t so bad.” Then the soldiers begin to cover his face in saran wrap, and the anchor reacts the same way most humans would react to torture—he freaks out.

TyG – Foucault – The Panoptic Classroom

As this blog is waaaay belated, I have the luxury of scanning back over other entries:

“On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.”

Uh-oh, did someone already discuss this angle of things? If so, am I in violation of the Rollins Academic Honor Code? What if the repetition is inadvertent or sub-conscious on my part; what if I simply don’t REMEMBER a point being made before me: am I still guilty? Dare I go on? Will I be pilloried for an innocent mistake?

George Orwell’s Big Brother, as was definitely mentioned before by ginny t, is certainly WATCHING all of us here at Rollins College.... every one of us has been forced into the position of “snitch” so as to uphold the “honor” of our illustrious academic institution.

Now, don’t misunderstand me; I believe the concept behind the AHC is commendable. But does it go over the edge in drafting all students into service for the hegemony? I, for one, was not offered a choice in this matter when I “signed up” – does this situation mirror that of working at a business that changes hands here in Florida, a Right to Work (right to be fired!) State – “either sign this new non-compete document, or hit the road, Jack”? Why can’t I simply promise to watch out for MYSELF, to not give or accept any “unauthorized assistance”? Who am I to judge what is or is not “authorized” in someone else’s behavior? More importantly, what about a paranoid and inexperienced zealot who brings havoc into my life by “witnessing” my “violation”? What about misinterpretation? Maybe I was asking someone for a date, or telling them their fly was open... do I now have to go through the embarrassment and aggravation of explaining my actions? Why can’t I simply be treated as the adult I am, and TRUSTED to do the RIGHT THING without copying a pledge onto every assignment?

We are presumed innocent in our society; this mandated “good citizenship” tilts the scale towards the presumption of guilt: we must all carefully scrutinize our neighbors, because we expect them to be doing wrong. This creates an unhealthy and paranoid environment – even if you know you’re not cheating, you must now take extra care not to cross the line into even the appearance of rule-breaking.

Michel Foucault is alive and well and directing traffic from the panoptic tower on Holt Avenue.

ginny t. 11/14

Controversy! What a polarizing class lecture!

So I've spent the majority of my adult life thinking I didn't know a whole lot about feminism,…I certainly didn't go around calling myself a feminist (not that it's a four letter word;…I just have a hard time even calling myself a "woman" because I still feel like I'm about 12 -- 15 on a good day.) But after the lecture, feminism to me is less about fighting for equality and more about recognizing our differences and opening up dialogues with men, and even other women.

I really had no idea how ingrained in our society gender difference are until we started talking in class. Things that I have always taken for granted as "normal" or "accepted" or "the way it is" comes across as covertly discriminatory. For instance, I recently had to take a personality test (the Myers-Briggs) at work, and my results came out 50/50 for ISTJ (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking,Judging) and ESTJ (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging). I was told I had to choose which one was more accurate, and although I identified better with the ESTJ, I was reluctant to take up that banner, as that personality is the characteristic "ball-busting" type (I could write an entire blog on the meaning of that phrase alone, but I digress...…) The ESTJ is strong, assertive, opinionated, a take-charge kind of person, and I shyed away from identifying with such a strong personality, for fear of being seen as too "manly" or "unfeminine." Surely a man would be probably not even hesitate to accept such an attractive personality assessment, but as a woman, I have been taught from birth that "good girls" are the quiet, submissive types, and to act outside of that preordained role would be inappropriate, or worse yet, scandalous. And I didn't even grown up in a traditional household! As a strong, single mother, my mom raised me to be self-reliant and confident; she always supported me and told me there was nothing I couldn't do. And yet, the concept of what it means to be a "good girl," well-mannered, nurturing, caring, soft, & sweet, seeped in through society, family, tv, literature, everywhere and stamped their imprint onto my brain. It's a never-ending dance, shifting identities between "feminine" (read: socially appropriate) and "unfeminine" (read: masculine, i.e. out-of-my-league/scope of knowledge).

This last class discussion, though, has helped me to open my eyes to the fact a lot of "rules" that dictate social behavior and set roles for men and women are rooted in oppression. Again, I'm looking at what is not being said, and starting to ask why.

(Oh, yeah, and I totally chose ESTJ as my personality of choice. I am woman!! Rwaarrr!)

AS 11/14

I’m deciding not to comment on last Tuesday’s class. Primarily because it’s done its job well, and I’ve been talking with various classmates this entire week about the class and Dr. Rog’s experimentation in subverting the hegemony. I have nothing to add to the topic that my brilliant classmates haven’t already covered in their blogs. I do want to discuss what I’ve learned. First, what I don’t know -- I’m still not sure exactly what PoMo is other then everything that everyone has ever said about it. Infuriarating and disturbing, yes, but also insanely exhilarating. I am now unable to watch television uncritically, advertisements cause my circuits to fry, and lunch is no longer a simple matter of eating. No, PoMo intrudes even upon my enjoyment of a Cuban sandwich. I went to a Cuban café this weekend. It’s a cute little shop tucked away on a side street in Winter Park. I walked in, skirted several large woven baskets filled with fake loaves of bread, ordered at a stainless steel counter, and sat at a table with a glass top covering a burlap sack with the words “Authentic Cuban Café” stamped in large, no-nonsense black letters. Huh, I thought to myself, authenticity is at the authority of anyone handy with black spray paint and a stencil. Niiiice. This thought went through my head on a breezy, lazy Saturday afternoon when all I was trying to do was grab a decent meal. PoMo strikes again. The hegemonic bricolage of the culture industry assaults my senses wherever I go. Now that I know the signs, I can no longer escape the signification.

PetalswiththeWind hooks

As an ordained “Other” in more than one linear sense, as I was reading bell hook’s Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, it was hard not to think about my own experience in my relationship with another, “Other”.
I told my man once…
“Babe, we’re the same! I just have more pigmentation in my skin than you, baby”.
Squinting through long clumplike strands of hair, curly deep dirty blonde hair, falling right in front of his face; he looked straight at me with his big lightest blue eyes, pursed his pink lips, peered right into mine, then, smiled from there to eternity. No parole contained in any langue could express his response as he did nonverbally. For him and me, it was a small victory for humanity! Recognizing first and foremost we are human beyond any of the identities condemned upon us by the ideologies of society. Gratifyingly enough, we’re in love and not looking for any mainstream transformations; but, circumstantially due to our appointed social roles; our personal is the political.
hooks recognizes, “Whether or not desire for contact with the Other, for connection rooted in the longing for pleasure, can act as a critical intervention challenging and subverting racist domination, inviting and enabling critical resistance, is an unrealized political possibility” (367). In other words, political opportunity to reverse generalized stereotypical, prejudiced ideology of the patriarchy.
The patriarchy admits that they are at fault for the present mundane condition of mainstream society, due to their inditement of sameness in Western culture. hooks reveals, “from the standpoint of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the hope is that desires for the “primitive” or fantasies about the Other can be continually exploited, and that such exploitation will occur in a manner that reinscribes the status quo”(367).
If the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” desires for their hegemonic system to remain intact by finding new ways of exploiting the Other, by proxy they are admitting due to the present patriarchal ideological structure in place “the mainstream white culture is so dull” (366). The over civilization of human beings in the throes of mainstream society has become monotonous, and this “revival” brings Caucasians closer to the parts of themselves that is the suppressed underside of tyrannical hegemony; which then brings them closer to their natural state of being, in whereas domestication leads astray. Therefore, by allowing the commodification of the “Other”, permits mainstream culture to break the monotony of the machine without interrupting the lavish lifestyles of the powerful patriarchy.

As Janet would say...
"That's the End?"
"NO!"

Steve-O They all lived happily ever after!

IS THIS REALLY THE END?

What A Long Strange Trip It Has Been!!!!

Before I talk about the brutal silence of last week’s class, I must help Cixous and her warped mentality on a heterosexual male’s thinking on homosexuality. Cixous writes, “Why does man fear being a woman?” (M 159). For me, it’s not being a woman I fear…Rather, it’s “the scepter’s great shadow” I fear!!! For good reason, there is NO God-given place for the “single idol” to go on a man’s body. When a straight male is thinking about sex with another man, he undoubtedly is thinking about the disturbing visual just described, Not, what being a woman might mean emotionally or even physically. If god gave man other orifices, who knows…BUT HE DIDN’T! Once again, we find a female theorist trying to rationalize topics, which could never be rightfully understood as an “OTHER.” She is making Huge generalizations and, mostly, is just under analyzing the greatest and most obvious concerns when it comes to guy on guy sexual relationships.

METROSEXUAL— a young, urban, heterosexual male with liberal political views, an interest in fashion, and a refined sense of taste.

Just wanted to put that out there for my readers to ponder, because if you read any of Cixous, you will find randomly placed or awkward wording. This is me being a woman…Cixous that is.

And let’s go where most of the male readers have been waiting for, Lesbianism- it just seems easier if not altogether a RIGHT thing for ladies to do. I think I will have to keep this observation short, I will just say, girls have an inherently more natural “Nature/Mind” for bisexual tendencies; that being said, “Femininity and bisexuality go together,” (M 160). I couldn’t have expressed it any better myself.

Is Cixous saying that for women to escape phallic authority, to refuse the patriarchal, to deny the other, they can resort to bisexuality?

I’m sure Cixous’s psychiatrist is a rich man/woman! Feud could have a riot with her grand generalizations on the plight of women. And if our in class experiment was to prove her case, Our POMO-Women would have not lived up to the hype. Yes, by not letting the men speak, the masculine ear was, or at least it seemed, attuned to the voices privileged to speak. However, in my opinion, I was listening more to what the in-class ladies had to say before the experiment then during. By taking away our right to speak, my want to listen was removed. I found myself in Cixous’s idea that “You never give something for nothing” (M 161).

And what good does writing do if it has to pass a bunch of empowered women before it is published. By giving the women the power to filter our comments, they felt they needed to enforce this power. If R.O.G. would have said, guys have to write, but nothing about the ladies having to agree with what was being said, things would have been different.

The good thing to come out of the experiment for me is a realization of perspective. It’s always a great thing to be able to see the “Other,” whatever that other may be. For change to take place, we must experience…

This semester has been one gigantic experience. I learned so much and I will continue to use the tools and ideas found over the last 15 weeks to deconstruct the Postmodern elements I come into contact with. Our classes have been amazing grounds for opinion, debate, growth, and insight…I enjoyed getting to learn with you guys…YOU ALL ROCK!!!!

ONE

sardine -- 11/14 -- be quiet

Once upon a time, in another life, for a short time I was a femme au foyer. It was a life in waiting. It was a life of being quiet. It was a life of being criticized for staying in dependency.... Tais-toi, I am working. Tais-toi, I am writing. Tais-toi, I am being.

My children scream tais-toi at each other when they fight. I shout it at our dog when she barks. I bellow it while driving when my children start rocking the car in their fighting over Gameboy. Is it more polite to tell a person to be quiet in French than to say shut up in English? I, a failed housewife, suppress free speech.

I failed miserably in my attempt to be the traditional housewife, or even an adequate housewife. I dusted and cleaned, burned the food, broke the dishwasher, quieted the children, and smiled the smile of silence. Silence in English. Silence in appalling French.

Cixous states “every woman knows the torture of beginning to speak aloud” (163). Suppressed for so long, there is no knowing the outcome of speaking; will it erupt and overtake the situation? Will there be witnesses to condemn or to pity or to humiliate? Will speaking cause momentary embarrassment? Or will it just be ignored? Will it fizzle into nothingness?

To speak aloud of long suppressed desires for identity and experiences of the long concealed. The torture is in that moment before, in the indecision, and in the outcome of disregard. The torture is using a language not one’s own. Suppressing the self becomes the role. Suppression becomes the identity.

Did you men in class get pleasure from your silence and momentary woman-ness? Or did the frustration of being ignored and discarded, evaluated and found needing cause discomfort? It is an ugly experience to be silenced. It generates an unbearable resentment that overwhelms and must be forced down with a smile or a laugh or sarcasm or a smirk. Did you think your reactions went unobserved?

Mony Post -Class Feminism.

I am so sad that I missed last Tuesda's class. Feminism is one of my favorite topics. I heard it was an female dominated discussion. I did go back and read the blogs - interesting stuff

I read Sardine’s blog and her comments about the negative terms associated with women. She said that one of the most insulting things that a woman can be labeled is a “bull dyke”, and I agree, that is low, but then I was reminded of something that I was told by a man a few years ago that deeply hurt me…he said to “stop acting like a cunt”. This was a label that I still do not understand. What does this word mean? And why has it become a horrible term that is associated with women, and at the same time a word that is often seen as empowering in certain circles? This is the ultimate undefined label.

I decided to reflect on my personal incident again and really dissect what this male had said. First, he chose to use the word “act” in connection to something that does not “act”, and second he decided to use a word that is negatively associated with females and female genitals in order to get his point across. He got it across all right. I left. But if one of my girlfriends had said this to me, I probably would have called her one right back.

There are books, a play, numerous paintings, and a song tilted after the wonderful “C” word. Women made the majority of these creations. Talk about the paradox of a man using this term compared to women. I actually bought the “C’ book because I thought it was empowering. Hmm…I am a walking contradiction. I was deeply hurt when a male used the world to insult me, yet at the same time I consider it a “hip” neo-feminist term. Help!

Mony Pre -class Butler.

“ The political assumption that there must be a universal basis for feminism, one which must be found in an identity assumed to exist cross-culturally, often accompanies the notion that the oppression of women has some singular form discernable in the universal hegemonic structure of patriarchy or masculine domination.” – Butler (191)

I hate the fact that every women’s studies course I have taken, whether it is literature, humanities, or history, states that we are living in a post-feminism era and the concept of feminism and feminists are dead. Ahh…this statement upsets me. I work in a male dominated field and I can tell you first hand, that I have to fight for equality in the workplace, for without my endeavors; I would have little or no professional movement. The glass ceiling would stop me dead in my tracks.

I know that when I call myself a feminist in a social situation, or the workplace, I will automatically repel quite a few men and women. “Oh no – not another scary feminist at the dinner party.” Why does this word have such a negative connotation? Why do some assume that because I am a feminist, I don’t shave my legs, I am a bull dyke, I hate men, or I sit around listening to Ani Difranco and the Indigo Girls all day. This is not the case. We live in a patriarchal society, and yes, I agree that women have come a far way, but we still remain blind to this hegemony. Look at politics - any woman who is slightly challenging, is labeled a bitch, or is considered too “polarizing”. Hillary Clinton and Sandra Day O’Connor come to mind. After graduating at the top of her class from Stanford Law, O’Connor was only offered legal secretary positions; she had to beg a firm to hire her as an attorney. Yes, times have changed, but not fully. We (men and women) must continue the fight for equality. I promise, women are not yet equal.

Steve-O And a Right Hook to Bell

“it is this willingness to transgress racial boundaries within the realm of the sexual that eradicates the fear that one must always conform to the norm to remain ‘safe’” (M 367).

So white on white sex is the ONLY safe sex? Prophylactics are thrown out the window in the discussion of “racialized sexual encounters.” As Bell makes her argument, she bypasses the more obvious Otherness found in genitalia and decides to include skin color as an addition to sexual opposition. Bell is encouraging biracial encounters in an attempt to challenge the racist dominated white supremacy. To prove her argument, sex with Others is needed. I love how she cleverly calls a person’s sexual preference: “one’s mainstream positionality.”

Now to the world of fucking for experience, I think Bell’s decision to use blond-male-jock-boys as her study group undoubtedly has created generalizations on top of stereotypes on top of poor test subjects. Firstly, I think it would be safe to assume most Yale students come from the sheltered lives of prep schools and privilege (hmmm, can we say A&S). In many ways, as the socioeconomic rift between the uber-rich and middle and lower class grows, there is a separation of real life experience and commonality with the majority. I would not doubt that the rich Yaley African American males where talking about getting inside of as many white girls as they could as well….and they wouldn’t even have to leave campus to New Haven…how nice. The Yale boys transformation from innocence to experience is not analogous to every other white male in America, In fact it gives the other white males the sense of being “Others.” Can’t we all be an Other to someone? Are these boys really calling upon other-race women to witness and participate in their rite of passage, or are they just horny? And Ladies…I know you have a conquering type mentality as well. Any woman reading this blog is, or knows, someone of the same gender who tries to shop for sex in the same way. The difference is that those ladies don’t feel more experienced; I think they feel more powerful. There is a sense of sexual possession that infects their mind and makes them hungry for more material acquisitions [sexual experiences]. Ladies, do you agree or disagree? (Please comment). And what about the submissive sexual partner, male or female, regardless of race, are they “Others”?
Back to Bells test subjects and the Yale boys “affirmation of cultural plurality” through sex with the “Other”. In the mind of those not so fortunate (as to be a Yale jock…if you would call that fortune), to experience cultural plurality would mean to get rich and travel the world, not have sex with hot Asian ladies! Although, if that happened along the way…

Furthermore, I disagree with Bells assumption that the boys aren’t attuned to the racial domination of their forefathers…I wonder if there were any Jews in this group of jocks? Again Bell weakens her argument through blatant stereotypes and generalizations. Accordingly, how can she attest to the change in mental perception once “Other” sex has taken place? Did she question these Jocks after they succeeded in their quest for Otherness?

Would it be plausible for a man to make the case for the exploitation of “Others” as being a way out of the shade of Un-Other?

Are Holt Students seen as Others?

Do you feel Otherish?

PetalswiththeWind 11/07/2006

Newsflash coming to you live here from Central Florida, “We’re In The Dark!”

Media is used as a presence to keep hegemonic ideologies intact. With this presence forever perpetuating itself through broadcast promulgation, citizens embody and reflect the permeated hegemonic mindset. This limits individuals within society from thinking on their own, and prevents them from finding new ways of doing things, leaving them with the only choice of replicating the culturally set precedent. Bourdieu speaks about the affects of the psychosis of hegemony, “Things happen that nobody wants but seem somehow to have been willed” (329). He calls it, “the danger of simplistic criticism”. The hegemony only wants its citizens staring long enough just to glance at the broadcast or headlines of the media, in order not to see past their camouflage. The Media points only to the parts of reality too obvious to hide, thus, partial truths are amplified to a whole within its entirety. Since there are fake particles mixed in with the one real cell of actual reality, as Baudrillad advises in his theory; suggests society should wait for more parts of the whole to come in focus in order to accurately assess bigger pieces of the picture and then start to consider several possible hypothesizes. Not just the obvious one dimensional signs that stimulates only a small percentage of their brains that the media “sells”;without being aware of the innumerable dimensions surrounding their language that keeps people in the dark oblivion, which is the present state of existence. With the hegemonic power subverted through the media, one’s mind goes into a lull of nothingness that the signs of consciousness from all media bring to a head. The depoliticization of society is a way for the leading dominant influences to neutralize the power of their competition, who in turn are their very own suppressed citizens.

sardine -- pre 11/14 -- cixous

“Writing is the passageway, the entrance, the exit, the dwelling place of the other in me – the other that I am and am not, that I don’t know how to be, but that I feel passing, that makes me live – that tears me apart, disturbs me, changes me, who? -- a feminine one, a masculine one, some? – several, some unknown, which is indeed what gives me the desire to know and from which all life soars. This peopling gives neither rest nor security, always disturbs the relationship to ‘reality,’ produces an uncertainty that gets in the way of the subject’s socialization. It is distressing, it wears you out; and for men this permeability, this nonexclusion is a threat, something intolerable” (Cixous, 160).

I feel moved by this passage in Cixous’ manifesto. It describes the alienation of subject identity women feel without their voices, but it gives a direction to hope for more. Writing down the barriers in the phallologocentric society is a means of personal escape and escape for humanity. It is not only women that are entrapped in the world of binary opposition and fear of castration. Men are also entrapped in “phallocentric narcissism.” Men are obedient to socially defined traditions of masculinity – profit, power, virility, money, and pleasure (Cixous, 161). For Cixous, writing enables the woman to write through the body, to become for than the prescribed feminine, to facilitate bisexuality in creation.

Women trying to speak in a a phallologocentric environment is painful, angering, resented. We are quiet because we are advised to “shut up.” We blunder in our high pitched need to express our body / emotions / thoughts. We are labeled hysterics, anxious mothers, bitches, sluts, ugly, or worst of all the final betrayal, dykes.

Behave women! We are trained to be obedient. We do not raise our hands in class because we are not called upon. We fall silent while our fathers and later husbands and sons speak because we are ignored. When we become angry and scream our futility and wretchedness, we embarrass the man in the man’s confine, and women note by example how they should not behave.

Cixous gives hope through writing to develop into more than just the mother / daughter / sister / wife. To create an identity more fluid, and unfixed. To free the subjective-identity, the self, the unconscious, the woman, the man, the culture.

RB 11/14

Sitting quietly for an hour didn’t agitate me. But I don’t say much, anyway. I will write, however, that it’s not everyday a teacher gives the female students verbal control of the classroom. Once that I know of. The experience was productive for those who feel it was productive. Ultimately, if we are to have equality, dialogue between men and women is essential, but that’s no reflection on Tuesday's exercise, which served its own purpose.

When the Notorious ROG introduced the exercise, he used a Cixous quote: “Every woman has known the torture of beginning to speak aloud” (163). He gave the women, several of whom said they relate to this quote, the task of speaking aloud and the men the task of experiencing what it’s like to not have a voice.

Some other examples of people having no or little voice because of their gender:
—Women’s right to vote was not federally protected until 1920, with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
—Of the 435 congressmen in the 110th House of Representatives, 71 (16%) are women—an all-time high. Hardly representative of a country where women outnumber men.
—The word congressmen is masculine.
—Of the 100 senators in the 110th Senate, 16 are women—an all-time high.
—Of 42 US presidents, none has been a woman. (Yes, I need to be reminded of this.)

Those are a few examples on a national level. (My choice of examples reflects the sports-fanatic spirit in which I’ve followed the 2006 elections.) There are plenty more examples, like the ones the women near us can share from personal experience—and did share on Tuesday evening.

I thought the guys did well in their silence, considering the sometimes derogatory remarks about men in general. But, according to the blog posts, not all the women feel the same way. I asked a friend of mine who is in the class what she thought of the males’ behavior. This is where dialogue comes in. She agreed with me to a certain extent, but pointed out some behaviors that had bothered her (but hadn’t bothered me), such as a few of the guys’ passing notes among themselves and snickering.

One of my male classmates argued after class that the exercise was unfair because if it had been the other way around and the women were silenced, then the exercise would have been politically incorrect. This is like the argument of a Rush Limbaugh caller decrying BET because, if there were a White Entertainment Television, then people would raise hell. The fact is the majority of the media has a white entertainment bias. And the majority of speaking forums, including our forum controlled by women in the company of men, do not reflect an appropriate regard for the voice of women.

“Lord, grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand.”—from Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

CL 11/14

So, we have come to the end of the road with the blogs. I cannot say I am not somewhat relieved, seeing how postmodern theory has taken over my every waking (and, sometimes, sleeping) thought. It was an interesting note to end on this week, with our heated debate, both spoken and written.

Cixous says "Every woman has known the torture of beginning to speak aloud" (pg 163). Much like we discussed on Tuesday night, this statement rings true for almost all women. I, for one, know that it rings true for me. I can think of numerous times, especialy at work, when I have tried to speak and have been "talked down to" by my male coworkers.

However, as bad as that statement sounds, I do not think it is because they think what they have to say is more important than what have to say (well, I am sure sometimes they do). I think that it is the natural way most men communicate with one another. They get louder and speak over one another, and no one's feelings are hurt. If a woman speaks loudly over another woman, it is considered rude (in most polite circles).

This also hurts a woman's feelings. While men may not be able to comprehend why something that is not meant to be hurtful, for women it can be, and sometimes extremely so. Cixous, I believe, understood this 'unspoken' (if you will) rule between women. I also think most men are not biologically wired to understand it. So when we were having our discussion in class, they were struck with a misunderstanding with what the women were talking about when we discussed the 'torture of beginning to speak aloud.' I believe that neither group (men and women) are 'right' or 'wrong'; I believe that it is a simple biological difference between us, and something that we must try and communicate so no one's feelings are hurt. I think Cixous would agree, because, I don't know about you, but I am not interested in seeing any sort of wilting-flower act from the smart women in the world, because they are afraid to speak in the presence of men.

MC- Post Class Post For Another Class I Think I Missed

I have never been so sorry for being so disorganized with my blog postings in all my life. You think reading postmodern literature was hard, try punching out tardy blog postings in an afternoon of waning lucidity.

On my way to my Public Relations internship on campus, I drove behing a Toyota truck that branded a bumper sticker which read:

Thank you, 700 Club. As if we needed another absurd bumper sticker to gussy up our vehicles.

I'd like to take apart this sign, a la Dr. Rog, DeSaussure and every other postmodern theorist we've studied thus far.

MARRIAGE. It's in all capital letters implying power, absoluteness and a scary kind of impending doom (at least, for me anyway). What's the first thing that pops into your head when you think MARRIAGE (not marriage or Marriage, mind you)? Responsibility? Sanctity? Entrapment?

Then we have an equals sign that transforms this sentence into a mathematical equation. MARRIAGE, here, must be the sum. The sum of what? The sum of two figures: the figure of a man added, with a plus sign, with the figure of a woman (we know this, because she's wearing a dress and has longer hair). The sign of a man, which reminds me of the figures on a restroom door. What does he mean? When you add him with a woman doesn't that usually imply children are procreated? Let's look closely at the figure of the woman. Let's say this little figure cut her hair and wore a set of pants, then this sign would look more like a man. Then what does the sign mean? A man-looking woman plus a man-looking man will equal marriage.

We could also analyze the position of all these signs, MARRIAGE comes before the figures of the man and the woman and the addition sign. Does this mean MARRIAGE comes before a couple? Could someone interpret this as arranged marriages. And also, we could consider the author of the sign. We have two pieces of information at the bottom: The 700 Club and a website address. What does that mean? Who is the author of this bumper sticker and does this alter the meaning of the sign? Let's say we were to take out that information, leaving the equation intact. Does this mean the driver of the car is the author of the equation? Can it hold any more meaning without being affliated with the 700 Club.

It's amazing how we, let along the driver of the car, place so much emphasis on tiny, shapes and signs that can alter significantly with a few alterations.

MC - Hebdige

Hebdige talks a great deal about subculture and it's relation to the hegemony. He uses the Sex Pistols and the punk subculture as an example. I couldn't help but apply my own ethnic background to Hebdige's concept.

I think the subculture of Nuyoricans is commonly mistaken for genuine Puerto Rican culture. To clarify, an argument can be made between the Nuyorican Movement during the mid 20th century and the Nuyorican experience as I see it today. Plus, I have to provide a brief disclaimer in that I haven't had the time or the resources to provide proper research, therefore, I can't deny other valid, more researched arguments. I'm only making commentary based on my opinions in relation to Hebdige's idea of subcultures.

New York City was and is the main relocation point for migrating Puerto Ricans. They assimilated, started working and learning the American way. Nuyoricans emerged as a comibination of being raised or born in New York while having strong links with their Puerto Rican heritage. Most if us, now, are familiar with the term Nuyoricans. We all understand we're talking about Puerto Ricans, but are we? I define Nuyoricans as a subculture because they are actually a hybrid of American and Puerto Rican culture. There are differences. While they may retain Hispanic traditions or lifestyles they may or may not retain the Spanish language- transforming it into spanglish or simply losing it through the generations of english schools. Nuyoricans, I would argue, identify far more with urban lifestyles as a result of their migration. For example, while Reggaeton is defined as a synthesis of Jamaican reggae music and Latino pop music, it's gone in a new direction incorporating rap and hip hop.

Those from the island (they identify themselves as Boriqua) view themselves as distinctly different from 'Nuyoricans' who were most likely born and raised in the urban streets of New York City. When Hebdige discusses media hysteria to subculture, I recall Puerto Rican Day Parade fiascos that invovled violent or otherwise embarrassing incidients. Or, for that matter, the whole Daddy Yankee phenomenon.

I think what's concerning about this subculture phenomenon is that Nuyoricans do not represent the island of Puerto Rico. They represent the melting pot concept of a migrating Puerto Rican into the United States. A Puerto Rican who successfully lives and works in New York City. While that may seem baffling, I can only comment on my personal understanding and experience as a Puerto Rican born on the island yet raised in the states for nearly all my life. I don't want to imply that one is better than the other. I do, however, want to point out how similar to this punk culture Nuyoricans have been incorporated into "mass-produced objects". Nuyoricans (we've all see the bumper stickers, flags, caps and shirts) that have turned this subculture into a commodity.

But just as punk culture does not entirely represent the vast majority, so too Nuyoricans cannot concievably bear that weight without considering the difference between island raised Puerto Ricans. I could also write another blog post about how the island of Puerto Rico is essentially turning into an extension of the United States anyway so what is the difference but my head hurts...

MC - Post Class Post That I Wasn't There For

According to my fellow classmates, I missed a controversial class. The males were not allowed to speak in class without the consent of the females. I'm sure this produced all kinds of debate (and whining) from both sexes. The experiment made me consider feminism and perceptions of the female role in our progressively techonlogic culture.

One would think, that with the wide availablity of myspace, youtube and blogs, the internet and all it's related components (hardware and software) would provide a somewhat level playing field for both sexes. That females can Google just as well as males or dicuss CSS coding just as fluently. This isn't necessarily the case. As a young, female Instructional Techonology Specialist (for all you dumb chicks who couldn't possibly understand what all that globbidty gook means, this means I fix computers), I experience a unique kind of discrimination that I can only conclude is a result of my age and, more specifically, my sex.

I work at a community college in an audio visual department. I sit at my own desk, at my own computer with my own telephone extension and my job is help people with IT related problems. I open up computers, replace and repair hard drives, remove or add memory, and (if I may indulge in an age-old stereotype) I do not, in fact, live in my mother's basement.

It doesn't matter how hard I try to look older or more professional I am still recieved with skepticism from male and female students/faculty requesting IT assistance:

"I'm not sure if you can answer my question but..."

"Can I speak with someone else who might understand?"

"I need to access wireless internet...do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I didn't know girls were into this stuff..."

Perhaps I'm experiencing the annoying and lasting effects of the stereotype that women don't know how to program VCRs, CD players or remote controls. Perhaps this is a result of conditioning small boys to play with electronic cars while girls are encouraged to play with Barbies.

Outside of work, I'm greeted with surprise at my ability to use Photoshop to create graphic designs or the fact that I own and play Call of Duty 2 makes so-called gamers chuckle at the very idea that behold, a girl can manuver a mouse and she does not, in fact, live in her mother's basement. It's silly, discouraging and enormously degrading to imply any kind of superiority to a sex, especially in an environment where it clearly doesn't matter.

It seems we haven't really shaken off these silly notions in a world where information is digital and, by golly, why can't females be too.

post class EM 11/14 class

The Tuesday evening class was very enlightening. The women took the floor and the men were the standby i.e. not the ruling hegemony – for less than an hour. I found the women were the usual – very intuitive and fluid in their communication style. The men were obviously somewhat frustrated by their limited ability to communicate. Writing is so removed. They would write and the women would accept or dismiss their ideas. I’ve never thought of my classes as dominated by men. On the other hand I’ve never noticed the women in my classes taking on secondary communication roles. Perhaps this is a far less obvious concept that has been expanded on by Cixous.
Cixous concepts of feminism are in some way similar to Derrida’s logocentrism. Language by its own nature is part of a system of binary opposites and/or hierarchical constructs. The spoken word was more dominate in our recent class – the written word seemed to take on a secondary less significant role. Cixous combined Derrrida’s concept of logocentrism and kicked it up another notch to phallogocentrism. Is the masculine the primary referent for our language (English)? Perhaps this class reminds us why popular psychologists make millions writing books like Men are from Mars/Women from Venus. Men and women must communicate differently or do they perceive what is being communicated differently. Men could have fewer tonal expressions in what they speak? Women might sound shrill and high pitched when agitated or angry. No doubt there are anthropologists slaving away trying to answer these questions.
“Every woman has known the torture of beginning to speak aloud” (bell hooks 163)
It seems somewhat tragic that so many women strongly identify with this statement. There have been times when I’ve had chauvinistic men try to put me in my place. I’ve taken my stand. I don’t get angry as much as I pity the men who feel threatened.
“We turned away from our bodies” (bell hooks 164) Will this be the new feminists’ frontier – Jamie Lee Curtis “clutch the pearls” – sat for a photo shoot untouched. She admits she is in her fifties and will not be have any more plastic surgery. She plans to age naturally. This is considered brave for an actress vying for jobs in Hollywood – The parts are slim for older un-touched women. Although there are new difficulties in finding 50 and 60 year old actresses who actually look their age. Most of them are fit and tone and look ten to fifteen years younger. The co modification of beauty is an Adorno concept – Trapped in sameness. Perhaps women and men will be able to take the next step and revel in their own personal unique style.

Perhaps Dr. Rog would consider - starting a POMO ashram. -- I see a movement afoot.

Gary 11/14

Last blog post??? Say it isn't so! All that's left is a presentation, a laborious final, ice the writing hand, and then I leave postmodernism and return to my tradition re-interpreted life...sounds good to me. Can I consider myself part of the POMO world now?

It was an interesting exercise on Tuesday evening. I'm not sure if anything constructive was accomplished since the women spent most of the time complaining about the dominant male society, instead of giving solutions to the problem. I have always supported equal rights and I constantly wonder when you plan on taking them. I look past gender when I make decisions. I think that women in leadership roles feel that they have even more to prove to their male and female peers, and this drives them even harder.

It is time for women to gain the rights they deserve, but it needs to be accomplished through mutual cooperation of the male society. Burning of the bra in the seventies accomplished nothing except for providing some great footage. I'm sorry...typical male moment-breasts on the mind as usual. :>)

My wife has worked as an RN for twenty years. Her field is predominantly women, severely understaffed, mismanaged, and underpaid. (Capitalism?). I asked her the other day if things would be different if the nursing profession was a predominantly male career. We both broke out laughing because we knew how different it would be if it was a male job.

I inherited this world from my parents, and they had done a terrible job of improving it. Their generation lived by the phrase "that's the way it's always been". My generation has made substantial changes but their is a long way to go. Changing traditions is difficult but not impossible. Talking about it is a start, but it won't get it done...

JOH 7/14

Greetings ~

Last one eh? Official one. Wow. I'm comfortable with that, for now. This (necessity to blog/read blogs) has been a very worthwhile experience; there are some very creative people in the class. Though I do feel I have developed my ability to critically consider texts, I have been consistently humbled by reading the blogs of my peers. I would have to say that some of the PoMo tapestries woven by Steve-O have been tremendous. And Blogrokker has taken it to the bridge many a time. Well, enough of that, on with the meat.

Our last session was a great experience. Having to power-down the verbal in order to submit of the imposed power-over was, at times, difficult to do. Along with the jokes, most of which created by the unnamed yet pinned to the Steve, were fantastic. In the moment, the timing of some, like "too bad we make the rules!" were impeccable - the unnamed is a funny one. But from a thousand feet, when I went there, which I did but a few times, I did have to question the comical manifestations of our inability to really remain quiet. Silent we COULD NOT be. One could posit that we needed some sense of control. Could. However, I can say that, for most of the moments, I was sincerely interested in interacting with the discussion - I believe that most of us, if not all of us men, felt that way. But the damn funny was funny. huh, huh.

Thanks to the ROG for the experience. To be fair, I did detect a few high-flying-superflysnukka-soaring-slamming-elbows from the top ropes - landing upon the sternum of the general masculinity in the room. NOT in the least bit offended, I really felt as though the juices were flowing and the women were having fun, enjoying momentum, etc. Good times.

~ blessed be the scrotum ~

Bloggrokker (Scott) 11/14

Sat inside a Cone of Silence, now I'm goin' to Disneyland!
Tickle Elmo hard enough and he just might agree with me.
Alright, I felt the oppression. Placed within what I silently referred to as a "game-environment" in the last class, an environment where I, as a male of the species, were asked not to speak, where only the female constituency were allowed to speak, yes, I felt oppressed. Even if I had nothing to say, still, the idea of the option removed for me if I did wish to add something, dare I say I felt the gravity of oppression keep me in a gendered lockdown. Dare I say I felt a reversal of Cixous's statement--"every man has known the torture of remaining in silence." Dare I say I felt the Althusseriahn ISAs plotting against me--the religious ISA (where is the long-fabled and unfortunately derogatorily termed "Popette?"), the educational ISA (one can't spell "principal" without "prince," can one?--would Dworkin or Paglia vehemently reject the term "princessipal?"), the family ISA (patriarchal suburban dictatorships; Ward Cleaver, I'm talkin' to you!), etc.--just as they've plotted against women for years.
And, y'know, this "game" kinda felt like an amusement park ride.
A specific ride, too; a ride straight from Eco's critical playground, Disneyland. A ride populated with mechanical armies of multicultural automatons, a ride known as "It's a Small World."
No, no, hang on, it's far, far from my intention to say that the cultural repression of women equates anything resembling a G-rated Disney attraction. It's the regulations and mandates and policies for anyone, male or female, to remain seated and silent and just let the mechanical armies of multiculturalism indoctrinate the masses through cacophony--and I hear the eternal refrain of "it's a small world, after all, it's a small world, after all" as Gayatri Spivak's definition of cacophony; yes, it's repetition, but it's a mass repetition in varying degrees of sync, and such out-of-sync tendencies resonate cacophonously--as said masses slip serenely past, well, there's my intent, my point, and my lead-in to a question.
Is laughter cacophonous?
We didn't read Donna Haraway this term, but according to her, from her book Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, cyborgs, biotech fusings of flesh and machinery, will usher in a "post-gender future" (and, I'd like to further speculate, perhaps a "post-race future"--a multicultural singularity?). I see Disney's "It's a Small World," through Haraway's lens, as attempting to indoctrinate this idea through cacophonous repetition, this idea of a "post-gender future"; all the mechanical ethnicities lining the ride's banks are genderless machines with just enough anthropomorphic "imagineering" thrown in to simulate a utopian global village, a utopia of toylike and genderless machines.
Toylike and genderless machines? This brings things back to the question of laughter as cacophony. This brings things to Tickle Me Elmo--or, to keep things as current as possible, the new "Xtreme" Elmo, TMX Elmo.
I don't know what makes this latest Elmo "Xtreme"--perhaps it's got more errogenous zones to throw it into epilepsy or something, or maybe it's vocabulary's been stretched to include "rad" or "grody to the max." It doesn't matter--despite the box, Elmo, like all of its kin, is a genderless machine. I remember reading somewhere that Disney developed the technology permitting Elmo to do his thing. World without end. Amen.
And laughter is Elmo's thing. And laughter is cacophonous, as laughter isn't always simply understood. Laughter is a cacophony as it emanates singularly and imitates plurally.
And Elmo spawns one last question: is laughter indoctrination?
You tell me:
Roland Barthes claimed that toys represent a microcosm of the real world for children. Does Elmo do this?
Adorno and Horkheimer wrote that "to be entertained means to be in agreement." Does Elmo accomplish this for children?
Fredric Jameson wrote of "the frantic economic urge to produce fresh waves of ever-more novel-seeming goods." Does the TMX Elmo fit within this economic model?
And a Final Fearful Thought: ELMO CARRIES THE PLUSH MUG OF POSTMODERNISM.

Mony Post-class Bourdieu/ Chomsky

Okay, I am really behind on the blogging.Bare with me.

I know that when I turn on the TV I am receiving a filtered source of reality and this is a reality in which I have become a participating member. I did not realize this until a friend said that every time I watch television, I seem to feed off some of the characters and story lines and in turn become one of the actors for the hour that I am observing. Ahh…could I be doing this? I do relate to Carrie Bradshaw and the Gilmore Girls, but does this mean I want to be them? I do know that when I see Carrie struggling with relationships I find a bit of solace, because I know that there is a writer somewhere behind the scenes, who probably has struggled with this issue. After the “Chomsky” class though, I know that the writer’s feelings are filtered through a wave of influences and the initial messages are lost in the process. Even though I am not talking about the news like the theorists did, this is connected with all that we watch. Every thing is filtered, even Oprah.

I used to think John Stossel form ABC’s news show 20/20 was really doing some good. He would report in his segments titled “Stupid in America” about all the products that were duds, and all the “duds” that were selling them. Then during one broadcast I saw an ad during the commercials of one of the opponent’s products. What ever! Now I realize that he is only feeding the machine. I clicked the remote when I saw him last week and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt.

TyG - 11/14 - Postmodern Breasts

Due to my compliance with the rules of yesterday’s game, I was unable to voice some observations. I’m normally pretty vocal, but I was pretty comfortable being one of the “silent ones” last night; I choose to express my thoughts now, though I believe – truly – that if I never shared them I would not be traumatized (and the note-passing was a rather fun bit of nostalgia, along with all the mis-communication it created).

All that said, I agree that NEVER being able to comfortably voice my thoughts would STINK.

If, as Cixous poses, "Every woman has known the torture of beginning to speak aloud" (163), then wasn't the exercise requiring only the women in the class to speak just a little masochistic? Was Dr.(NOT)Rog "torturing" the women by "giving" them this power? Or was it another demand by the hegemony that only appeared empowering?

Why is a "good listener" of such high value? Does it matter if that "good listener" is a man or a woman?

Does WRITING have a clear gender voice, or can it act as an "equalizer"? e.g. (among many others) James Tiptree, aka. Alice Bradley Sheldon, successful female science-fiction author who wrote many works under her "male" pseudonym.

I asked myself: WOULD THIS FEEL different to US SILENT ONES if the "dividing line" were a different one – if, for example, only the blonde-haired humans, or some even more random selection, were allowed to speak?

My answer: yes, it would feel different. I recall an event from elementary school; we had been studying the Holocaust, and my heritage is agnostic Jewish. I was walking home alone when it hit me, squarely in the gut – people like the Nazis might want to KILL ME for an accident of my birth, for something I couldn't care less about. (I think I stayed home "sick" the next day watching cartoons and eating green Jello.)

So ANYTHING that addresses our unchosen, unchangeable nature -- skin color, height, gender -- in ANY PERCEIVED NEGATIVE WAY -- exclusion, imprisonment, persecution -- causes us pain, a far, far worse pain than we would feel for something we had chosen. Last night had very light consequences – and so light feelings of involvement. Maybe next time, Dr. Rog will add/delete class credit based on gender (wouldn't that be fun for the Provost to explain?).

Finally, on the subject of "anatomy awareness" -- we had some interesting commentary, to say the least. I may get some flak on this, but here goes.

The old complaint, one that will likely never die, arose, this time with the focus on breasts (pun acknowledged but not really intended) -- "A revealing manner of dress should not determine the response from people around me." Well, duh. JS is right. But it will happen anyway.

The degree to which a person dresses to “accentuate positive physical attributes,” combined with the “sophistication” (or lack thereof) of the audience may result in inappropriate, even rude, comments. Does the dress excuse the behavior? No, it doesn’t matter if a person is prancing around nude in public and waving sex toys, it will never excuse violent or uncouth behavior by the audience. But look at the Hollywood portrayal of women at a male strip show (pick a movie); are the women shouting suggestions and stuffing dollars into g-strings expressing their sexuality in a free, non-repressed manner, or are these adopted behaviors, man-copying and alchohol-amplfied? Whatever the case in this example, there are times when vulgarity may seem “appropriate for the occasion, and “everybody” may be doing it, but it’s still impolite and demeaning to all concerned – rude, crude, unattractive, and, sadly, part of human nature.

frouella, 11/14

Well. Tonight's class was certainly...unexpected. I mean, the class itself wasn't unexpected (**checks calendar** Yup, still Tuesday night!), but the strong reactions from our XY brethren were. To me, anyway. I didn't expect to see so many of the guys get so agitated over the discussion, especially when they couldn't voice their opinion and had to rely on the women to read their opinions aloud (if they so chose). To be fair, I know that being in a situation like that would've definitely pi$$ed me off too, so maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised. Then again, I also know that I have been in that position before, so maybe that's why I didn't have much sympathy for them, either. Part of me was saying "Come on, this is only a classroom excercise, ya big babies! It's not like you have to live with this kind of treatment for the rest of your lives!"* And I'm not saying that people actually tell me not to talk (except maybe in Writing About Lit., but that's another story >.>), but that there are more subtle and pervasive ways that the same message is communicated to women. I don't have the data right here in front of me, but I've read studies where male students were shown to be called on more in class, given more attention, etc., than their female counterparts. That's just one example, and that's not even going into what happens in math and science classes...

I do think the point that Dr. Rog made about how the guys weren't actually forced to keep silent is incredibly important here too, and that it proves a point about the nature of oppression in general. At the beginning of the excercise, the direction was simply given to the men that they could not speak, only write, and no one challenged this directly. So: a group of people who usually enjoys a large measure of expressional liberty suddenly found it taken away by a verbal command. This was not enforced by violence or by fear; they simply obeyed the command they were given. From what I could see, the group was not very satisfied with this, but they complied anyway. So the peer pressure, the sociological conditioning, the ISA, the Panoptic gaze, whatever you want to call it, was enough to keep them from speaking, despite the fact that they actually could at any time. So: take this evidence and apply it to the experiences women have been subjected to for centuries, oftentimes with more than a little force and violence used to keep them in line, and is it any wonder that women for so long remained silent? That they're still trying to find their voice? That the issue has not yet been resolved? They've got waaay more than an hour in class to make up for.

I know that most American males of today do not: own slaves, advocate abuse, buy their wives, keep said wives barefoot and pregnant (and force them to bake pies), kick small animals, etc. BUT just because they might not be doing it now doesn't mean it never happened. Yes, I realize that the decisions passed down through history are not their fault in particular, but they should also realize that the system is still skewed in their favor from centuries of male hegemony; as the female theorists from class have already pointed out, it's very difficult to equalize the dialogue between the genders when the imbalance is built into the language! Personally, I try (because I know I'm susceptible to generalizations, too) to not place blame on men today unless they are actively trying to perpetuate that imbalance. I think that's fair, no?

*The other part of me was saying that I totally empathized with you guys. No, really, I did! I just also happened to think that a few minutes of personal experience would be good for you, too.

Random Po-Moment:
......sorry, this is where my brain died...... I'll come up with a good one for next time, K?

Captain PMS, Judith Butler

Captain’s Blog Stardate 11/14

I am responding to Deep Thunder’s blog on Judith Butler. Deep Thunder makes the argument that, “we now live in a post-phallo-centric society, that the patriarchy has been rejected not only by women (if we can identify them as only one group) but also by men, and in this case, there is no longer a masculine mechanism to rebel against, and the one that did exist did not contain all of our forefathers.” For a long time I have considered what it means to be female in our society and in some ways I agree with this argument. I believe that most American women of my generation have lived differently than our great grandmothers, grandmothers, and even mothers. I have not grown up in a society that has persecuted me for my sex by denying me employment or the right to vote. I have not been denied equal pay nor have I been expected to become a housewife. And I believe that it is time to rename or redefine, as Judith Butler suggests, what being female means. To deny, however, that there is no longer a “masculine mechanism to rebel against” is as broad a statement as any of the definitions slapped onto feminism, and does not acknowledge the fact that for certain sections of our society, as well as for entire countries besides our own, there are certainly still rampant masculine mechanisms that control and repress women. I am a middle class, white, American woman of the twenty-first century and so I can no more understand what it means to be oppressed than Deep Thunder, but there are plenty of women across the world who do understand in deep and fundamental ways. Slavery has also been rejected by our society, yet to tell an African-American person that racism has been obliterated would be ludicrous, even though the majority of white people in our country feel tremendous guilt, as bell hooks points out, for the sins of our forefathers.

What I find about men of Deep Thunder’s generation in regards to women, is the same thing I find common among white, young, southern men in regards to racism today. They are understandably tired of being blamed for something they had no control over. They are the enlightened ones, the men who do not feel color makes you less important. They understand women are equally intelligent. They no longer blame a female bosses dissatisfaction on PMS. And they have grown weary of being told that they feel a certain way or expect certain things because they are male. They, like women, no longer wish to be lumped together in some category that not only doesn’t define them, but leaves them with no individuality. This cannot happen, however, by simply denying that there is no longer an issue. Men like Deep Thunder are refreshing and we are a better society for their intelligence and sensitivity. We are lucky that Rollins has an enlightened and open environment filled with men and women who respect and admire each other. I simply wish this was the case everywhere. I believe a redefinition of the terms “female” and “male” is necessary, however I don’t believe the blanket terminology currently used negates the fact that there are still serious issues concerning women’s rights around the world today.

P.S. Take out the trash.

TyG - Cixous, Butler & hooks - E = WRITER

A literary critic walks into a bar in a major, first-world city, sits down at the counter, and orders a drink. The bartender ignores the customer, who, after a few minutes, repeats the request. The bartender looks up from cleaning glasses, stares at the patron for a long moment, then walks to the farthest end of the bar and begins slicing lemons. The visitor gets up from the barstool, scrawls something on the unused napkin, and departs: what was written on the paper?

According to Cixous:
Drink/Dry
Man/Bisexual
Phallus/Castrati
Closed/Open
Bartender
Customer
Violence
Bartender

According to Butler:
“The category of ‘women,’ the subject of feminism, is produced and restrained by the very structures of power through which emancipation is sought. (You bastard).”

And per bell hooks:
“When the dominant culture demands that the Other be offered as a sign that progressive political change is taking place, that the American Dream can indeed be inclusive of difference, it invites a resurgence of essentialist cultural nationalism. (You’da given me that drink if I was a White Man, you pig.)”

||
||
||
\/

Now ask yourself these questions; when you first read the lead-in:

Was the bartender a man or a woman? Black, White, or Other?
What about the visitor – man or woman? Black, White, or Other?

Your honest answers may tell you something about yourself and your gender/race leanings.

(and if you noticed immediately the lack of gender/race in the description, well, you’re just too smart for me – so feel free to apply the idea to some other critics through your Comments)
And please “vote” –
A = Totally Lame Blog
B = Good Idea, Not-So-Good Execution
C = Great Blog
D = Oh-mi-god, You are Such a Great Writer
E = WRITER

ginny t. hooks

Oh no. I am the whitest white girl on the planet, and yet I have to do my presentation on bell hooks. This should be interesting…

“To make one’s self vulnerable to the seduction of difference, to seek an encounter with the Other, does not require that one relinquish forever one’s mainstream positionality. When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups…can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races, genders…affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the Other.” (M 367)

So that explains why adopting “ethnic” babies from underdeveloped countries is so in with rich, white celebrities these days! I realize that hook’s theory is more about sexual relations between different races, but take out all the sexy bits, and this theory explains this phenomenon perfectly.

Maybe celebs like Angelina Jolie and Madonna are truly interested in using their wealth and (dubious) power to better the lives of children less fortunate than they, or maybe, they’re simply “seduced by difference;” they relish the thrill of getting “a bit of the Other” that comes from the addition of an ethnic baby to their families. These adoptions enable the stars to experience the exotic cultures of the children they take in without ever having to step down from the comfort of their cushy and sparkly ivory towers. “Race and ethnicity [have] become commodified” and Jolie and Madonna are just the first stars to snap up the latest “ethnic baby” accessories. It’s only a matter of time before celebutards like Blechney Spears and Paris Swillton jump on the black-baby-as-bling bandwagon. It’s a slow road to Hell, my friends.

And on a (mostly) unrelated note, let me just say how much I’m looking forward to slogging through the phallic forest tonight in class. That is to say, I am a feminism novice. I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life, and in all honesty, at this point, I’m in 1950’s housewife mode. My husband pays the bills and takes care of all of our finances; most of the time, I don’t even know how much money we have in the bank at any given moment. I don’t even have a credit card in my name! *gasp* I rely on him for practically everything, and I know that’s a major no-no in these (post)modern times, so I’m really looking forward to getting a crash course on being a Womyn from the experts. Grrrl Power!

AS Cixous

Today, while receiving security clearance for my Department of Defense Contractor identification card, I saw this poster hanging on the wall behind the male military officer processing my clearance:

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/CORIH/NA002240-COR-11_14~Gee-I-Wish-I-Were-a-Man-I-d-Join-the-Navy-Recruitment-Posters.jpg

I thought two things: Cixous and field-day. I’ll leave aside the obvious subjection of femininity and equality...okay, I won’t....“I wish I were a man”???? Come again? This recruitment poster is saying the exact opposite. Little girl does not want to be a man, let alone a soldier. The cross-dressed woman’s coy, kittenish pose is the exact opposite of a typical erect military bearing. The US Navy sells the idea that women wish they could have the honor of being male for the honor of being military soldiers. Yet the underlying message, of course, is that men are the only ones who can “do it.” Men are the honored, the privileged, and the capable. And look at this enticing girl peeking over her shoulder, pelvis thrust out, playing dress-up – just look at what big, burly men have to protect. Isn’t she adorable? So sign up and save the little gal, it’s not like she can even lift a gun.

On a more positive note, this poster does more than just rile my feminine feathers; it also promotes Cixous’ idea that for a woman “becoming-woman, she has not erased the bisexuality latent in the girl as in the boy” (160). You would rarely see, and usually for humor only, a man dressed in women’s clothing in an advertisement. And never in a military advertisement. Men are men -- even meterosexuals make sure it is known that they are “NOT gay.” Girl stuff belongs to girls only, there’s no room for the female in male (as evident by the words – female incorporates the masculine root, whereas male stands alone). Here, woman is dressed as man, stating a desire to be a man, in an ad that stylistically supports Cixous’ definition of bisexuality as the incorporation of the other. The woman embraces with her physical stance her femininity, while proclaiming a plausible longing for otherness. The recruitment poster annoys me because – big shocker -- I don’t have penis envy. But I can appreciate how it supports the notion that fluidity of other and self is more readily available within the female gender. At least I’m not blatantly expected to suck it up and “Be a man and do it.”

Deep Thunder- Judith Butler

“Perhaps there is an opportunity at this juncture of cultural politics, as period that some would call ‘post feminist’, to reflect from within a feminist perspective on the injunction to construct a subject of femininism.” – Judith Butler

Thank you, Judith. While we’re at it, could we please admit that we now live in a post-phallo-centric society, that the patriarchy has been rejected not only by women (if we can identify them as only one group) but also by men, and in this case, there is no longer a masculine mechanism to rebel against, and the one that did exist did not contain all of our forefathers. Many women (especially here at Rollins) seem to be ‘fighting the power for their rights. Awesome. So long as they realize that most of the abominable things that some men have done throughout history do not define us as men any more than it defines women. I might also note that feminism and equality may be considered an aura (big ups to Dr. ROG) and not an era, and that these virtues were around long before the French feminism and the American and British schools to follow.
And let me digress for a minute. If language consists of sets of opposites (i.e. something is what it is not- de Saussure), then what are the ‘men’ who were (and are) not part of the masculine oppressive apparatus to be called? They are not men, for they certainly did not take part in the activity, but they are not women, either. It is as ridiculous to assume that men have a collective oppressive consciousness as it is to assume that all women think and want the same things as each other. So ladies, It’s not the 1900s, we ‘men’ at Rollins have done little if anything to oppress women, so please put away your angst and lets work together in evolved androgyny.
P.s. Make me a pie.

CL Cixous

This weeks reading was an interesting change of pace from our usual subjects (and suspects). It was nice to be able to read about subjects that have to do with something so fascinating- female sexuality, writing, and power.

Cixous wrote about the female capacity for sexuality and how it is "linked for depropriation that holds possibilities for the future. This capacity is linked explicitly to the female body and female desire. While masculine sexuality is centred upon the penis, female sexuality is multiply diverse- not constrained to a single signifier but spread throughout the body and capable at any moment of performing an 'explosive return'" (pg 254).

I found this comparison of female sexuality to the future interesting. While any woman could tell you that men and women are vastly different, I had never given it more thought than the simple reduction that we are wired to think in different ways. Men do tend to think and function more logically, while women do tend to emote more than men do. But I had never considered the idea that, sexually speaking, men have one central area of pleasure and focus (the penis), while women have many (vaginal, breast, neck, ect.)

As much as we like to believe that our minds can control our bodies, we are still, at the most basic level, animals. Our bodies are in tune with the weather (we have sinus problems with the barometric pressure change), the moon (people act crazy with a full moon), and one another's (women who spend a lot of time together begin to share a menstrual cycle). Why wouldn't our bodies also create habits distinct to our gender in regard to our sexuality? I had never spent much time trying to understand why men do the things that they do. I have been taught by my mother, sister, and girlfriends that sometimes men need to be "trained" to act one way or another, but I had never understood why they didn't know how to do it to begin with. (I mean that in the nicest way possible, like knowing how to rap presents and make a big deal about birthdays) This reading of Cixous has given me much to consider about the gender divide, and even a few answers to some of my questions.

RB 10/31

“Culture” Signification #1:

I’m cultured because I can tell you who Dick Hebdige is. That that makes me cultured is common sense. Or at least common sense within the ideology that says people who can tell you who Dick Hebdige is are cultured. “Ideology saturates everyday discourse in the form of common sense” (Hebdige 148), which is common sense to Hebdige because he wrote it as a result of the parameters ideology.

“Culture” Signification #2 (Pop Culture):

I’m cultured because I can tell you who Britney Spears is. Britney Spears’ identity is common knowledge. Or at least common knowledge within US culture. My knowledge of her is a reflection on my society.

***

According to one signification of the word “culture,” culture is analytical and intellectual, but, according to the other signification, culture is exhibitionist and sexual. Culture #1, according to Jürgen Habermas, is a result of the compartmentalization of science, morality and art and, subsequently, their individualized study by “specialists who seem more adept at being logical in these particular way than other people” (Habermas 103).

As a result, pop culture becomes ostracized by culture #1. “The distance grows between the culture of the experts and that of the larger public” (Habermas 103). For example, Yahoo produces approximately 38 million Web sites in a “Britney Spears” search; it produces approximately 32 thousand in a “Dick Hebdige” search. The Internet becomes a unifying reflection of both cultures, within the parameters of its ideology.

RB, Cixous*

Ms. Pelosi, tear down this wall – the one that has risen higher since the one in Berlin went down and has split our nation into color-coded binary opposition. Red/Blue. The House of Representatives is attempting to get in touch with the feminine component of its bisexuality. Constituents are tired of a federal government “reduced to a single idol with clay balls” (Cixous 159), tired of this government that, in Freudian terms, “still has something to lose” (161).

“A man is always proving something” (161).

Proving marriage should be between a man and a woman, proving his opponents either are terrorists or inadvertently support terrorism, proving nobody’s going to burn his flag and get away with it. Proving he's man.

If the proof isn’t there, he will continue proving despite blatant facts to the contrary: the war to find WMDs has become the war to spread democracy. He will now prove that his way is better to a region increasingly embracing sharia, even if that means civil war. Or maybe especially if that means civil war. He thrives on binary opposition.

This is the work of phallocentrism. Unilateral action, torture interrogation techniques, guilty-until-proven-innocent detention, tens of thousands of civilian causalities.

“A man is always proving something” (161).

However, “accepting the other sex as a component makes them much richer, more various, stronger, and – to the extent that they are mobile – very fragile” (158). It’s time to embrace the inherent bisexuality because “it is only in this condition that we invent” (158).

* Feminist writing “will always exceed the discourse governing the phallocentric system” (Cixous 162).

ix. Butler vs. Cixous

ix. Butler vs. Cixous

A couple pages into Cixous’ ‘Sorties,’ and I wanted to sortie myself from reading the article. I continued on, arguing/disagreeing and often questioning her myriad assumptions all along the margin with my (I guess one could read phallic) pencil. As I began to set myself up for posting this blog (drank some wine, did some meditation, played a video game, etc) I tried to reflect what it was exactly that I did not care for about her article. I then realized that it was her broad claims that bothered me, not necessarily just because of what they were saying, but precisely because of where they came from. In other words, Cixous argues a position against the universal system of patriarchal hegemony, as if her notions existed outside of it, never conceding the possibility that everything she says is still a part of that spectral universal patriarchal hegemonic system. It is not unlike the problem Derrida had to face when he had to use language to talk about language. The very system that Cixous is attempting to deconstruct is the very system that is engendering the notions of the supposed deconstructer.

Though I appreciated what Cixous was trying to say in her article, there were many points of contention with her implicit assertions. Initially I was disappointed with the thought that we were going to have to read reactionary feminist theorists full of assumptions. Fortunately, my next read, brought much joy and better articulations to the problems I was having with Cixous. Unexpectedly, Butler’s first sentence deals with the very core problem I had with Cixous’ argument: “feminist theory has assumed that there is some existing identity, understood through the category of women…for whom political representation is pursued” but the problem with this implied belief by many feminist theorists is that the “very subject of women is no longer understood in stable or abiding terms” (C 191,192). So how can Cixous make definitive claims for the feminine when there is no stable referent? She can’t. Add to this the fact that Cixous is counterposing the feminine against another unstable referent, the masculine, in order to derive definitions of what feminine truly is, and you begin to see the inherent flaws in her argument that Butler asserts others, unfortunately, are guilty of as well.