What's The Difference?

Here is the link to my and Michelle's video.

A New Perspective

So we had a conversation last class and the class before about the way that feminism and discussion of gender and sexuality can change our perspectives on everything from Disney movies to privilege.

I recently saw Cabin in the Woods, which I thought was excellent and highly recommend. It's billed as horror but is really funny as often as it is scary. It is super self-aware; it does a lot to make fun of itself and the horror genre in general. Part of that is looking at sexuality, horror, and the male gaze. There are parts of the movie that play with the audience's expectations about sex and violence. I found myself looking at the ways in which women in the movie interacted with each other, with men, and how they were shown to the audience. It was a really fun movie.

It's also written by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Toy Story, Firefly), who has spoken at length about his views on feminism. While there is debate about whether or not his female protagonists actually advance feminist goals, there is no doubt that he writes strong female leads. Buffy is my favorite show ever. Aaaaanyway, the point here is mostly that I can't even enjoy Buffy without being critical anymore.

But what do I do about the things that I see? We also discussed how annoyed people get with our feminist interventions. Calm down, we're at dinner. God made men and women to be a certain way together, why question that? That's just not true; biology makes us different. So, now that our perspective has been altered, what do we do with it? Are y'all having the same struggles?

How has your perspective changed? What, if anything, do you plan to do with what you've learned in this class? How can we carry it into the Rhodes community, home, or into our jobs?

Baby Fever

As a stress reliever I've been watching a lot of that 70s show recently! 20 minutes long and kinda funny is way better than other shows that are on now. Anyway, I've noticed a lot of sexist dialogue that they use. Of course that's only because they are portraying society's thoughts and cognition at that time. Its crazy to think that only 30-40 years ago the norm was for women to be expected to stay at home and take care of babies. One clip that really struck me was the one in the link listed bellow. The episode is called 'Baby fever' and you can watch from the beginning of the video until minute 3:50 (it's only a few minutes long).

The clip shows the perspective of both teenagers for the future they think they will have together. The male in the clip (Eric) shows the typical views of a woman staying home and taking care of the babies because it's her 'job' to do that, then the feminist female (Donna) has the opposite idea where she wants to be the one working and coming back to a loving husband that takes care of the babies at home. There is also some objectification element in the clip as well.

I kind of squirmed when I saw the conversation because it exemplified all the social beliefs that we are trying to alter, but how do you feel about the clip? I felt like I needed to share the clip because we have been working on analyzing certain sexist language and this was one of the most blunt sexist language I've heard in a long time.

http://www.buzly.com/video/S3_Ep07_-_Baby_Fever_-_Part_2/485345/

Marriage and Social Status

While I was doing research for another class, I stumbled upon this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9193834/Women-are-looking-for-sex-not-status.html The title intrigued me and I decided to read it. I think it’s a very interesting piece of writing because a woman trying to marry into a higher class reaffirms the message that a woman needs a man to elevate her place in society. The two examples the author offers show the traditional way (Kate Middleton marrying into the ranks that Prince William occupies) and the unexpected marriage (a Princess’s daughter marrying a middle-class athlete). What does this shift say about present day circumstances? How do they play into the feminist movement? Although one could argue that the Zara Phillips (the Princess’s daughter) doesn’t need anyone to help her climb the social ranks, it is still interesting because many people maintain the idea that a woman should not marry beneath her. However, it is perfectly normal for a man to marry someone from a social class lower then his own.

"Mulan" and "She's The Man"

The Benefits of Marriage

Tax Benefits

• Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
• Creating a "family partnership" under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.

Estate Planning Benefits

• Inheriting a share of your spouse's estate.
• Receiving an exemption from both estate taxes and gift taxes for all property you give or leave to your spouse.
• Creating life estate trusts that are restricted to married couples, including QTIP trusts, QDOT trusts, and marital deduction trusts.
• Obtaining priority if a conservator needs to be appointed for your spouse -- that is, someone to make financial and/or medical decisions on your spouse's behalf.

Government Benefits

• Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
• Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
• Receiving public assistance benefits.

Employment Benefits

• Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
• Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
• Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
• Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse's close relatives dies.

Medical Benefits

• Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
• Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.

Death Benefits

• Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
• Making burial or other final arrangements.

Family Benefits

• Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
• Applying for joint foster care rights.
• Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
• Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.

Housing Benefits

• Living in neighborhoods zoned for "families only."
• Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.

Consumer Benefits

• Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
• Receiving tuition discounts and permission to use school facilities.
• Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.

Other Legal Benefits and Protections

• Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium (loss of intimacy).
• Suing a third person for offenses that interfere with the success of your marriage, such as alienation of affection and criminal conversation (these laws are available in only a few states).
• Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can't force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
• Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
• Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
• Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.

(Source: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html)

We discussed yesterday whether marriage was a just institution. The big question seems to be not whether marriage as an institution is just, but rather if it is implemented justly. With all of these benefits available to people who choose to be recognized as a married couple, those who are not allowed to marry are treated unfairly. As Sarah said in class, there needs to be a radical look into why we allow the people we allow to marry. The institution seems to perpetuate very traditional views of marriage and relationships and if the essays we read had viable data they create asymmetric relationships.

I think the ability to marry in itself is not unjust: we need ways to regulate the legal and economic rights listed above. However, the expectations attached to marriage (women growing up, in the marriage itself) do harm people. What do you think a solution for these sorts of problems are?

Artist as Indivdiual

I hate to keep making posts about art, but it's simply what I am currently absorbed in.  At this point I am very frustrated with the art world for many reasons.  A list of my complaints does not seem necessary, but I will recount a discussion that I had with my painting professor to point out some of the larger problems.
Each week we are required to bring in an artist to discuss with the class.  A lot of my work has been centered around the issues of race and gender and attempting to present them in a way that gives them agency.  Therefore, a lot of the artists I have been looking at deal with similar issues.  A couple of weeks ago I came across an artist that at a quick glance I thought possibly he was working with similar themes.  His name is Cleon Peterson and his work is all very graphic.
The figures are simplified to black and white, sometimes red.  http://cleonpeterson.com/work.html
I could tell right away that the images were violent, yet I did not immediately dismiss them because of this.  Upon closer examination, I realized that the images depicted broad chaotic environments, covered in bodies enacting violence on each other.  I then realized, that at least in his current work, the main perpetrators were black figures and the victims were white figures.  There is actually even one image where black figures are forcing white female figures into sexual acts.  As I continued looking at the images, I concluded that any attempts to be critical had fallen apart.  These images are racist and sexist.  I looked up statements from the artist to find out if he was attempting to deconstruct notions of sex and race in terms of acts of violence.  Every quote I found from the artist said nothing about the racial and sexual issues that were glaringly present in these images.  The artist stated that he was attempting to simplify binaries of good and evil to portray the violent and chaotic state of our society.  He gave anecdotal references to time spent in New York as a drug addict to support the hectic temperament of many of our modern societies that he was trying to depict, but never once acknowledged the sexual and racial indications of the work.  He did not talk about the problems that come along with simplifying binary codes of good and evil to black and white.  An entire history of black and white in image making was completely ignored.  As a socially conscious artist, these are the histories that I strive to deconstruct in my own art and I am very taken aback when other seemingly well respected artists simply ignore it.  These are all points that were brought up to my painting my professor.  For the most part he agreed with me, yet ended the discussion saying that ultimately it was not the artist's responsibility to address issues of race if he did not want to.  This comment was very frustrating to me, and made me realize where a lot of my frustration with the art world comes with.  Artists seem to believe they play no part in the social situations that surround them.  So many are all plagued with notions of self expression and the artist as genius to really respond, deconstruct and better their own environments.  To me, my professor telling me that it is not his responsibility to address the racial issues in his work is like him saying he does not have to take responsibility for anything he does.  These are the sentiments running rampant through the art world that I feel I have to fight against.  I don't think this is particular to artists, but I do believe that the mainstream art world allows if not encourages it.  It seems that historical notions of the artist encompass and reify ideas of the individual, and these individuals are not taught to care for others when making their own art. What do you all think about artists not feeling like they are responsible for their own social environments?

Role models, dependents and motherhood

Since we spent a whole week on Beyonce, when I saw that Beyonce has very recently wrote an open letter to Michelle Obama on feministing, I decided to make a post out of it.

http://feministing.com/2012/04/12/beyonce-writes-open-letter-to-michelle-obama/

In the handwritten letter Beyonce talks about how Michelle is a good role model for young black women, and how Beyonce feels proud that her daughter will grow up in a world where she has Michelle as a role model.  This sparked alot of things for me.  Even though I'm not a fan of Beyonce, I definetly agree that Michelle is one of few role models for young black women that are visible in popular culture.  In pop American culture, we rarely see successful people of color, and often the most black women are relegated to black sit-coms (which are are comedies and have historically always been comedies), black hair commercials, hip-hop videos, and black cinema.  This isn't to say all of these roles are bad, there are plenty of transgressive and transformative black female figures in the media, but to me, they have always been overshadowed by the negative ones which appear to be more popular and more plentiful.

The conversation about role models got me to thinking about our recent discussions about dependency, and about how women are often in charge of taking care of the children.  (Beyonce also calls Michelle a role model for being a good mother).  But in the readings we read for this week, women are either dependent on men, or burdened by dependents (children).  In case I missed it, the readings didn't touch on what it's like for young women who are dependents.  I think what was missing from the anaylses were the unique dynamics of mother-daughter relationships.  How is it that daughters learn what it is to be a mother, what it is to be a wife, about the institution of marriage, from these relationships.  Even the earlier theory we read, which borrowed from the inept psychologist Freud, only seems to talk about young girls in relation to penises.  What about young girls in relation to their mothers?  How does the activity of being a dependent in a mother-daughter relationship reify our current sex/gender system?  Also what if we consider young women watching television for role models as dependents on these pop-culture role models?  Do they become dependent, so to speak, on the reflections they see of themselves (women of their race, class, nationality, religion, sexuality) in the national spotlight?  How does that complicate the themes we discussed in class this week?

Why Can't We Be Friends (Imagine Me Singing These Words)?

Recently, I read an 0p-ed piece in the Times that focused on the relationship between feminism and the creation of the platonic male and female relationship. Of course, we take this type of a relationship for granted. Now, we just refer to platonic relationships as "friendships." However, the idea that sex always gets in the way of these relationships is, in fact, not so quaint.

Oscar Wilde famously said, "Everything in the World is about except sex. Sex is about power." Perhaps the strength of this aphorism is in its catchy quality, but that does not mean that many people do not act or behave, consciously or unconsciously, like this is true.

Early on in high school, I was constantly berated about and questioned on the nature of relationships that I had with women. There were constant questions about "secret liaisons," ect. I would guess that certain corners of Rhodes are quite similar, but I would argue that on the whole most people "of a certain age" have strong sex-less relationships with someone of the opposite sex (or at least don't gawk at one when it crosses their path). This is not to say that friendships are not complicated by sexual attraction. It is just to say that once a level of maturity is reached people become better at managing those attractions. Of course, in the heternormative society that we live in, people are less comfortable considering the potential same-sex sexual attraction that could be looming. For some reason, admitting sexual attraction to someone is threatening, which seems strange. Attraction does not necessitate action. Perhaps, because platonic friendships and sexual relationships have been conflated into the modern marriage mirage we assume that one--friendship--is always leading to the other--some kind of sexual relationship (again, I am short changing all non-heternormative relationship, I apologize). This is just a huge shot in the dark, and I do agree that your partner should be your best friend, but why place so much emphasis on sex, or the "sex-potential." Why should that get in the way of building great relationships. People can have great relationships with people that they are attracted to without ever acting or feeling tempted to act upon those feelings. I should rephrase. "Attracted to" should be replaced with "Someone who finds someone else attractive." The former seems to imply a lack of agency on behalf of the person involved--like they are the positive side of a magnet and their friend is the negative. It just isn't so. I think a refusal to recognize these observations, especially in same-sex friendships, only perpetuate an underlying discomfort with benign sexual variation, as well as all other kinds of sex.

Maybe I am just full of shit. I don't know. It is late in the semester. I am tired. I'd be interested to hear what people think though.

Racial profiling, anyone?

All the recent media highlights pertaining racial injustice stimulates many comparisons between racism and sexism. 

Which we are working on the "thinking in images" project many images dealing with racial profiling emerge.

Dr. J posted an article written by a Rhodes alumnus Jarrett Tate wrote earlier a week and a half ago about racial profiling in the Rhodes community and the Rhodes campus. His article –linked bellow- is a great perspective on how racial profiling can lead to many injustices.

http://knowledgeovereducation.blogspot.com/2012/04/stranger-on-my-own-campus-open-letter.html

In reply to the article an anonymous writer posted justifying the racial profiling on campus, he mentioned, “As a student, whenever they announce that a crime has occurred nearby and they give a description of the suspect it is literally ALWAYS an African-American male. I'm not being racist or talking about stereotypes, but this is the profile of people committing crimes in the area.” And I just don’t know what to think about that!

I do encourage you to read the article, the anonymous post and tell me what you think! I’m just sorta thrown off really!

Taking this article and putting it in the context of Spelman’s essay that we previously read, draws us to analyze how certain layers of ones’ self can override other layers.

There is a lot of light on racial profiling right now because of the Trayvon Martin case and the shaymaa case. Do you feel like this is just a trend or is it a new awakening to the issue and hopefully solving it? Do you have any comments on the article? How do you feel like it relates to the ampersand problem?

I hope everyone had a great Easter break!

Perspective

Last class, we discussed the different ways that a person could know a fact or the different meanings/implications that fact could have. Esha gave the example of a man and a woman knowing that most CEOs are men. Today I read an article about Sheryl Sandberg, the COO for Facebook.

First of all, I think she's just a really cool person. Here are a few articles. A TED Talk by her, the article from Jezebel, and an interview she gave.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

http://jezebel.com/5900252/women-should-preferably-marry-other-women-says-sheryl-sandberg

http://www.makers.com/sheryl-sandberg/moments/sheryls-harvard-thesis

One of the interview videos is titled "Proud to be a Feminist." In a couple of videos, she discusses at length the importance of changing attitudes about women in the workplace and at home. The Jezebel article provides a quote about the amount of work men do versus the amount of work women do in the home and what that means for women, which is essentially that they work at least 2 jobs.

In the TED Talk, she talks about how women consistently underestimate themselves, noting men attribute their success to themselves and women attribute it to external factors. She also notes that success is positive for men and negative for women and gives this fun example. A professor gave his students the resume/work history of a woman named Heidi and then gave the same story and changed the name to Howard. While the students thought they were equally qualified, they thought Heidi was a bit "political" and Howard was a nice guy. I thought this was particularly interesting given our Tuesday discussion.

What does it mean to women to say that most CEOs are men? What does it mean for the women who do become CEOs? Clearly the statistics and studies on underestimation and on characterization of women in the workplace indicate that the fact has a much bigger social reality attached to it. Women, generally, tend to understand even facts about themselves differently than men do. Sheryl Sandberg has worked for major corporations for a long time, but she has had to navigate her career in a different way than her male counterparts and has had to understand and define herself as a woman in the workplace rather than just the supposedly gender-neutral, generic but really not so generic "employee."

Anyway, this might just be rehashing what we did last class, but the articles really made me think of Esha's example and the rest of our conversation. What do y'all think about what Sandberg says? What does it mean for women in the workplace? How do we negotiate our different perspectives on facts?

A Man's Drink

I was watching TV recently and saw a commercial for Dr. Pepper 10. The premise was that this new low-cal drink was for men only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iuG1OpnHP8

A few things stood out to me. First, it was interesting that Dr. Pepper decided to market this cross between the regular and diet option to men. Women are thought to be more calorie conscious and aware of body image so a new drink like this would probably appeal to those women. Immediately, the company caters this drink to men in hope that men will purchase the drink and not worry about feeling too girly drinking a beverage that is stereotypically for women. The commercial also reminded me of the car commercials we watched earlier in the semester. Just like that one, there was a video response for this commercial too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D805_b_a70&feature=watch_response

I also came across an article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2011-10-10/dr-pepper-for-men/50717788/1

What do y'all think about this? Is it possible for a drink to be feminine? Was it merely intended to be a funny commercial that is now being overanalyzed? Will this form of marketing work? What do commercials like this being released mean for the feminist movement?