Emma's Theory Journal

BWriting this journal has evoked several conflicted emotions from within me.  At first, I found the journal writing to be a bit tedious.  But then as the course went on, I became more passionate about expressing myself.  I was about to situate the theories I learned each week in the context of my Persian and History courses.  Because of this, I had a totally different, more knowledgeable perspective about the world.  More specifically, feminist theory allowed me to understand the many economic, political, and social systems that dictate the writing and events of history, as well as the current international interactions for which I am interested.  This class gave me ideas to which I would not have other been exposed.  So, as you can see by reading my journal, I become more and more passionate as the semester drew to and end because I was finally able to somewhat piece together the complex interactions of the theory and the physical world itself.

Julie's Comments

Dear Emma,

First of all, what a great format to do the theory journal! This is exactly what blogging seems to do well, I think. And it presents it in an orderly and interesting fashion. I love that you are doing the journal this way! I especially love how classmates have responded by posting comments when we do the journal exchange. Very cool.

The challenge to the format though may be the time and space to think and develop thoughts more. Think about that as you are writing the blog posts - and think about coming back to them if necessary. For instance, one of the things that I think happens is some “space” gets filled virtually - the space on your laptop, or the “box” for the blog and we have the sense of being done, when in fact we may not have gone deep enough.

In this entry, for instance, http://emmastheoryjournal.blogspot.com/2015/02/sex.html

I think that you do go into enough depth on the articles. Where as this one, http://emmastheoryjournal.blogspot.com/2015/02/standpoint-epistemologies.html, seems to not have enough depth to it. They may in fact be the same length (you can look at that), but the one on Standpoint Epistemology, doesn’t seem to dive in as deeply to the material, which is dense and difficult to sort through.

I’m interested in seeing a bit more struggle in the journal. A bit more of YOUR active thinking about the process.

And some entries seem to be missing - Remember to go back and do them all! (And some sort of index may help me with the final submission).

Hope you are learning a lot from doing it!

Warmly,

Julie

Intersectionality-April 28

The Bridge Poem

I understood the narrator of this poem to be someone who feels conflicted by her intersecting identities.  She constantly feels like the mediator between different spheres of people.  And because people constantly rely on her to understand people different than themselves, she forgets to focus on who she is a person.  I believe that when she says "I must be the bridge to nowhere--but my true self--and then--I will be useful," she is trying to say that she can longer waste her time and energy on making sense of communities to others.  She does not identify with one single group, and she certainly does not believe that any group dominates over the other.  People that ask her to explain other groups of people are foolish because it perpetuates the polarization and power dynamics of communities.  The "bridge to power" is discovered when she focuses on her uniqueness and individuality, like everyone else should too.

Why do you think Donna Kate Rushin has an issue with translating between different communities?

Do you think that if people identify with communities instead of embracing their intersecting identities, they are losing power?

La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness

the duel of the oppressor and the oppressed are in mortal combat; reduced to common denominator of violence --- what does this have to do with translation?  Is violence the only common language of humans?  How do groups of people overcome the barriers that language and violence create?

rigidity means death -- patterns and behaviors become the enemy within

"This step is a conscious rupture with all oppressive tradition of all cultures and religions.  She communicates that rupture, documents the struggle. She reinterprets history and, using new symbols, she shapes new myths..."
How does the history of the borderlands and the people who have dominated it affect the mestiza?


How does culture contribute the struggles of the mestiza?
Machoness enforced by Anglo culture creates an insecurity in men that they deal with by abusing their female counterparts
dichotomies of gender are polarized
polarization leads to violence
gay men have the courage to be in touch with their feminine sides and break the bondage of gender norms


"I will not be shamed again, nor will I shame myself." 
In what spaces does shame occur, and where is it most damaging and restricting?



What can people who are burdened by intersecting identities gain from acknowledging and embracing the queer within their community?
Queer fight the dualistic nature of white supremecy
step outside of gender norms
unite all over the world, much more knowledgeable
have the confidence to contribute politically and artistically

Lesbian-April 23

What do you have to say about the class and/or feminist theory?

I think that the economic theory in relation to women should be updated.  I do believe it is important to study Marxist theory, however, I do not believe the feminist theory derived from Marxism is relevant today.

The readings set forward the significance of lesbians in politics.  Audre Lorde defines herself as a Black lesbian feminist.  She contends that the three factors of her identification silence her.  The problem she addresses in "I am you Sister: Black Women Organizing across Sexualities" is that black women fail to organize due to differences in their sexualities, and thus, can never value and benefit from each others' strengths.  According to Lorde, homophobia and heterosexism are rooted in the black community that women become immobilized and silent when they are accused of being lesbian.  This silencing effect allows men to use homophobia as a powerful weapon in order to make women submissive.  Why does homophobia jeopardize the ability for different members of the black community to unite and mobilize?  I believe this is deeply related to Gayle Rubin's discussion of the shame of abnormal sex practices.  Rubin organizes a sexual hierarchy in which married, procreative heterosexual couples are at the top because they are normalized by society, continue the human race, and do not threaten the many systems under the control of men.  Homosexual individuals compose the lower rungs of hierarchy, and intersections of race, class, and gender even further lower a person's status.  In Lorde's case, black lesbians are marginalized along those same lines.  They are viewed a threats to the continuation of the black race, the black family, and just plain abnormal.  This marginalization has no grounds, as Lorde testifies that she has raised children in a stable home, thinks about sex just as much as any heterosexual woman, and is equally as significant in politics as anyone else.  Lorde urges black women to eliminate their biases so they can fight together against the common issues they face.  Being a black lesbian cannot erase them from political relevance, as throughout US history, they have fought against injustices.  Lorde concludes her thoughts by demanding that the black community, and the world, recognize their political significance, and stop just "tolerating" them.  A similar tone of lesbian political mobilization is echoed in Bunch's essay titled "Lesbians in Revolt."  The climate of Lorde's essay is much more realistic and, I think, effective.  Lorde is asking for people to unite across barriers of sexuality and race, so that the political system can be more accommodating for all members of society.  On the other hand, Bunch situates lesbians at the center of political mobilization.  I agree with Bunch in that lesbians play a critical role in rejecting and undermine male dominance.  However, I found her argument to be so malicious towards heterosexual women, that it weakens the ability for feminists to gain political voice.  She relies too heavily on assumptions about the man-woman relationship, putting all heterosexual women in a category of privileged and blind to oppression.  Heterosexual women have stakes in the feminist movement as well, and she is just weakening feminist power by dismissing heterosexual women.  In this light, Lorde's writing is much more powerful because she demands us to use each others strengths to end oppression.  Moreover, Lorde offers historical contextualization to show how homosexual groups have mobilized separately and in unity with more broadly defined groups.  There is little contextualization for Bunch's argument, aside from a series of assumptions and stereotypes.

Lesbian-April 21

In "Compulsory Heterosexuality," Adrienne Rich describes two conflicting narratives about women's sexualities.  First, women are naturally oriented to men and their offspring.  Second, the lesbian "choice" stems from a rejection of and bitterness toward men.  Rich debunks these narratives by asserting that no true depiction of lesbian thought exists in either narrative.  The narratives perpetuate the notion of masculine-based control over women's sexualities.  Moreover, feminist theory has neglected the identity of lesbians throughout history, which furthers the masculine discourse surrounding lesbians.  Rich urges feminists to incorporate historical analysis in their dialogues about compulsory heterosexuality.  It is crucial for men to maintain control over women's sexualities because women are responsible for the economy and social order.  According to Rich, heterosexuality is an institution in which women are forced into the roles of heterosexual performance.  The economic pressures that dictate gender roles put power in the hands of men to control expression of sexuality.  As the economic climate changes, women become more or less free to reject heterosexuality.  The works that Rich discusses attempt to discover the cause of heterosexual rejection as well as compulsory heterosexuality.  In one analysis, a female Oedipus complex is suggested to be the root of lesbian relationships.  She explains that women long to replicate the mother-daughter relationship that comforted them in their childhoods.  These explanations, like the two narratives, look for a cause or a root to lesbian choice.  Rich clarifies that there is no choice, except for when one rebells against the authority forcing them into heterosexual behavior.  The authority, patriarchy, does many things to secure women's important position as mothers.  They do this by restricting the minds and bodies of women.  An example of female restriction that struck me the most was the prevention of women's movements, enforced by mandated clothing, rape, and full-time mothering.  This ties in well with my final project about the veil in Iran and how it makes women immobile by dictating the activities they can perform, the people they are permitted to socialize with, and the places they can go.  Women are veiled to protect their sexualities, and to make sure that they do not engage in unlawful sexual acts, even though men are encouraged to have polygamous marriages.  Interestingly, the veil is mandated to assert men's control over the female body, and yet this manifestation of sex segregation creates a platform for illicit homosexuality.  In other words, because women are permitted to only socialize with male relatives and other women, a homosocial space can become a homoerotic space.  Rubin's contribution to the discussion about the social factors involved in homosexuality furthers my point about the veiled body.  She expresses that sexual acts that deviate from what is deemed acceptable by society are cruelly punished, and the punishment reflects the state of the society itself.  Studying sexual politics in Iran has allowed me to construct political, economic, and social timelines around sexual history.  The Islamists contempt over women's unveiled bodies derived from fear that the youth would engage in unlawful sexual acts and jeopardize the continuation of the human race.  Similarly, homosexual behavior is shamed because it not associated with reproduction.  Rubin clarifies this phenomenon by describing the hierarchy of sexuality in which married, reproductive heterosexual couples are at the top, and "abnormal" homosexuality is at the bottom.  She wants radical policies that keep up with the ever-transforming institution of homosexuality.  While her writing and historical references are compelling, I find her radical approaches ignore viable understandings of sexual history on a global scale.  She argues that sex workers would be better off if sex was accessible in the free market economy.  However, there have been times in history where prostitution was legal, and women in these places still faced violent oppression.  For example, Islamists in pre-revolutionary Iran permitted prostitution in the Red Light District of Tehran.  Even though prostitution was legal in the confines of the district, women were still horribly abused.  Often, men sold them to brothels, and the women had no escape.  If Rubin is going to argue that capitalism would benefit sex workers, she must take into account that capitalism creates and conveniently turns a blind eye to oppression of the working class.

Queer-April 16

From reading the two articles, I gather that queer theory is an attempt to undermine the categories that create oppression of sex, gender, and sexuality.  Theory writers are forced to overcome long histories of colonization and gender appropriating verbiage in order to welcome a new age in theoretical discourse, an age that unifies all humans on the continuum of sexuality.  I found the writing in both articles to be rather personal and casual.  I assume this trend fed the theory articulated, especially in that language needs to be more accessible and inclusive if it will be used to describe and understand each other, hence the word "queer."  In addition, the style of writing allows the writers to insert their pronal interventions and stories within their theories, demonstratiing the living embodiment and commonality of queer individuals.  In the critique of boundaries and systems of oppression created by language, Feinberg urges readers to defy the "man-made boundaries of gender"and create a unifying language that empowers the oppressed.  Furthermore, queer theory confirms that time does not always signify social progression.  For example, Feinberg outlines how transgendered individuals were praised as powerful figures before the advent of capitalism.  An immense and complicated history of persecuting and shaming transgendered communities has created a norm of violence toward and oppression of queer individuals.  This shows the queer community is in an even lower position than they were in ancient history.

Notes from discussion:
clothing limits mobility
capitalism has stakes in clothing

Sexuality-April 13

The purpose of theoretical writing on sexuality is to explore women's rights and access to sexual health and freedom.  The feminist theory lens allows us to look at women's corporeal health in a social and global context.  In the article, "Reproductive and Sexual Rights: A Feminist Perspective," Correa and Petchesky lay out a model for establishing and protecting women's reproductive rights.  The authors argue that although the concept of human rights derives from Western theory, reproductive rights transcend historical and geographical scales.  The central issue of reproductive rights concerns a woman's ability to decide when and whether to have children.  However, many other issues are at hand when dealing with this issue.  Corporeal rights for women both drive and are driven by social change.  In other words, women's control over their bodies is largely encouraged on a government scale, and yet women gain political status when they are able to control their reproduction.  More importantly, the state of the economy determines women's reproductive matters.  For example, women of lower economic status do not have the means of transportation necessary to access contraceptives and gynecological treatments.  The economic inequity of women facilitates the consciousness of social needs greater than women's bodies.  To accommodate the social needs of all women and strengthen the foundation upon which women's reproductive rights are constructed, Correa and Petchesky urge feminists to uphold bodily integrity, personhood, equality, and diversity.  Because women's bodies around the world, and especially in patriarchal locations, are integral to social traditions, the pillars of the social model must remain respected.  In the case of Saudi Arabian women, we have to wonder if the patriarchal mandate to completely cover their bodies rejects the pillars.  To some extent, Saudi Arabian women lack agency in bodily matters.  It is believed that women whose bodies are not completely veiled will draw men into sin, which would jeopardize the pure, Islamic state.  The mandate for women to veil their bodies creates an environment in which women's bodies are concealed from the male gaze, yet they lack freedom in the decision to be veiled.  Furthermore, the veil and its social implications prevents women from exploring their sexuality outside of the Islamic law.  In the analysis of Saudi Arabian women, however, it is important for a "western" feminist like myself to remember diversity.  The veiling of women and maintenance of purity is essential to their religious tradition.  The veil also benefits women by concealing their sex, avoiding sexual assault (somewhat), and preventing themselves from getting distracted by fashion frivolity.  What remains important here is that women do not have the choice to be unveiled.  In the minds of Correa and Petchesky, forcing women to be veiled by a patriarchal and theocratic regime would diminish the freedoms of the other three pillars.

Transnational-April 9

Changing times poses an issue within theoretical writing, as we have seen throughout this course.  Because theory changes with time, theory writers are tempted and sometimes obliged to revisit their former publications.  Transnationalism theory is especially subject to this phenomenon, which is why Mohanty revisited her past work, "Under Western Eyes."  Mohanty has added a new layer to the discourse about transnational feminism.  She strives to defend her vocabulary and push away misleading terms such as "Western" and "non Western".  This change is significant for me because my Persian studies professor feels crushed when we use that terminology.  As students entering the world of academic writing, it i critical for us, and Mohanty, to use the most accurate wording.  Another change in Mohanty;s writing is her emphasis o the global economy, specifically capitalism, as a modern legacy of colonialism.  Capitalism, according to Mohanty, forces a polarization of the One-Third and the Two-Thirds World as well as between individuals within a single community.  She argues that the First and Third World dichotomy contributes to biases, especially in the case of feminist mobilization.  Privilege, as characteristic of the Two-Thirds World, creates blindness to the needs of the local.  This is similar to the argument of Berkeley Brown, who stated that social stratification inherently obstructs our view of the reality people on different rungs face.  The Eurocentric feminism that Mohanty critics attempts to theorize the universal and thus, issues of the One-Thirds World are not considered in the "universal" theory of the "Two-Thirds" World.

Transnational-April 7

I would like to focus on one of the readings today, the essay by Amrita Basu, in order to put the idea of transnational feminism into the contect of my undergraduate tuies.  basu analyzses the processes and the outcomes of the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference as it relateds to local and global feminist issues.  In 1985 omen in the "South" were linked to the concept of the local, as their issues seemed to be involve more basic needs.  The definition of local and global were disputed because it led to the polarization of the North and South.  The North financially upports the South; however, this underscores a legacy of colonialism and the third world dependence on the North.  Furthermore, the two way flow of ideas becomes restricuted.  Globalism ofers some leverage to alleviate the tensions of Northern dominance by emphasizing women's issues as human rights issues.  Campaigns on this global platform have been successful, specifically in protest of the Taleban's treatment of Afghan women.  Although, the North's perception of the Middle Eastern  local and feminist issues continue to be biased and dangerously limiting.  The focus on sexual victimization in the Middle East is exacerbated by U.S.-Arab tensions.  The North views the Middle East as backwards.  Moreover, the women are considered to completely voiceless beings in an oppressive theocratic state.  Little good can be done in the world if our strongest mobilizing force is formed upon historical and political resentments.  This is why I think it is so important to study diffferent cultures and remove regional biases.  Women become equally as oppressed by ignorant feminist discourse as they do by patriarchal legacies.  For example, Iranian women in 1937 were forced to unveil by King Reza Shah, who wanted to modernize the country and maintain close economic and political ties with Europe.  Forced unveiling created great insecurity within Iranian women who found the veil to be integral to the expression and concealment of their femininity and religion.  Feminist discourse mostly takes global and historical phenomenons into context in order to become more conscious of human rights matters.

Miranda Joseph

For the most part, I found this very challenging to read.  While I have taken several entry level business classes here at University of Maryland, none of them took the time to address how the concepts related to society.  I learned some of the principles Miranda Joseph emphasizes in the introduction of her book that pertained to basic accounting with a few larger applications.  However, I found this writing to be too verbose and difficult to relate to fully comprehend.  Because this was such a challenging read for me, I would like to outline some of the ideas that I gathered from the introduction of the book, and then try to detail some of the information I found interesting from the following chapters.  I would like to start with her emphasis on accountability.  The concept of accountability means that people "will do the right thing (act responsibly) or be punished."  I believe the concept of economic entities being accountable for their actions is central to her underlying argument about how debt is incurred by society.  Accountability allows the social world to interact with the financial world.  When an economic crisis occurs, the media wants to figure out who was accountable.  This shows that all people are affected by the dynamic economy, and "high finance" becomes palpable for all people.  The reality of economic crisis is most evident in strike debt.  Debt creates a world for individuals to be safe from poverty, or rather, safe from financial institutions that accrue capital from the debts of others.  Financial institutions manipulate debt against particular communities in the pursuit of accruing more capital.  Miranda Joseph uses the example of the Wells Fargo branch in Silver Spring Maryland in this point.  In this case, Wells Fargo targeted African American consumers by hiring exclusively African American employees to solicit loans.  Baltimore filed a complaint against the company because its program relied on stereotypes of African American communities in order to exploit debtors.  This example feeds into the notion that financial institutions have the power to polarize and exploit entire communities in the process of accruing capital.  Baltimore forced Wells Fargo to be morally accountable in this lawsuit, as exploiting particular communities creates an almost eternal state of debt for the exploited.  When Miranda Joseph focuses on women as a community exploited by neoliberalism, she explores the state of welfare and poverty for women.  She argues the entrepreneurial subjectivity relies on gender norms.  Social norms are dramatized by the economy when financial institutions assume women have poor financial management skills.  Women must be controlled by men in their financial practices for fear that they are incapable of maintaining balance.  Welfare perpetuates female inability to control their money, as they need to rely on a government system in order to support herself and a family if she has one.  The problem is that women are not encouraged to be independent of their own finances.  I would like to relate this to an article I read recently about motherhood.  In this article, it is argued that motherhood is not biologically instinctive, but a learned desire.  Because women are forced by society to become mothers, and only mothers, men are expected to earn wages to support the family.  Women who are both mothers and professionals experience more scrutiny if they slip up in raising their children, yet men are applauded merely for being their for the uprearing of their children at all.  In this way, women who contribute to the economy in other ways than being a mother are scorned.  Men, then, take control over the entire economy and create a system of welfare in which a woman can never be independent of men.

Story-March 24

Yabo creatively gives personal stories aarger significance. I have been researching a lot about how memoirs, although it is a more intimate form of historical writing, makes the everyday lives of people historically and politically important. Take the chapter titled "Massa Bull Massa Cow" for instance.  In this chapter, Rudy and Ramses discover that their child is born intersexed.  Being born as an intersexed child creates an inherent mixed identity.  What makes this chapter even more interesting is the fact that this family is black.  This challenges the idea of an intersecting idea even further, as it makes intersexed anatomies a total reality for both the family and the doctor.  For example, the doctor notes that although she never witnessed the birth of an intersexed child, her medical studies of this phenomenon lead her to believe that only white children could be born this way.  This relates to history in that historical and medical writing expunges black identities from existence.  In this way, the doctor without even realizing it, forgets about the identities of black individuals.  I am a history major, and I have definitely noticed that black stories are forgotten, unless it is in the context of black discourse.

Situated Knowledge

Donna Haraway questions whether writing about feminist theory can ever be objective, even if science is used as the factual basis for rationality.  On one side of feminist discourse argues that objectivity cannot be acheived through the scientific method because of inherently existing stakes of power.  Yet, people whole-heartedly and unconditionally trust that science and technology are distant from emotional and social preoccupations.  Haraway states that feminist theorists insist that Marxism is the ultimate example of scientific objectivity.  However, failure for feminist theorists to question the relevance of Marxism in objectivity silences them, and prevents the drive of creative knowledge.  Marxism, like capitalism and colonialism were reinforced by the widely accepted belief that they were scientifically objective.  And yet, the reliance on vision throughout history has allowed people to question the true objectivity of the systems of oppression.  The stakes that oppressive systems maintain in knowledge and what is understood to be objective forms feminist's situated knowledges.

History-March 12

"Your understanding of the past changes the history you tell."-Julie Enszer
Your definition of feminism changes the starting and ending points of historical movements.
White washed history
claiming that feminism is about only equality eliminates other feminist plights from history
acknowledging autonomous stories advances feminism
feminism is multiracial
positivism jeopardizes feminist telling of history--historical progressivism

After Spring Break Wishes

Things I would like to discuss/surface after break:

1. I would like to further articulate the legacies of western dominance over the understanding of Iranian feminism.  Essentially, I would like to break away from my western feminist view of Iranian society.
2. I think it would be interesting to look more into popular/multimedia forms of art in order to get a better picture of feminism.  If we are talking about epistemology, different forms of media are essential to gaining more complex knowledges.
3. We talked briefly about the theory of the panopticon.  I think it would be interesting to talk more about how this theory dictates our lives today.

 Praises: I like her idea about the use of multimedia in class to get better understanding about the feminism.

History -- Conditions

Conditions is a literary magazine that consists of poems, essays, and short stories with a strong emphasis on the lives of lesbians.  The collections demonstrate strong intersectional themes, specifically in terms of class, race, gender, and sexuality.  What I found most interesting while looking through Conditions was the close relationship between personal experience and underlying theory.  On Tuesday's discussion about history, I was able to contribute my idea that the lives of women, due to the private (feminine) and public (masculine) dichotomies of gender, are only made public through the publications of their stories.  I related this to the state of women's literature in Iran, where women are silenced in the public sphere, unable to define history.  However, women writers give themselves voices through groundbreaking publications of their autobiographies and fiction, offering the public insight into the private, yet profoundly political, lives of women.  This reshapes the telling of history.  We established that history is subject to constant change as new perspectives, specifically those of the dominated (aka not white men), enter the public.
In relation to Conditions: four and Conditions: fifteen, each contributor demands to explore and bring forth the unknown or the unaccepted.  The authors provide insight into the intersections of their complex, yet still highly valuable lives, that is overlooked in history.  The essay that stood out to me as demonstrating complex theoretical thinking as well as deeply personal, emotional narration was "Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response" by Audre Lorde.  In this essay, Lorde presents her experience, as a black lesbian, raising her son, in an oppressive world.  She clarifies that her writing is not intended to be universal, nor is she attempting to assert her theories about motherhood.  However, I gathered that her revelations about her relationship with her son were entrenched in Freudian and poststructural epistemological theory.  Growing up in a private world dominated by women and a public world dominated white men dismantled the socially established structures of gender for Jonathan.  Lorde's greatest fear was that her son would employ the legacies of male dominance and avoid looking within himself and his complex relationship strength.  The idea of looking "within" is thematic in this essay.  I believe that to look "within" means to recognize and not hide your identities from the public.  If you do, you begin to deny yourself and live in ultimate fear of the world.  The relationship between a black lesbian mother with her black son represents a struggle between diverging identities within a relationship.  Although this relationship poses difficulties on both sides, it also creates an advantageous platform for feminist perspective that accommodates an ever-growing audience.  Her experience, while she avoids being didactic, places high value on the relationships between people with intersecting identities.  She ultimately asserts that the advantages outweigh the burden in this relationship, as her son was blessed with the ability to understand more about people than most children his age.  Thus, Lorde's experience offers a model for the future in which different experiences and lives do not have to be threatening.  This model, strengthened by Lorde's ability to look "within" herself, entirely reshapes my understanding of feminist history, as I can now see is apparent exclusions and limitations.  For example, Lorde struggles to avoid feeding into the patriarchy when he is bullied by his peers or when a feminist conference does not allow men over ten to attend.  In this light, I can see that isn't just male dominated form of history that prevents the public exposure to different experiences, but the multiple histories existing in the world that intersect and dominate each other, like weeds choking out a plant's ability to blossom.

Course Reflection

Overall, I find this course to be rather challenging.  While the readings are effective and help shape my own thoughts about feminism, I find them sometimes to be too difficult for me to comprehend.  I believe this to be due to the lengthiness of the readings.  When I feel as though I have a good grasp on the reading, the author continues to throw in more thoughts, and that's when I get lost.  The tendency for me to get confused by the reading prevents me from contributing to the discussion and offering profound criticisms to my assigned partner.  I enjoy the readings for the most part, but perhaps they could be reduced for each week.  I think this would create a better, more focused learning environment because there are many times when one or two out of the three readings will go unmentioned.  If we focused on fewer readings, the discussion would be more lively, and we could better articulate our thoughts.  Other than the volume of the readings, I really enjoy and get a lot out of this course.  I like the discussion format, especially now that the discussions are now facilitated by the students.

History-March 10

"The Poem as Mask," I believe, uses the metaphor of masks to look at the evolution of womanhood throughout history. As the lines proceed, the poet's theory is developed, revealing the absence of God and the changing face of femininity. Poetry allows the female poet to articulate the abstract and create powerful, historic theory. Women in the 1960's women's movement used poetry in a similar manner. Poetry became the political, when groups of women would come together to discuss gender, race, sexuality and more. The best medium to expose an all-inclusive experience and to attempt to create a universal, political articulation for their platform. This reminds me of the poem I incorporated in my research paper about sexuality in the 1960's titled, "A Rose with No Name." A prostitute is the central figure in this poem whose morality is compared to the evilness of the Vietnam War. The use of a prostitute as the main subject creates a platform in which the freedom of sexuality as well as the politics of war are discussed. This relates well to the topic of history in relation to poetry, as the poem, while criticizing women's accepted roles in society by analyzing the morality of a prostitute also serves to theorize about the historical struggles of the U.S. in the war effort.

Local vs global
biases of historiography
generation vs geneology
story vs history

Poststructural Epistemology-March 3

The poem "Prisons of Silence" thematically uses notions of boundaries, or rather the negative connotation, prisons, to underscore the narrator's experience of a Japanese American woman.  The boundary created by the gender relationship between her and her husband is represented by the "cold wall of flesh," or as I interpreted, her body.  The emphasis on her body is an important one, as it is the manifestation of her limitations as a woman and a Japanese person.  Walls of barbed wire separate her from the United States as well as her husband who is leaving to serve in the military.  Unlike the narrator, her husband is not bound by his gender in leaving the imprisonment of the barbed wires.  Then she remarks that the walls encompass her body like the tomb in which her husband lie.  When she can finally break her wall of silence, she also breaks the "cell of history" that has drawn the boundaries of her identity and restricted her from living freely.  This poem relates to both theory texts of Moya and Mani.  Moya uses the lens of Chicana feminism in order to criticize the relevance and truthfulness of postmodern epistemology.  In relation to "Prisons of Silence," Moya's greatest point resides in her assertion that identity creates boundaries.  She claims that women of color have the ability of traversing these boundaries.  Her claim is set up in opposition to the postmodern theorist, Sandoval, who wrote that identities are unstable, and the woman must shift identities according to her situation.  Moya argues that identities are not encompassed by strict boundaries, and become "more or less visible," instead of shifting in various circumstances. The experiences of women of color, as argued by Moya, ought to preside over new political thought as these experiences allow for the indispensable ability to negotiate boundaries.  In comparison to Moya, Mani analyzes the Indian tradition of sati, and comes upon interesting insight into how knowledge is formulated based on location.  The varied understanding of knowledge is due to the "boundaries of gender, race, class, sexuality and historical experience," according to Mani.  Layers of history in respect to location create the barriers between western and eastern ideologies.  Mani examines sati to show that the Indians believe this practice to be integral to their culture, however, the legacy of colonialism and racism in US and British affairs has branded this tradition as appalling, putting the "woman's question" into India's political landscape.

Poststructural Epistemology-February 26

The three readings assert that gender results in the embodiment of legacies: history and public culture.  Judith Butler discusses how western philosophical literature that defines gender must be reconsidered due, in part, to the fact that there are always new aspects of womanhood that require expression.  On the other hand, Bartky analyzes the forms in which the feminine body is adjusted, revealing that the evolution of trends and desire are in a way written on the body.  Using the literature of Foucault as a backdrop to look at the evidence of patriarchy on women's bodies as well as rebellions to the this phenomenon, Bartky argues that women's bodies are most subject to men's discipline.  She uses the imagery of the Foucault's panopticon, to reveal that women fear rebellion as a result of being constantly watched by men.  Failure to ever actually to obtain the perfect mind and body that men believe to be perfect for women, women are destined to feel a "bodily deficiency" which further strengthen men's control and abuse of women's minds and bodies.  Both authors emphasize patriarchal power to discuss how gender is created and oppression of women is justified.

Standpoint Epistemology-February 24

The three assigned reading offer interesting insight into the processes and complexities that formulate the theories of oppression.  The poem "For the White Person Who Wants to be My Friend" describes Pat Parker's relationship with white people as a black woman.  Relying heavily on sarcasm, Parker criticizes how white people attempt to relate to her through overtly racist and vaguely sexist stereotypes, that result in her resentment of the effort.  Through Parker's poetry, we can begin to see the social boundaries created by misguided assumptions about black culture.  Similarly, Kimberle Crenshaw analyzes black womanhood to argue that the inability for those other than black women to understand the plight of intersectional identities creates many layers of injustice and oppression.  Furthermore, like the unsuccessful effort to remedy the social stratification between races as portrayed in Parker's poem, Crenshaw claims that the antidiscrimination laws fail to accommodate the complexity that exists in the intersection of sex and race.  This failure contributes to a double oppression for black women, which is manifested in the court's inability to judge black women's discrimination cases based on their combined identity.  Both Parker and Crenshaw emphasize black culture in their writing in order to argue that black culture, while in some aspects may be different than other cultures, does not define the individual, or rather, the woman, who supposedly belongs to that culture.  Aretha Franklin does not define Parker's world as a black woman.  Domestic abuse depicted in The Color Purple does not define the black family unit.  Understanding the complexity of the individual, separate from her respective culture, will permit the ending of discrimination.

Standpoint Epistemologies-February 19

In the pursuit of advancing feminist goals for equality among the sexes, we must first understand the nature of gender oppression around the world.  The two articles, "The Feminist Standpoint: Toward a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism" and "The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a Nonwestern Feminist," emphasize the structure of knowledge and its inability to be universal.  Hartsock uses a "feminist standpoint" to look at the value of women in materialism in a historical context.  To do this, she needed to eliminate nonwestern traditions from her text, as it would dilute her argument.  Using Marxist theory as a backdrop for her argument that the feminist standpoint accounts for all of the oppressed, she focuses on the sexual division of labor that reinforces male dominance.  Women are, if not more, essential to the labor force than men, as they work double days and are responsible for the creation of new beings.  Moreover, the nature of human development according to Freudian doctrine contributes to the polarization of many dualisms that exist between the two genders.  I thought it was interesting that she listed many dualisms, but did not mention public/private, which I believe would have been critical in explaining the global phenomenon of male dominance.  All of her dualisms justify sexual division of labor, but public/private accounts for women's absence from the economic public sphere as well as the political, as we see especially in Iran. For her article, the feminist standpoint encapsulates the material necessity of the proletariat to understand the oppression of women.
Narayan argues that the biggest weakness of feminist epistemology is that it does not account for nonwestern standpoints.   Feminist epistemology, according to both articles, attempts to link all oppressed groups.  However, western feminist tend to dominate feminist discourse, excluding or stereotyping the issues and values experienced by nonwestern feminists. Narayan makes it clear that west is not best when it comes to feminist epistemology, using the example that western romantic love is equally as oppressive as arranged marriages.  Furthermore, western voices dominating feminist discourse strengthens the legacy of colonization in nonwestern countries, a legacy that led to devaluation of the values of womanhood in these cultures.  Western feminist epistemology is inherently flawed due to its dominating nature, especially as it romanticizes the oppressed and fails to understand the true issues at hand.  The abandonment of nonwestern feminist concerns ultimately weakens the feminist platform on a global scale.

Gender-February 12

I thought this week's reading called "Leadership for Change" relied too heavily on gender based stereotypes in an effort to analyze the weaknesses of the patriarchal structure of leadership.  I understand the article's purpose is to highlight the positive aspects of women's nature and apply it to organizational structure.  However, the article focuses too much on criticizing masculine stereotypes rather than accepting the challenge of eliminating gender and incorporating leaderships strategies that are relevant to all.  According to Kokopeli and Lakey, women's organizations are more successful due to the nurturing tendency associated with womanhood.  In contrast, patriarchal groups are likely to rebel due to men's desire to maintain the most power and control.  We have learned that gender is a social construct based on biology.  However, the binary understanding of sex and gender are limiting and therefore reject humans who do not conform to either categories.  Due to this, Wittig argues that classification based on gender must be eliminated from the public.  This article, on the other hand, distinguishes gender quite clearly.  In fact, it reinforces gender roles that patriarchal authority thrives on.  If a well organized, democratic group is to be egalitarian, it must recognize that each person is a human.  Each person can get away with their thoughts when they feel passionate about a project or idea.  It is not in the best interest of an organization to restrict these tendencies based on sex.

Gender-February 10

The selected readings argued that gender is simply a social construct based on biology.  The construction of gender goes further than polarizing the sexes, but also creates both economic and political implications.  "The Traffic in Women" outlines the economic value of women perceived by a historical lens.  The institution of marriage allows for women's bodies to become an essential commodity for a group of people.  Selling a woman, under the guise of marriage, ties two groups together economically.  In this way, the brideswealth serves as a dowry.  In Iran, where marriage is absolutely essential for a woman, a man must offer a handsome price in order to marry a woman.  Not only that, but a male guardian overlooks the entire economic transaction of the woman's marriage.  According to Marxist theory, women account for the surplus capital in the form reproduction of labor when they are married.  It is in marriage that women's bodies become an economic entity.
Biology comprises the definition of a woman based in relationship to a man.  This relationship shows a deeply oppressive patriarchal tradition. Defining the two classes: woman and man, contributes the cycle of oppressive thought.  In getting away from the biological relationship between man and woman, we will end the heterosexual oppressive system at work.  Oppressive system serves to place men and women into roles.  Monique Wittig argues that lesbians do not fall into the role of women because they do not have the mimic a woman's relation to a man.  Furthermore, the traditional definition of woman inhibits a person from being herself, as understood by the poem "Masks of a Woman."  In the poem, the narrator reveals that she wears the mask of the Asian woman the man she has a relationship wants her to be, but that is not who she really is.

Sex-February 5

As I read the last three texts, it became clear to me that the body is what defines sex.  I believe Fausto-Sterling's articles emphasize the body as a boundary.  "Dueling Dualisms" describes a Spanish Olympian, Maria Patino, who failed the femininity test as a result of exhibiting a Y chromosome.  This event called into question, how can a person's sex be determined if biology does not comply with the social binary construct of sex?  Historically, scientists studying sex divided sex into two entities: male and female, with no account for persons in between.  Understanding of genders changed throughout history in context of a person's sexual attraction.  The basis for the divisions of sex and gender is the body.  The body in scientific perspective creates a boundary between male and female.  The boundary exists socially in the differences between genders.
Intersex beings challenge the widely accepted notion that there are only two sexes in nature, backed by respective genders.  The challenge is met with push back, making it difficult for hermaphrodites to be accepted as they are in society due to their physical inability to be bound by the male or female sexes.  Physicians and parents alike often decide to surgically "correct" their intersex children and raise them according to their assigned sex.  This action creates issues in that the child does not have any choice in this process, and therefore grows to resent their sex and their parents.  If we could just abandon the Western need to have each and every aspect of life fall into two categories, we would create a more inclusive and understanding society.  Instead, we let the boundaries created by sex and history to inhibit our ability to care for those who do not align with preconceived notions of sex.


 Summary and Response:
 Emma in her journal made many thoughtful responses to Fausto-Sterling's articles on both the Dueling Dualism of sex and the problems with fitting into our society's strict social construct of two sexes in regards to the second article. Emma also states that through these readings she found out more of what our society defines as sex. For example, she comments on how "Physicians and parents alike often decide to surgically "correct" their intersex children and raise them according to their assigned sex.  This action creates issues in that the child does not have any choice in this process, and therefore grows to resent their sex and their parents. " This issue that has been historically been happening with intersex children is one of the main problems that Fausto-Sterling mentions in her article. I enjoy how Emma also comments on how if our society abandoned the Western cultural need for the strict two sexes that these people could find a place in our society. Though personally I feel like writing about abandoning these strict categories is easier than actually doing this. Many in people in our society would have major problems with this dissection of the sexes.
~ Aubrey Sneesby

Sex-February 3

 While the readings for this week were very different, offering many layers to theory in various forms, I found that all emphasized sex.  Interestingly, exclusion and dominance based on the body, the physical manifestation of sex, strengthened the arguments of each writer.
In "Generations of Women," Mirikitani describes the deeply emotional histories of three Japanese women.  Words such as "weary" and "woman foetus" and "entering of men" echo through out this poem, contributing the overall understanding that these women suffered due to their inferiority to men.  Their physical bodies were subject to long days of labor, pregnancy, and racist mocking.  The grandmother and the mother are marked by the weakness of their sex and race during the period of Japanese internment in the United States.  At the end, the narrator (the third generation/daughter) defies the persistence of female inferiority.  She becomes proud of her mother and grandmother's experiences, and thus becomes proud of who she is--a Japanese American woman.
 Carole Pateman in "Introduction: The Theoretical Subversiveness of Feminism" argues that women have historically excluded from theory, and therefore, classic theoretical works should be reviewed with feminist lens.  The inclusion of women in theory would undermine, yet modernize the social and political patriarchal arguments made by classic theorists.  The previous, biased understanding of women as illogical deemed them unfit for the public sector, and thus unfit for making contributions to theory.  Universality, ineffectively, began to mask the obvious masculine bias of theory.  What "universality" and "individuality" fail to demonstrate is body of woman, which in itself is exclusive in that it has the ability to give birth.  The exclusion of women from social and political theory undermines the socialist themes that so many of the classic radicalists discuss.  If the point of socialism is to make everyone equal, then why do these theories not apply to women?  Shifting away from classic theory, in contemporary theory, we face a similar issue.  The issue is that theorists dismiss all women's theory as feminist, when it is impossible for all women to agree on the same theories.  This dilemma is part of the reason why I am taking this class, as I find many people do not want to listen to my ideas if I align myself with feminism, even if I do not agree with everything a modern feminist might.
Moreover, Barbara Christian demonstrates that race even further polarizes the already sexed biases of theory existing in literature.  She portrays the race for theory as an academic elitist phenomenon upon which literature is criticized using Western theory.  In order to break the shackles of Western thought, Christian turns to literature to express the philosphy she has accrued through experience.  So often, critics will classify or examine world and/or female literature with a Western, binary understanding.  This becomes an issue when in the attempt to create universal theory, critics fail to include the periphery.  I find this especially important as a history major.  I often find that what I learn is HIS-story, and excludes the experience of the smaller, yet still significant beings at play.  It is through literature that I can gain a better understand the world outside of white men's actions.

Introduction/Theory

Unnatural Speech
I felt confused by the poem.  I could not tell what the roles of the characters were.  I believe the poem is trying to convey the emotions and difficulties that minority parents face when they see their children struggle in school.  The struggle is even more difficult to overcome when it stems from cultural biases such as language barriers.

Haciendo caras, una entrada
It is easy for me, a white woman, to forget the struggles of women of color.  I believe it is the acknowledgement of personal narratives that drive emotional reaction.  The personal narratives and the reader's emotional reaction  begin on a the basic, private level and then radiate outwards.  This is what drives theory.

Feminist theories ask questions:
ontology, epistemology, and politics
ontology-feelings of being in reality
ontogony- fetal development, trace evolutionary change of human beings
epistemology-study of knowledge
politics-clash of ideology; power and domination