Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"

Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"
For those of you who have never heard of Mary Wollstonecraft, please, do yourself a favor and read a little bit. Wollstonecraft was writing in 1792!

"Women are, in common with men, rendered weak and luxurious by relaxing pleasures which wealth procures; but added to this they are made slaves to their persons, and must render them alluring that man may lend them his reason to guide their tottering steps aright. Or should they be ambitious, they must govern their tyrants by sinister tricks, for without rights there cannot be incumbent duties. The laws respecting woman...make an absurd unit of man and his wife; and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as responsible, she is reduced to a mere cipher."

Sure, things have changed, but in many ways, have they? Just look at the current war on women's reproductive rights--who are the "deciders?"

"Riley on Marketing"--Young Girl Raises Interesting Questions about Gender

Unearned Power and Privilege (And How to Combat It)

Hey all, it's been a while. I'm back in school again, so my torment can continue (the whole obsessing over world/women's problems that don't have immediate answers kind of torment). This paper refers to Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies.

Unearned Power and Privilege (And How to Combat It)

             When I initially thought about the questions being raised for this journal, I thought of Peggy McIntosh's article about privilege. I am a white, middle-class, American woman. That being said, I find it difficult to answer these questions mainly because I imagine that I have much of the same unearned advantages and disadvantages as many women from similar backgrounds. Had I been asked these questions several years ago, when I was much more naïve and radical, my answers would have been simple. Unfortunately, I find it difficult to think in such black-and-white terms.

            I am sure I have mentioned this before, but I am a double-major in History and Women's Studies. All of the knowledge I have earned from these subjects make it difficult for me to distinguish any unearned disadvantages that directly impact me. Both historically and up to the present, people have been much worse off (in every sense) than I. Much like McIntosh, my connection to Women's Studies has influenced my ideas of privilege, gender, sexuality, and race, along with many other socially constructed systems. Years ago, I was deeply involved in politics, radical feminism, and pro-choice campaigning. At that time, I would not have hesitated to answer this question about unearned disadvantages. I would have stated that being a 'woman' is an obvious disadvantage. I still hold this to be somewhat true, however, I am fully aware that 'women' have much more opportunities available to them now than they did twenty years ago.

             My idea of an unearned disadvantage has changed drastically since high school. During my senior year of high school, I was accepted into every college that I applied to. I was accepted to Mount Holyoke, Beloit, Bard, and Oberlin. I can distinctly recall how upset I was when I learned Beloit College was the only school that give me any kind of financial aid package. I thought it was so unfair. I wanted to escape the midwest and attend Bard College. I was heartbroken. When I look back this moment, I feel ashamed. I was an ungrateful and bitter person. I now understand that it is a huge privilege to have a college education.

             A rather manifest but true statement can be made about my generation as a whole. From a fiscal perspective, I think it is a huge unearned disadvantage to be my age or younger. Had I stayed at Beloit College (the first college I attended), I would have graduated in 2010. It makes little difference that I have not yet graduated. All of my friends from my graduating class at Beloit (that earned a BA) have yet to find jobs within their said fields. Most of them serve tables in a meager attempt to pay off their student loans. College is more expensive now than it has ever been. Yet, I feel as though it has become a societal expectation that one earn a college degree. I am going to earn my BA, but I do not expect to find a job (especially one that relates to my degree) immediately after graduating.

            My parents divorced when I was five. While this is no longer a unique unearned disadvantage, it really upset me at the time. As a child, I could not understand why our family dynamic had failed. My younger sister was too young to remember anything that occurred during the divorce. I, however, remember everything. I remember getting dragged to family therapy, and being used as a pawn for revenge by both my mother and father. Since this period of my life, my attitude toward this experience has changed greatly. I no longer recognize it as a disadvantage. I have come to believe that it has made me who I am. Had my parents stayed married, I would be a completely different person today.

            As a “privileged” white woman from a middle-class family in Minneapolis, I have relatively little to complain about. I have read Peggy McIntosh for several Women's Studies courses. Much like her, I grew up relatively unaware of my privilege until I discovered feminism on my own. McIntosh discusses her unearned advantage as a white woman in frank manner; she claims, “Being white, I am given considerable power to escape many kinds of danger or penalty as well as to choose which risks I have to take” (100). That being said, I did not ask to be born into privilege. I was born with an unearned advantage. I am fully aware (and have been for quite some time) of how my societal positioning as an individual allows me more freedom than most. It is what I do with that freedom that is important. With this knowledge, I can change how I act, feel, live, and learn in a way that supports societal change.

The People I’ve Slept With: Complications on Womanhood and Female Sexuality

The People I’ve Slept With:

Complications on Womanhood and Female Sexuality

For the third event paper for this course, I chose to attend a film showing at the Asian American Film Festival hosted at St. Anthony Main Theater in Minneapolis. The film I saw was called The People I’ve Slept With directed by Quentin Lee and followed the main character, Angela (played by Karin Anna Cheung), as she navigates her choices following an unplanned pregnancy. The film is set in modern day California, was filmed in English, and was advertised as a comedy. Overall, I felt that the film was ineffective at portraying female sexuality and undermined the weight of the decisions surrounding unplanned pregnancy.

The film opens with Angela videotaping herself explaining her life to her unborn child. She states, ‘Mommy likes sex. I have come to learn that being a slut just means that you are a woman with the morals of a man.’ In this exposition, we learn that Angela is promiscuous and does not know who the father of her child is. After hastily deciding to keep the baby, Angela sets off to secretly collect DNA samples from a subset of 5 possible candidates to do a paternity test and to pursue Mystery Man (a.k.a. Jefferson Lee played by Archie Kao) whom she hopes is the father and will marry her before her child is born.

For me, the equation that Angela is slut and that sluts are women with the morals of men is a very anti-woman sentiment that promotes gender inequality. Angela is shamed by her sexuality from the first moments of the film. First of all, slut is a term that is used to shame and degrade women, and even if she is self-labeling, her use of the term still implies that there is something wrong with her sexuality. Furthermore, saying that all men like having many sexual partners is also a stereotype and implies that it is ok for men to have ‘lax’ morals, but women are not supposed to like sex and are not supposed to sleep with many people. This statement at the outset of the film made it very difficult for me to relate to the female character because I felt that she became unbelievable, manipulated, and inauthentic.

During the opening and closing credits of the film, Angela is shown sleeping with several different men. The sex in these scenes can only be described as comedic and unrealistic. Angela describes herself as liking sex, but her character is written as an object of the male gaze—she is shown wearing complicated lingerie, not sweating or out of breath, and with perfect hair and make-up. The scenes change between several familiar pseudo-pornographic situations common to the male psyche—Angela as a nurse, Angela partaking in a threesome, Angela being spanked, etc. Additionally, in several flashbacks through out the film, Angela is shown drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and then engaging in high risk sexual activity with unfamiliar men (a random new neighbor, a man at the bar, a blind date). Not only are these situations unquestioned by Angela or anyone in the film, they promote the idea that men can assume that highly intoxicated women (Angela is shown being very hung over and having blacked out) can give active consent. Angela’s drinking is completely unacknowledged in the film in relation to her sexual practices and essentially becomes a dysfunctional way of portraying dysfunction. These images further undermined the believability of Angela’s character in my mind.

After learning she is pregnant, Angela calls her homosexual male friend Juliet (who also turns out to be a contender as the father). Juliet is not supportive, basically calls her stupid for her behavior, and advises (without asking what Angela wants to do), to get an abortion. Immediately following this scene, Angela’s conservative and nagging sister enters Angela’s apartment. The imagery in this scene is quite literally like a cartoon character with the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Juilet sits on Angela’s left and advocates abortion and Angela’s sister sits on her right and advocates settling down and finding the father. Neither is supportive and neither asks how Angela feels. Angela quickly decides that the baby is going to save her from her “old ways” and she decides to find the father. Unfortunately, this decision also entails that Angela get married before the baby is born (because, god-forbid she become a single mother). So, she also begins planning her wedding so that she too can have the ‘picket fence, the car, and the house in the suburbs’ that Angela’s sister has and which is a common tenant of the American Dream.

In another unfortunate scene of the movie, Angela and Juliet go to a Purity Ceremony to reclaim their virginity. Juliet decides to do it so that he can prove to jilted lover that he can be faithful, but this effaces the very real life reality of Christian extremism that attempts to cleanse individuals of their “homosexual tendencies.” Angela decides to attend the ceremony to increase her chances of finding a husband that will respect her. It is still unclear to me what the purpose of this scene is in relation to the storyline, other than furthering the theme of the film of undermining sexuality, regardless of orientation.

The climax of the movie comes when Angela reveals to her new quasi-boyfriend Jefferson Lee, a conservative politician, that she is pregnant; implying that it is his child and asking if he will ‘make an honest woman’ out of Angela. Lee responds that he is already engaged. Angela orders him to leave, but when Lee reappears later saying that he has called off his engagement and wants to marry Angela, Angela says yes without questioning the moral integrity of the man who quite incontrovertibly has had an affair. Angela’s father supports Lee’s decision to come back to Angela, but undermines Angela’s decision to marry Lee. This causes Angela to leave Lee at the altar, basically stating that her reasoning is because she is an unworthy, dishonest slut.

The conclusion comes with the birth of Angela’s child. Angela decides not to reveal who is the father of her child because she feels it no longer matters, she is now committed to raising the child on her own. There is little catharsis in this decision for the audience because it is the first time Angela’s character has actually made an independent decision in the film. Predictably, the film closes with Angela reintroducing herself to Jefferson Lee.

In conclusion, I felt that the film The People I’ve Slept With was a total blunder at dealing with modern day issues, portrayals of womanhood, and images of female sexuality. Angela is ineffectual and unrealistic; and the comedic tone of her story did nothing to lighten the message of the film. Overall, I felt that the film maintained antiquated stereotypes of femininity and made light of the lived experiences of many modern women without offering any sound advice or criticism.

Neo-Burlesque: Feminist Success or ‘Post-Feminist’ Tool of Subjugation?

Neo-Burlesque:

Feminist Success or ‘Post-Feminist’ Tool of Subjugation?

For my second event paper for this class, I attended a Lili’s Burlesque benefit show entitled Save Our Seas hosted by the Music Box Theater. The local burlesque troop had invited several out of state performers to construct a burlesque show to benefit those affected by the recent catastrophic BP oil spill. While initially hesitant on whether or not to consider a burlesque show a form of art, I believe for several reasons burlesque can be considered art. For one, these dancers possess a specific body knowledge that they have trained for and perfected, much like they way an artists possesses (in most cases, but not all) a unique, personal skill. Secondly, the show does elicit a reaction from the audience, even if that reaction is frequently arousal. Furthermore, the show not only featured burlesque performers but also live music, a lively host, and some comedy—giving the space for the show to be considered art in the sense that it is a larger piece constructed of smaller units to form a whole.

In analyzing the show from a feminist lens, there are several key points that I would like to discuss. The first of these points is the use of the word “virgin” by the show’s host to describe those who had never seen a burlesque show before. Secondly, I would like to discuss gender and representation in the show.

When I arrived at the Music Box Theater, I noticed that there crowd there was a very diverse mix. Local scene-sters, older couples, gay/lesbian couples, upper class people, non-white people, and their ages ranged from about 18 to 75. As we gathered in the theatre for the show to start, I felt that the crowd was buzzing with excitement for the upcoming ‘treat’ of burlesque, comedy, and striptease. The lights went down and Nadine DuBois entered the stage. Nadine DuBois was our host for the evening. She told us to leave our “Lutheran” upbringing out side the theater and to hoot and holler when we saw something she liked. I found the next thing she said very interesting: she asked the crowd if there were any ‘virgins’ in the theater. She defined virgin as someone who had never seen a Burlesque show before, but the underlying context was someone who had never seen a naked female body before. I, having never been to a burlesque show, was considered a ‘virgin’ in the theater and realized quickly that this term is used frequently throughout the community. This surprised me: are we not inundated with images of the female body on daily basis? What makes this situation so unique? Why has such an open community (at least from an outsider’s perspective) adopted such a heavily connoted word? Was I about to ‘lose something I could never retrieve’? I didn’t think so.

The next interesting thing that happened was a male burlesque dancer. After several female performers, a member of the Stage Door Johnnies, an all male burlesque troop from Chicago, took the stage. The male was comedically stylized as an Italian baker. The show was meant to be more funny than sexy and ended with the dancer fully naked on stage with only a sign saying “Kiss the Cook” covering his penis. The addition of these male acts to the show complicated the experience for me. Men, who are constructed as being uncomfortable with viewing the male form for fear of accusations of being gay, were warned that there were going to be male dancers in the show before it started. Women were not warned that they must be comfortable with their sexuality in order to watch the female performers. As the show continued on, two more male performers preformed individually, one danced while a member of Lili’s sang, and then the Stage Door Johnnies preformed together. With each performance, the comedy of the male dancer was played down and his sexuality increased. All the shows dances ended with the reveal of either the breasts (with pasties over the nipples) or a completely naked man with something covering his penis and testicles. The men and the women were, thus, essentially equalized in the show. The ‘art’ of the show was undressing in a pleasing, clever, athletic, and unexpected way. The reveal, however, was always the same. The burlesque acts done by men compared to how they were done by women were structurally very similar, aside from the fact that the bodies of the women usually remained adorned in some way at the time of the reveal. Another difference was the fact that the male acts needed to warm the audience by using comedy first (and injecting comedy intermittently) in order to not alienate the audience—both men and women, who are not used to viewing the male form presented in such a way.

I kept wondering to myself: “What makes this different?” What makes burlesque different from porn or the images of the female body that are circulated in pop culture? Certainly, all of the dancer’s body shapes were different (there was no one approaching the “Kentucky Fried Chicken” performer, however), so it challenged the idea that all women in order to be sexy must be thin, white, and blonde. But, were they portraying an authentic form of sexuality? I didn’t think so. They all seemed to have the same coy expression, the same goal, and the same outcome from the audience. Furthermore, all the women used stage names, and while I don’t think this is a bad thing necessarily, it creates an abstraction from their actual selves. The collection of this burlesque show, while titillating and somewhat enjoyable, did not seem to advance the image of women or liberate women sexuality in the way that I would expect a feminist-informed sex-positive show to do. The women were still objects—the illusion of the show is that the performer is presenting an authentic sexuality. But it is, by definition, an abstraction from authentic sexuality. There is a disconnect from the real and from the act. It is hopeful to think that burlesque presents a revolution in the way women are represented, but I think that it is a post-feminist ideology more than anything that promotes this. The idea exists that because the dancer is in control of the show, that then they have control over their body. It is true that they have control over how they proceed with the show—their choices about the way the dress or undress. I think, however, that because the dancer’s shows were all similarly structured, toned, and presented the illusion of authentic sexuality is maintained but the act of the dance is still controlled by the viewer, and more specifically the male gaze. Furthermore, while the male dancers added flavor to the show, their sexuality and their bodies where essentially dealt with in the same way. They, too, were turned into objects. While this is equalizing, it certainly does not represent a liberated representation of human sexuality, which I feel is so central to freeing our culture from the control of the patriarchy.

I feel that a similarity can be drawn between José Esteabn Muñoz’s discussion of drag in The White to Be Angry. In this article, it is stated:

Commercial drag presents a sanitized and desexualized queer subject for mass consumption. Such drag represents a certain strand of integrationalist liberal pluralism. The sanitized queen is mean to be enjoyed as an entertainer who will hopefully lead to social understanding and tolerance. Unfortunately, this boom is filmic and televisual drag has had no impact on hate legislation put forth by the New Right or on homophobic violence on the nation’s streets. Indeed, this “boom” in drag helps no one understand that a liberal-pluralist mode of political strategizing only eventuates a certain absorption and nothing like a productive engagement with difference (221).

It is similar with the spectacle and circus of the burlesque show. Under the guise of the palatable activism of raising money for the Gulf Coast, the strip tease is made available for here for consumption. However, it is clear by burlesque’s more general integration in pop culture (like Lady Marmalade as portrayed by Christina Aguilera, Pink, Mya, and Lil’ Kim) that burlesque in general is meant for larger mass consumption. It is the idea that female sexuality can be integrated in the heteronormative narrative without threatening the status quo. The burlesque performance does nothing, in this instance in particular, to present an authentic form of female sexuality. And, to further parallel Esteabn Muñoz, does nothing to politically and legally advance the placement of women in western society under the eyes of the law. The Equal Rights Amendment still has not passed and violence against women is still an all to frequent occurrence.

In conclusion, I had high hopes for Lili’s Burlesque Revue. I thought that the show would challenge frequent representations of women. It did not accomplish this and, overall, I felt that the praise that neo-burlesque hails from across the country only represents a ‘post-feminist’ sense of womanhood that betrays the reality of the positionality of female sexuality and our continued subjugation by the male gaze.

The Embarrassment of Riches

Written by: Puscifythis

For my first Critical Engagement paper I decided to see an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts entitled The Embarrassment of Riches. The aim of this exhibit is to critically assess economic disparity and accumulation of wealth in the modern era from the perspective of upper class subjects (the designers of the exhibit explicitly stated that the use of a lower class perspective to assess this topic has, in other words, been over played). Overall, I felt that the exhibit did not meet my expectations, lacked effectiveness in terms of using art for social justice, and did not highlight or support feminist ideals.

As a Geography major, I have spent a lot of my academic career studying the history and effects of income disparity, wealth accumulation, and neoliberal capitalism on the global economy. This is a large part of why I chose to attend this exhibit, because while I don’t have a background in art, I do have a background in the alleged subject matter of the exhibit. The use of the word ‘embarrassment’ in the title of this exhibit led me to believe that the exhibit would feature photographs that highlight the hypocrisy, frequent cruelty, and malpractice that has come to characterize (in my mind) neoliberal capitalism as a global ideology under the hegemonic control of American politics and policies. Personally, I do find many things about excessive wealth accumulation very embarrassing. I think that western standards of living and measures of development are environmentally deleterious and undermine the ability of other nations to prosper and self-determine. This, to me, is a very embarrassing reality of our world. I expected to see my sense of these realities reflected in the exhibit. However, as I walked through the exhibit I began to feel more and more like I was watching a TV channel like Bravo, which preys upon the masses’ voyeuristic lust for the vicarious consumption the lifestyle of the upper class through passive ingestion of our popular culture and the subsequent repacking of the elusive ‘American Dream.’ For these reasons, I did not feel that the exhibit as a whole achieved its stated purpose.

Of the about 30 or so pieces of art featured in the exhibit there only a handful that I felt conveyed the message and embodied the spirit of a title such as “The Embarrassment of Riches.” One such of these pieces was a self-portrait done by a female artist named Cindy Sherman. The picture features a woman dressed so regally you might think that she is the Queen. The effectiveness of this piece is portrayed through the model’s eyes. She has a look in her face that betrays the thin veneer of satisfaction that materialism and wealth accumulation promise. Another piece that I felt was effective was picture entitled “Suzhou Creek, Putuo District, Shanghai” that juxtaposed dilapidated mansions in the foreground and the construction of monstrous high rises in the background. Most of the others, to me, seemed voyeuristic (like an image of a Chanel boutique changing room, several photographs of ornately decorated rooms, and several photographs of party-goers) or expected (like the photos of large piles of newly minted money, photographs of cars, and a photograph of an oil pipeline dominating the landscape in Russia). Several of the pieces that might have been effective undermined themselves through their stylistic temporal displacement harkening back to the 1970’s or the 1950’s deviating from the goal of presenting the modern day.

Furthermore, if the aim of the exhibit was to express the futility or lunacy of continuing the massive wealth accumulation that has characterized the early part of this century or even if the aim was just to hold a mirror up and show some sort of reflection of this life through the photographs the overall effectiveness of this exhibit was lost because it made no grander statement of the comparison of this lifestyle with the lives of those who, for example, live below the poverty line and it offered no prescription for what should be done in the future. I left the exhibit without feeling like any sub-facet of life had been revealed to me and without any sense of future action. For this exhibit to be effective from a social justice perspective, I feel, I should have achieved all or at least part of this.

To add to my frustrations with the exhibit, and in terms of the subject matter of our class, the exhibit lacked a feminist perspective, both implicitly and explicitly. If the exhibit were to have been explicitly feminist, there should have been greater female artist representation. If I were to guess, I would estimate that 1 in 5 of the artists represented in the exhibit were female. Even for the exhibit to be implicitly feminist, it should have challenged gender roles. None of the pieces did this. One would think that examination of consumption differences between upper class men and women would be a fairly easy topic to include under the heading ‘the Embarrassment of Riches.’ There was no such analysis. Quite antithetically, many of the pieces conveyed very traditional gender roles (more specifically, the woman as the sexual object and the woman as the mother). One piece that particularly appalled me in this aspect was a photograph of a private room at a polo match in Dubai. The photo pictured a wealthy Arab man in traditional grab standing next to his ‘trophy wife’ in western dress. Another photo display that conveyed these tradition gender roles was a set of 2 photos of a Chinese car showroom that depicted the common patriarchic equation of the woman and the car. These photos do, interestingly enough however, show the exportation of western ideals of gender roles around the world.

It is for these stated reasons that I do not feel like the M.I.A. exhibit The Embarrassment of Riches was effective from a social justice or from a feminist perspective. I hope that I have the opportunity soon to attend an art event in the near future that does.

Lawry's marinade sauce commercial: What's YOUR Flavor?

What's your flavor? More like, my personality is equivalent to various marinade flavors! I'm unique, just like this spicy BBQ sauce.