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Feminisms
Spanning nearly two decades, from 1980 to 1996, this Reader investigates the debates which have best characterized feminist theory. Including such articles as Pornography and Fantasy , The Body and Cinema , Nature as Female , and A Manifesto for Cyborgs , the extracts examine thoughts on sexualtiy as a domain of exploration, the visual representation of women, what being a feminist means, and why feminists are increasingly involved in political struggles to negotiate the context and meaning of technological development.
With writings by bell hooks, Alice Jardine, and Andrea Dworkin, this multicultural Reader reflects the dynamic nature of feminist debates and the genuine diversity within current feminist theory. Capturing the sense of the rapid movement within feminist theory and criticism, Feminisms is ideal for anyone interested in feminism and the history behind it.
With writings by bell hooks, Alice Jardine, and Andrea Dworkin, this multicultural Reader reflects the dynamic nature of feminist debates and the genuine diversity within current feminist theory. Capturing the sense of the rapid movement within feminist theory and criticism, Feminisms is ideal for anyone interested in feminism and the history behind it.
612 pages, Paperback
First published February 19, 1998
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December 24, 2011
[new update added: 09/15/2011]
A couple of weeks ago while searching for a class to fulfill an english requirement, I signed up for "American Literature After the 1900's". I figured it would be something like a survey in american novel classics; i.e. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Woolf, etc. It fit into my schedule and I figured it wouldn't be that much of a hassle. In fact, it could fill in the gaps of my reading. What I didn't expect was to end up being enrolled in an "Honors Feminist Poetry and Theory" class. Although I've already come to re-evaulate my preconceptions of the term "feminist", at the time, I was taken aback. I have had a fairly shaky background on the subject and my only impressions stemmed from skewed ones from peers and family members.
Added to the fact that the reading load was considerable, I stayed in the class reluctantly. In the short few weeks, I have already read a good deal from Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millet, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Gwendolyn Brooks and Sylvia Plath. Needless to say, I have had a crash course on feminist discourse and literature.
It is way too hard for me to say how and what I feel about the subject as a whole. I haven't had the time to take it in. But honestly, it couldn't have come quick enough. Despite some serious reservations I have about some of my reading, it has caused such a re-evaluation of what the entire notions of "equality" means; not just to myself but how it relates to our society as a whole. I have an idea for what I think to be my own interpretation of feminism, but seeing as how much I've read and how much more I need to read, I want to reserve judgement until I feel safe enough to posit my own ideas.
To anyone who is familiar with feminist discourse, it is very fractured when it comes to what people think 1) how women are oppressed in our society and 2) what is to be done about the situation. To give an accurate depiction of what the term "feminism" really means in all the ways it has meant to people, social movements and political stances, would be to do an extensive amount of reading. As Carmen Vasquez writes, "There are as many definitions of Feminism as there are feminists". This is most likely why this book is called "Feminisms". The one thing that most feminists do agree upon is that we ought to end the unjust oppression of all groups that have fallen under discrimination based on nothing else beside who the dominant majority is.
As a white male, it is easy to feel like the target is on my back. I've run across lines like, "white women of course do not need to have [solidarity] with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors" (The Combahee River Collective Statement) and "the most sympathetic of men never fully comprehend woman's concrete situation. And there is no reason to put much trust in the men when they rush to the defense of privileges whose full extent they can hardly measure." (Beauvoir)
Despite my ambivalence towards feminism, I have never consider myself as a person in favor of the oppression of women. I'm not just writing that to sound like a saint. I'm writing it because I identify myself by that notion and when I read about how some feminists view white males, I see it as such a disconnect with reality. Feminists should remember that even though we live in a misogynistic society, there are still a great deal of white males who respect women and wish for equality just as much as they do. The expectations of our society on men are pretty awful as well. Women view their experience as much worse because they are oppressed and they have every right to feel that way. But the expectations of "masculinity" are pretty disgusting in my opinion.
I do believe that when feminists use "white male" as I have cited above, they mean it in the sense of the constructed-gender and use it as a stand-in for our society as a whole. I just wish they could make that much more clear, because it often strikes me as counter-productive to rely on gender generalizations when fighting for equality.
I'm stopping myself here because as I've stated before I have much to learn. I highly recommend everyone to educate themselves on not just feminist discourse but all discourse involved in seeking out equality. Be careful when judging works based on the fact that it has the label "feminist" on it. It has become a loaded word in our society. Many people tend to have a negative reaction to the term because it has come to mean to the general public something quite different than what it actually means. I include myself in that category. I'll be making updates as I work through this book. It does very well to cover a great deal of discourse on this subject.
***************************
09/15/2011
This is an essay on two influential feminists, Kate Millet and Audre Lorde. The quotes I use are from the books Sexual Politics by Kate Millett and Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde.
One of the main differences between Kate Millett and Audre Lorde comes from a fundamental split in their view of the sexes. It has to do with the origin of gender, masculine or feminine, and whether it is or is not tied to biology. Kate Millett is known as a “social constructionist”. This means that she views our conception of the feminine as an arbitrary construction of society. These conceptions are enforced by patriarchal power and assert stereotypes of femininity and masculinity onto the public. According to social constructionists, there is no tie between the way people are biologically and the genders. Millett draws a clear distinction between sex and gender. A person’s sex is whether they have male, female or both genitalia. Gender is set of performed actions or an embodiment of certain traits that fall into the categories of masculine and feminine. In this way, gender is a fluid notion. A person can occupy one gender or another or both without any bearing upon their biology. She describes patriarchy’s enforcement in terms of a political structure, as defined as “power-structured relationships”. In this way, the masculine and feminine distinctions are product of enforcement and oppression that favors the masculine. This posits a strong implication upon the effect of society upon the individual. This seems to suggest that a great majority of people are powerless to resist the pressure of environment. As Millett writes, “the formation of human personality [is done so] along stereotyped lines of sex category”. There is an almost Lockian view of human minds and development here. It seems to suggest that the effect of society is so pervasive that, insofar as gender is concerned, there are no innate capacities of the human brain. Or if there are any innate capacities, it cannot withstand the sway of society.
Audre Lorde comes from a different perspective on gender and sex. There is a certain power of the individual that has the capability to transcend the environment. (It should be noted that Millett believes the individual can overcome societal pressures too, but Lorde’s idea of transcendence is on much deeper, almost spiritual plane). It can be argued as well, that Lorde believes in an innateness to the feminine, instead of the feminine being a mere product of social construction. She defines it as the “erotic”. She makes sure to stipulate her connotation of the word since it has a strong sexual connotation. She separates her usage of the word by writing, “the erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. . . we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic.” She uses pornographic in order to draw a clear distinction between that of the flesh, which is purely carnal and that of the transcendent, her definition of the erotic. She defines this transcendence as “a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings”. She delineates a boundary of an individual’s personality that is secure in her “sense of self”. That is, where one is most comfortable, indicates the boundary of stability, engrained in the individual from the rigidity of societal pressures. The dangerousness that crops up is within the “chaos of our strongest feelings”. It is an uncomfortable and unpredictable state. It is the feelings that an individual dares not approach due to the anxiety of social condemnation. Lorde describes the erotic as an outward action stemming from within. And when this power is influenced by external forces, the power of the erotic is stifled. She writes “when we live outside of ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives. . . when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves. . . we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on human need, let alone an individual’s”. In this way, Lorde and Millett are in something of agreement. They are in agreement upon the effect of external forces upon the individual. Millett does not touch upon what she believes the individual ought to be or become. In this way, one could read Lorde as an extension of Millett. In that, Millett lays the argument for how patriarchy dominates the individual, while Lorde lays out the groundwork for how the individual can then transcend the external dominance of patriarchy.
This is not without some complication, however. Many define Lorde as an “essentialist”. That is, a person who believes that there is something essential to being a part of the male or female gender. Whereas Millett separates the distinction between biology and gendered personality, Lorde often suggestions through her essay that there is a tie between the two. Her essay is coming as a reaction to sexist oppression. Therefore, her entire argument is for the advancement of oppressed females. She writes “as women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge”. She points out this anxiety of the women’s condition in order to empower their own thoughts that have been quieted. The essay is a call to action addressed to women. She writes that women “need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different”. After these descriptive claims about the women’s condition, which are directed at women, she follows up with a normative claim about how to enact the erotic in order to combat societal pressures. In that way, one could assert that Lorde is an essentialist. The complication arises when one looks at the definitions themselves, for they are not gendered. Therefore, one could make the argument that Lorde does not believe in an innate erotic endemic to female biology, but that simply the erotic is tool at the disposal of all who are oppressed to overthrow their oppression and become creative, autonomous and transcendent beings.
A couple of weeks ago while searching for a class to fulfill an english requirement, I signed up for "American Literature After the 1900's". I figured it would be something like a survey in american novel classics; i.e. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Woolf, etc. It fit into my schedule and I figured it wouldn't be that much of a hassle. In fact, it could fill in the gaps of my reading. What I didn't expect was to end up being enrolled in an "Honors Feminist Poetry and Theory" class. Although I've already come to re-evaulate my preconceptions of the term "feminist", at the time, I was taken aback. I have had a fairly shaky background on the subject and my only impressions stemmed from skewed ones from peers and family members.
Added to the fact that the reading load was considerable, I stayed in the class reluctantly. In the short few weeks, I have already read a good deal from Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millet, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Gwendolyn Brooks and Sylvia Plath. Needless to say, I have had a crash course on feminist discourse and literature.
It is way too hard for me to say how and what I feel about the subject as a whole. I haven't had the time to take it in. But honestly, it couldn't have come quick enough. Despite some serious reservations I have about some of my reading, it has caused such a re-evaluation of what the entire notions of "equality" means; not just to myself but how it relates to our society as a whole. I have an idea for what I think to be my own interpretation of feminism, but seeing as how much I've read and how much more I need to read, I want to reserve judgement until I feel safe enough to posit my own ideas.
To anyone who is familiar with feminist discourse, it is very fractured when it comes to what people think 1) how women are oppressed in our society and 2) what is to be done about the situation. To give an accurate depiction of what the term "feminism" really means in all the ways it has meant to people, social movements and political stances, would be to do an extensive amount of reading. As Carmen Vasquez writes, "There are as many definitions of Feminism as there are feminists". This is most likely why this book is called "Feminisms". The one thing that most feminists do agree upon is that we ought to end the unjust oppression of all groups that have fallen under discrimination based on nothing else beside who the dominant majority is.
As a white male, it is easy to feel like the target is on my back. I've run across lines like, "white women of course do not need to have [solidarity] with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors" (The Combahee River Collective Statement) and "the most sympathetic of men never fully comprehend woman's concrete situation. And there is no reason to put much trust in the men when they rush to the defense of privileges whose full extent they can hardly measure." (Beauvoir)
Despite my ambivalence towards feminism, I have never consider myself as a person in favor of the oppression of women. I'm not just writing that to sound like a saint. I'm writing it because I identify myself by that notion and when I read about how some feminists view white males, I see it as such a disconnect with reality. Feminists should remember that even though we live in a misogynistic society, there are still a great deal of white males who respect women and wish for equality just as much as they do. The expectations of our society on men are pretty awful as well. Women view their experience as much worse because they are oppressed and they have every right to feel that way. But the expectations of "masculinity" are pretty disgusting in my opinion.
I do believe that when feminists use "white male" as I have cited above, they mean it in the sense of the constructed-gender and use it as a stand-in for our society as a whole. I just wish they could make that much more clear, because it often strikes me as counter-productive to rely on gender generalizations when fighting for equality.
I'm stopping myself here because as I've stated before I have much to learn. I highly recommend everyone to educate themselves on not just feminist discourse but all discourse involved in seeking out equality. Be careful when judging works based on the fact that it has the label "feminist" on it. It has become a loaded word in our society. Many people tend to have a negative reaction to the term because it has come to mean to the general public something quite different than what it actually means. I include myself in that category. I'll be making updates as I work through this book. It does very well to cover a great deal of discourse on this subject.
***************************
09/15/2011
This is an essay on two influential feminists, Kate Millet and Audre Lorde. The quotes I use are from the books Sexual Politics by Kate Millett and Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde.
One of the main differences between Kate Millett and Audre Lorde comes from a fundamental split in their view of the sexes. It has to do with the origin of gender, masculine or feminine, and whether it is or is not tied to biology. Kate Millett is known as a “social constructionist”. This means that she views our conception of the feminine as an arbitrary construction of society. These conceptions are enforced by patriarchal power and assert stereotypes of femininity and masculinity onto the public. According to social constructionists, there is no tie between the way people are biologically and the genders. Millett draws a clear distinction between sex and gender. A person’s sex is whether they have male, female or both genitalia. Gender is set of performed actions or an embodiment of certain traits that fall into the categories of masculine and feminine. In this way, gender is a fluid notion. A person can occupy one gender or another or both without any bearing upon their biology. She describes patriarchy’s enforcement in terms of a political structure, as defined as “power-structured relationships”. In this way, the masculine and feminine distinctions are product of enforcement and oppression that favors the masculine. This posits a strong implication upon the effect of society upon the individual. This seems to suggest that a great majority of people are powerless to resist the pressure of environment. As Millett writes, “the formation of human personality [is done so] along stereotyped lines of sex category”. There is an almost Lockian view of human minds and development here. It seems to suggest that the effect of society is so pervasive that, insofar as gender is concerned, there are no innate capacities of the human brain. Or if there are any innate capacities, it cannot withstand the sway of society.
Audre Lorde comes from a different perspective on gender and sex. There is a certain power of the individual that has the capability to transcend the environment. (It should be noted that Millett believes the individual can overcome societal pressures too, but Lorde’s idea of transcendence is on much deeper, almost spiritual plane). It can be argued as well, that Lorde believes in an innateness to the feminine, instead of the feminine being a mere product of social construction. She defines it as the “erotic”. She makes sure to stipulate her connotation of the word since it has a strong sexual connotation. She separates her usage of the word by writing, “the erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. . . we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic.” She uses pornographic in order to draw a clear distinction between that of the flesh, which is purely carnal and that of the transcendent, her definition of the erotic. She defines this transcendence as “a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings”. She delineates a boundary of an individual’s personality that is secure in her “sense of self”. That is, where one is most comfortable, indicates the boundary of stability, engrained in the individual from the rigidity of societal pressures. The dangerousness that crops up is within the “chaos of our strongest feelings”. It is an uncomfortable and unpredictable state. It is the feelings that an individual dares not approach due to the anxiety of social condemnation. Lorde describes the erotic as an outward action stemming from within. And when this power is influenced by external forces, the power of the erotic is stifled. She writes “when we live outside of ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives. . . when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves. . . we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on human need, let alone an individual’s”. In this way, Lorde and Millett are in something of agreement. They are in agreement upon the effect of external forces upon the individual. Millett does not touch upon what she believes the individual ought to be or become. In this way, one could read Lorde as an extension of Millett. In that, Millett lays the argument for how patriarchy dominates the individual, while Lorde lays out the groundwork for how the individual can then transcend the external dominance of patriarchy.
This is not without some complication, however. Many define Lorde as an “essentialist”. That is, a person who believes that there is something essential to being a part of the male or female gender. Whereas Millett separates the distinction between biology and gendered personality, Lorde often suggestions through her essay that there is a tie between the two. Her essay is coming as a reaction to sexist oppression. Therefore, her entire argument is for the advancement of oppressed females. She writes “as women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge”. She points out this anxiety of the women’s condition in order to empower their own thoughts that have been quieted. The essay is a call to action addressed to women. She writes that women “need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different”. After these descriptive claims about the women’s condition, which are directed at women, she follows up with a normative claim about how to enact the erotic in order to combat societal pressures. In that way, one could assert that Lorde is an essentialist. The complication arises when one looks at the definitions themselves, for they are not gendered. Therefore, one could make the argument that Lorde does not believe in an innate erotic endemic to female biology, but that simply the erotic is tool at the disposal of all who are oppressed to overthrow their oppression and become creative, autonomous and transcendent beings.
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