A Global Perspective on The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is the story of a girl named Pecola that focuses on “the damaging internalization of assumptions of immutable inferiority originating in an outside gaze” (210). Morrison writes, “I focused, therefore, on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnerable member: a female” (210). By equating “bad” with non-white races, society ruins people’s lives, like the life of Pecola. The novel takes place in the United States, but is a microcosm of the cultural imperialism that occurs worldwide. Masters tools like the media homogenize ideals even without direct and obvious attempts to dominate peoples such as slavery.

“Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (20). Claudia says that she was not old enough to have the idea that white equals beautiful the same way her older friends and family members had, hence why she disliked the white, blonde, and blue-eyed doll she was given. It is implied that she, like everyone else in the community, would come to recognize these features as standards of beauty. Pecola is the greatest example of this, as she deeply desires blue eyes. For example, Pecola “was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirley’s face” (23). The message that whiteness is the most desirable appearance is not only projected within the U.S. but also abroad. As a result of colonialism and the more modern globalization, whites have propagated images of themselves and Western nations continue attempts to dominate others around the world. Through force and more indirect cultural imperialism, whiteness has become the beauty ideal.



The Bluest Eye depicts many instances of racism and its effects. For example, when Cholly is forced to have sex at gunpoint while two white men watch, this affects him for life. “The flashlight wormed its way into his guts and turned the sweet taste of muscadine into rotten fetid bile” (148). Pauline is deeply affected by the media. “She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen” (123). Both of these characters are tragically altered by their experiences in a society that deems whiteness as superior.

Another aspect of the novel is related to the history of colonialism and the way in which developed nations ignore developing nations. “At some fixed point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see” (48). Just as Mr. Yacobowski refuses to see Pecola because of the color of her skin, Western nations have historically practiced colonialism and justified their actions based on the appearances and cultures of the people they dominated. Still today, developing nations are not considered large international players; their voices are often ignored.

Furthermore, by exploring different points of view, the book addresses how a one-sided narrative is never the entire truth. Claudia thinks, “But was it really like that? As painful as I remember? Only mildly. Or rather, it was a productive and fructifying pain” (12). Additionally, Morrison writes that it, “gives the reader pause about whether the voice of children can be trusted at all or is more trustworthy than an adult’s” (213). In the same way the novel questions truth based on perspective, our histories have been written from a white male perspective that cannot come close to the truth since it is one-sided. Developed nations dominate and disseminate their histories, ignoring any flaws, never giving a voice to others around the world.

This is related to previous readings about sexuality. Walker writes, “It is obvious that the suppression of sexual agency and exploration, from within or from without, is often used as a method of social control and domination” (22-23). Racism, like the suppression of sexual agency, is used as a means of social control around the world. Internalized racism, as evidenced by The Bluest Eye, is extremely detrimental and is a result of colonialism and the globalization and cultural imperialism of today.

-Erica


Kim Kardashian before and after photo retouching. Her waistline is trimmed and her skin is lightened.


The new Dora the Explorer represents homogenization in the sense that Dora used to be a blocky tomboy but is now a slender pre-teen.

Sex and the Impossible Balance

“The way we experience, speak about and envision sex and sexuality can either kill us or help us to know and protect ourselves better.” In her essay, “Lusting for Freedom,” Rebecca Walker talks about the effects of today’s culture on young women’s sexuality.

She writes: “Sex in silence and filled with shame is sex where our agency is denied. This is sex where we, young women, are powerless and at the mercy of our own desires. For giving our bodies what they want and crave, for exploring ourselves and others, we are punished like Eve reaching for more knowledge. We are called sluts and whores. We are considered impure or psychotic. Information about birth control is kept from us. Laws denying our right to control our bodies are enacted. We learn much of what we know from television, which debases sex and humiliates women.”

The act of sex has longed been used as another one of the master’s tools. It is demonized and trivialized and a woman’s worth has become linked with her sexuality. Walker suggests that instead of allowing society to dictate how we value sex, we embrace the importance and the pleasure and the freedom that come with understanding sex and embracing it. “Sex can also be power because knowledge is power and because, yeah, as a girl, you can make it do different things: I can give it to you, and I can take it away.” For too long, society’s desire to protect its little girls from the world of sex has left women without knowledge and without self-respect. In “You’re Not the Type” by Laurel Gilbert, she writes that “I felt cheated by the culture of our fathers, the culture that promised to take care of us, keep us sage, somehow, from the other men who might “ruin” us. Instead, that culture ruined our sense of ourselves.”

This culture of our fathers, the patriarchy, has set up, in their attempts to protect women from the evils of sex, an impossible expectation for women. In our society, there is a fine line between what is acceptable in terms of female sexuality. Girls are expected to appear pure, innocent and childlike. At the same time, a girl is considered a prude or disinterested in men or labeled in scathing tones, a virgin, if she is uninformed or inexperienced. If she is too experienced, though, she is considered a slut or easy. In the desperate attempts at keeping this balance, enjoying one’s sexual encounters is usually the last thing on young women’s minds. Besides, enjoying sex is another indicator in our society that a girl is a slut.

Young women are concerned with finding the balance between this virgin/slut dichotomy and unable to escape the pressures of it. Experiencing sex on a personal level can be emotional and trying on its own, but in our society today, the importance of sex is everywhere. In the media especially, the importance of being sexually aware and active is the main theme for television shows, music videos, movies, and advertisements. Female sexuality is used to sell everything from beauty products to records. The media also sends mixed messages about sex and how comfortable women should be about it. Sex is trivialized because it is everywhere and everyone seems to be active.

Television shows like Gossip Girl use young high school students’ sexual encounters as a main theme in their shows. These encounters are often portrayed very casually and with little consequences, physical or emotional. Other sexual encounters in the show are used to denote a turning point in the relationships of the main characters, giving the viewer the impression that the relationship is not real until it’s been consummated.

Real life portrayals of girls in the media, like the younger Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson, also send mixed messages. While their videos, photo shoots and on stage appearances were often hyper-sexualized, in interviews they were often quoted saying that they abstinent or deliberately sounded naïve about sex. The way the media has portrayed these celebrities has no doubt had an effect on my generation’s attitude about sex. The real question is: how much?

-Taylor

Real Sex Ed

This week’s readings had the common theme of sexuality. Not sexual orientation, but sexuality. I found this week’s assignments to be enjoyable and inspirational. Sexual identity of any kind is what largely identifies women as individual persons. For this very reason women are able to be oppressed by a patriarchy that devalues female sexual freedom.

Anastasia Higginbotham describes her long process of coming to terms with her sexuality in her essay Chicks Goin’ At It. She tells of her own experience with oppressive patriarchy when she shares her encounter of being “courted” by her teacher. Higginbotham writes, “Being near him made my stomach churn, my throat ache, my eyes blur. Though I wish it had been a temporary virus, I realize now it was probably terror, and at the time it seemed quite romantic. Another of my faculty suitors had a nasty habit of pressing his bulging manhood against my back as I sat in his class furiously taking notes to prove I was smart. They were charmers, all right” (12). Society teaches young girls that there worth as a woman is defined by how sexually desirable they are to men. Once again, Higginbotham attests to this fact when she declares, “I thought I was god’s gift to men because I could play glam, sweetheart and harlot all in one shot” (12). She continues to speak of the distaste she felt towards her own sexuality. It was an onion skin she had to continuously pull away, eyes tearing, until she finally reached the hard, shiny center. She hits the nail on the head when she writes, “[The problem] was simply that I was born a girl in a society that devalues women and girls” (13). When Higginbotham finally matures sexually and is able to find her happy medium between promiscuity and the virginal ideal projected upon women, she faces a new challenge, defining her sexuality once she realizes she is not heterosexual. Although she has no qualms with loving women, she struggles with the idea that she is “sleeping with her politics” when she writes, “… I worried (and still do occasionally) that I was taking on lesbianism out of loyalty to a cause, fearful that my capacity to sleep with the bad guys was bad for PR” (16). Higginbotham makes a valid point: is being a bi-lesbian feminist just molding into the stereotype? Does the fact that she can’t commit to being an “all-out-lesbian” make her indecisive? Does it show deep-rooted, unconscious homophobia? Although she expresses these fears, she realizes, “If being called a lesbian is an insult to me, then I am an insult to lesbians. Any feminist who fears being called lesbian, or who fears association with a movement demanding civil rights for gays, lesbians and bisexuals, is not worthy of being called feminist” (17).

In the essay Lusting for Freedom, Rebecca Walker describes a very different experience of coming to terms with her own sexuality. Although, like Higginbotham, she learns through experience, Walker is able to find more comfort in her sexual exploration. She writes, “I was able to carry that pleasure and confidence [that came from sex] into my everyday life working at the hair salon, flirting with boys. I never felt any great loss of innocence, only great rushes of the kind of power that comes with self-knowledge and shared intimacy” (19). Her words become the credo of any sexually active young woman. She speaks out against legislation specifically created for the sole purpose of oppressing women’s sexuality. “The way we experience, speak about and envision sex and sexuality can either kill us or help us to know and protect ourselves better.… Unfortunately, moral codes and legal demarcations complicate rather than regulate desire. And judgments like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ only build barriers between people and encourage shame within individual” (19). These laws are instruments used intersectionally to slowly strip women of their right to sexual freedom, a right that men have always had. Judgment and guilt are used to create a bird cage, as it is elegantly described by Marilyn Frye in her essay Oppression, that are made up of seemingly harmless wires, but together are able to enslave women to be the domesticated pets of patriarchy. Walker reiterates this sentiment when she writes, “It is obvious that the suppression of sexual agency and exploration, from within or from without, is often used as a method of social control and domination” (22-23).

You’re Not the Type by Laurel Gilbert also describes one young woman’s exploration of her own sexual identity. Gilbert learns that she slowly comes to terms with the fact that she is a lesbian in the midst of being a teenage mother. Because of society’s stigma toward homosexual relationships (what she would have had with her high school crush, Kim), Gilbert inadvertently became vulnerable to another social stigma. She writes “[Kim and I] both eventually slept with the same high-school senior and told ourselves and each other that he was the only link between us, that if we could (and no one in southern Utah had words for what we might have been, then), we would erase his presence between us and love only each other” (75). She, like Higginbotham and Walker, expresses the same disdain for a patriarchy that oppress women when she writes, “I felt cheated by the culture of our fathers, the culture that promised to take care of us, keep us safe, somehow, from the other men who might ‘ruin’ us. Instead, that culture ruined our sense of our selves” (76). Here again, she is defined by men; she is the protected and the threatened but only in relation to men. Being a woman, loving a woman, bearing a child that will grow up to be a woman, Gilbert has little room in her life for close relationships with men, and yet that is how society defines her. She continues this point further: “I’ve since found… words that classify difference in a patriarchal world, define me and other women in terms of relationships—or lack of them— with men” (79). Single mothers had a man but lost them, whereas lesbians can’t get a man and feminists hate them. Despite whether any of these accusations hold true, Gilbert, like so many others has struggled because of our male-centric society. It is our right as women to love how we wish. Whether that means loving other women, loving our bodies and our own sensuality, or loving surpassing expectations of our own capabilities; how we proceed should not be dictated to us. We don’t need men to protect us from lust or other indecencies we would fall prey to if it weren’t for them. As Rebecca Walkers declares, “We need ‘protection’ only from poverty and violence” (24). We’ve got rest covered.

These essays make wonderful connections to our CAP project because they are real life narratives of female sexuality. They are not overtly sexualized for thrill factor, nor are they censored. They are true tales of female sexuality that reflects the lives of real women. I think that there should be more testimonials of this kind available to women who aren’t taking a women’s studies class. I wish celebrities, especially those who are marketed toward young women, were more truthful about these issues. Until then, it is our duty to have open and honest conversations about our perceptions and experiences of sexuality with our friends and family so stereotypes and misconceptions no longer perpetuate our society.

~Katie Frye

Sex Is Not Love

This week’s readings explore the reasons why women all over are having more pre-marital sex than ever. In Lusting for Freedom, Walker argues that “If you’re a girl, sex marks you” (Walker 20). In today’s society, sex is a common and contentious subject that has dramatically changed over the years. In our grandparent’s generation, sex was for married adults with the intent of procreation. Today however, there are eleven year olds such as Anastasia Higginbotham who, in Chicks Goin’ At It, describes herself as wanting “The hard edges that come from having a lot of sex with many lovers” (Higginbotham 13). Women of all ages are having more sex than ever and for all types of reasons. Higginbotham describes society’s view of virginity as “Implied immaturity, stupidity and a dearth of passion,” adding that it “Represented all the qualities of “girliness,” none of which merited any respect at all from anyone, anywhere” (Higginbotham 12). In my high school, having sex was a cool thing to do. Instead of being proud of virginity, some girls would pretend to be having sex to fit in. Sex today is like an untold secret that is bound to spark “Curiosity and desire” (Walker 21). In You’re Not The Type, Gilbert explains her reasoning for having sex with her first male lover “Because I was fascinated with the sexual relationship he had with Kris. What he did, I wanted to do” (Gilbert 79). Not only was she enthralled by sex but was willing to mimic it in order to fit in. Walker had a similar situation, changing her personality in order to please the person she was with. “I had mastered the art of transforming myself” she explains, “Becoming what I thought each man would fall in love with” (Walker 21). Girls often have sex outside of marriage to acquire a sense of acceptance, approval, and even love. Entertainment and media bombard our young people with the message that everyone should be sexually active — that sexual activity is essential to happiness. Sex is often being confused with love. “Sex can look like love if you don’t know what love looks like. It gives you someone to hold on to when you can’t feel yourself” (Walker 20). It also may give a girl a sense of control, giving them the ability to use their bodies to say “I can give it to you, and I can take it away. It is mine, take it. Take me. Please keep me” (Higginbotham 20). Women who want to be kept and want to be loved should not have sex in order to achieve those goals. No man decides to marry, support, love, and have children with a women because she had sex with him. For women who are looking for long term relationships, the media’s idea of sex through TV and movies is not for them. It is not the “Most valuable of human essences” (Walker 22).

Issues in Sexuality: Combating the Media

Having spent a substantial amount of time on our CAP, I have realized how convincing and influential the media can be when it comes to the most facets of our lives. Media outlets such as magazines, television broadcasts and advertisements influence us on a regular basis, and make a huge impact on our personal choices. In “What Men Put on Appearances,” Diane Barthel claims that “one recent study showed that the typical reader spends an average of 25 to 35 minutes daily looking at magazines, during which time he or she would be exposed to 65 or 70 advertisements. About 35 of these will be seriously scanned. In addition, the average television viewer sees 95 to 100 commercials daily, seriously watching about 60 of them” (137).” Our CAP specifically addresses how globalization has circulated Western media and caused the homogenization of the idea of beauty around the world. Since everyone cannot be slender and fair-skinned, it is certainly not fair to impose these standards on all women around the world. Having realized how the media permeates our lifestyles, I have noticed that it plays an especially intrusive role when it comes to gender roles, appearance and sexuality. This week’s articles primarily discuss sexuality, primarily the societal views of young, female adults having sex and how it is still considered taboo, and the media’s efforts to “mainstream” gay couples and their choice to be parents. Both of these topics are personal and should not be so influenced by the media. Just as we are working to address media outlets about the diversification of the idea of beauty, the same efforts should be made to lessen its rather unnecessary influence when it comes to sexuality and personal choices associated with it.

Sex and adolescent/young women are not two entities that mesh well in society today. The taboo created around this topic is best described as a paradox. Girls are adequately warned about all the risks associated with sex before marriage, such as unwanted pregnancy and venereal diseases, yet they are generally not well-educated about reproductive health care and contraceptive devices. “It is obvious that the suppression of sexual agency and exploration, from within or from without, is often used as a method of social control and domination, says Rebecca Walker in “Lusting for Freedom” (23). While Walker found sex to be personally empowering, she argues that because of cultural norms, most young women cannot feel the same way. She says that “sex in silence and filled with shame is sex where our agency is denied. This is sex where we, young women, are powerless and at the mercy of our own desires. For giving our bodies what they want and crave, for exploring ourselves and others, we are punished like Eve reaching for more knowledge. We are called sluts and whores impure or psychotic. Information about birth control is kept from us” (23). The media’s role in all of this is confirmed when Walker states that “we learn much of what we learn from television, which debases sex and humiliates women.”

Another aspect of society that is judged heavily based on what is portrayed by the media is the topic of gay couples acquiring and raising children. The conflict that gay couples face when it comes to adopting children is "familiar to many groups battling for civil rights: Is the best strategy to assimilate with mainstream culture, or try to radicalize it? Often, the urge is to downplay difference and therefore avoid conflict,” says Margaret Price (233). Again, the media is heavily involved in shaping views on this matter. "Most media representations of queer parents eschew this paradox and emphasize the seemliness of their subjects. It's almost as if, having decided to focus on one freak factor, those shaping the stories feel compelled to keep everything else (race, gender, family structure, sexual practices) as bland an unremarkable as possible,” says Margaret Price(234). While the initial intention of the media seems to be to make the public more comfortable with the idea of gay parenting and make it look as normal as possible, I do not think the decisions made by media executives are advantageous to gay couples around the country and world. The fact of the matter is that gay parenting is a very different concept, and these differences can’t be shielded. Our country is lucky to be home to people of so many nationalities and backgrounds, and homogenizing standards of living and pushing such different people into the same category is not what we should be doing; the differences must be recognized and embraced.

Remarkably, the standards of “queer parents” in the United States appear to be on the same plane as beauty standards."It seems that queer parents- in both fictional and nonfictional representations- are an awfully Brady-like bunch. They're predominantly white, middle- or upper class, and partnered. They don't push the boundaries of gender or sexuality," according to Price. (233). This lack of representation of the diversity in the United States is not politically correct. Though it is probably true that most openly gay couples will be of Western origin (US/Europe), that does not mean that we can simply gloss over the gay couples of other nationalities.


- Lavanya Gupta

One Way Here And Abroad

In “Lusting for Freedom” Rebecca Walker writes that “hiding in shame or running too fast to keep from looking is a waste of what is most precious about life: its infinite ability to expand and give us more knowledge, more insight and more complexity”(24). American culture prefers that all those who aren’t heterosexual should hide and we should all keep moving faster to pretend the ‘problem’ isn’t there in order to preserve the culturally defined norm. Such attempts to homogenize sexuality continue the perception of the “imaginary heteronormative”. Walker speaks about the “widespread genital mutilation and homophobia that dictatorially mandates heterosexuality” (23). These two factors alone keep many people quiet and thus rob them of their power and potential.
In “Chicks Going At It” Higginbotham writes that she would not claim the label “bisexual” for a long time out of fear for “implying indecisiveness, internalized all-out-lesbian homophobia or the perception that I’m just plain easy” (16). She notes that the label has been shunned by friends homosexual and heterosexual alike. Attempts to homogenize sexuality by the government and other sexualities foster, if not, encourage this sort of paranoia. If the people are caught up in their own web of mistrust will they ever stop and realize they can fight the homogeny?
American culture does not stop within its own borders with its attempts to homogenize in favor of heterosexuality. American media, which often conveys a
hetero-ideal, is broadcast all over the world. The media and institutions also try to convey a similar one-option-only standard of beauty, which we read in another Higginbotham article, is thin, tall, white and toned. Any other appearance is dismissed in magazines as not as important by virtue of its absence.
Our CAP project works to fight this homogenization of beauty by making prominent depictions other than the culturally proposed ideal. We want to present images of real people to show appearances of beauty other than what is portrayed by the media in TV shows, advertisements and magazine spreads. Our group hopes to make people aware of other options so that they feel that they control their appearance, not the media.

SEX!!!

This week’s readings on sexuality combined with last week’s readings on constructions of masculinity have a few things in common. Both weekly assignments focus on gender stereotypes and sexuality. In Laurel Gilbert’s essay You’re Not the Type, Gilbert talks about the labels she’s given by society based on her age, her child, her sexuality and style of dress. Margaret Price also talks about these labels in her essay Queer and Pleasant Danger, and how they change from situation to situation. She quotes a fellow writer, Mary Malone, to describe one of the ways a stereotype functions: “ ‘Babies make lesbians disappear.’ She describes herself as a ‘big, short-haired gal,’ but notes that the social stigma she usually encounters tends to evaporate when she’s with her small daughter.” (Pg.239, Price, Queer and Pleasant Danger).

This idea that all women with children, and all men with children have opposite sex partners is so ingrained in our culture that it might be impossible to stamp out. Price makes a good point when she says, “If parent, then straight,” and “If queer, then not a parent,” (Pg.239, Price, Queer and Pleasant Danger) because this statement nearly encompasses the world’s view of how parenting is and should be. However, our world is changing and in order to evolve with it we must learn to change the standard and depict it accurately.

We see the same kind of stereotyping happening with men today. A man is traditionally supposed to be buff and aloof, the kind of guy who buries his feelings in the backyard with a big shovel and then lights fire to the place in the ground where he hid them. But seriously, the man today is sensitive and interested in bonding with his children and sharing those once despised feelings. This “New man” is talked about in Diane Barthel’s Men, Media, And The Gender Order. According to what I gained from Barthel’s article, we have come to change our idea of what a man should look and act like, but the underlying toughness is still a necessity. It’s as if we can’t let go of this notion that men have to be rugged and tough (but still sensitive) and that women shouldn’t be outspoken or cut their hair short lest we think they’re lesbians.

Another really interesting thing to look at is the lesbian stereotype and how feminists--straight, bisexual, and lesbian--react to being called “lesbian.” The word is hurled about viciously like an insult when it should be embraced and accepted into our culture. But of course it’s never that easy. And we aren’t getting any closer to acceptance today anyway when you look at how people react to being called a lesbian in the first place.

Anastasia Higginbotham talks about this in her essay Chicks Goin’ At It. She says, “Feminists are routinely ‘accused’ of being lesbians or man-haters (as if the two are synonymous). Straight feminists often scramble to defy this stereotype by proclaiming their unfailing love for men and their affinity for bikini waxes. Some subtly distance themselves from lesbians by wearing buttons that claim ‘straight but not narrow.’ ” (Pg.17, LU). The fact that many feminists can’t shake off the feeling that being a lesbian is a bad thing is ridiculous and detrimental to the cause. Gender plays such a big role in our lives that even those of us who claim to be aware don’t always recognize it, which makes it a master’s tool. It’s not enough to say that we’re ok with our identities and ourselves; we need to show it too. I know that I’ve defended my sexuality when I told people I was a feminist, and it infuriates me that I did so because sexuality should not be what defines anyone or me. I agree with Higginbotham when she says, “If being called a lesbian is an insult to me, then I am an insult to lesbians. Any feminist who fears being called lesbian, or who fears association with a movement demanding civil rights for gays, lesbians and bisexuals, is not worthy of being called a feminist.” (Pg.17, LU).

These issues are far from being resolved, but with more collaboration and among those who are fighting, the end could come sooner. It’s impossible to see where we’ll stand on sexuality in the future, but with any luck, it won’t be such a defining factor. We’ve come a long way since the early twentieth century so I don’t think it’s impossible to think we might overcome this.

A New World Order

In “Lusting for Freedom” Walker writes, “It is obvious that the suppression of sexual agency and exploration, from within or from without, is often used as a method of social control and domination” (22-23). The suppression of sexual agency by the patriarchy applies both domestically and internationally. While we often discuss the detriments of abstinence only sexual education within the United States, there are many issues abroad where the U.S. practices cultural imperialism when it comes to sexuality. The Global Gag Rule, recently repealed by President Obama, is an example of the U.S. attempting to control the bodies of women abroad. As activists we have to address the tendency of the U.S. to homogenize the sexualities of people all over the world.

The various articles we read for the week address attempts by institutions to homogenize people based on their sexualities. Higginbotham’s article, “Chicks Goin’ At It,” discusses her reluctance to identify herself as bisexual because of the negative social stigma that goes with it. Higginbotham writes, “I’m definitely bisexual. And I’ve only recently claimed that label for myself without fear of it implying indecisiveness, internalized all-out-lesbian homophobia or the perception that I’m just plain easy. I’ve known both straight and gay people who shunned it (the word, the deed and the person) for each of the biphobic reasons I just expressed” (16). This demonstrates the need of people and institutions to fit others into easy-to-label boxes. But sexuality is a spectrum and more fluid than many people would like to believe. The United States would wish everyone to be heterosexual, but this is obviously not true and we must combat pressures to conform.

Gilbert’s article, “You’re Not the Type” talks about the ways in which people tried to fit her into stereotypes based on her sexuality and her motherhood status. Gilbert writes, “Neither my brand of motherhood nor my sexual identity were ever presented as options to me” (82). Young people are not allowed to be gay and are not allowed to be successful teen mothers. The world wanted Gilbert to be a specific way, but, as we all must fight to do, she broke the mold. In Gilbert’s high school “no obvious difference, no deviation from the norm, was—or could be—visible. Or available.” (79). Gilbert demonstrates how the United States government and the various institutions that are a part of it try to homogenize the world into cookie cutter people. She writes, “Women—myself included—are often firmly convinced there is only one position open to them and can therefore strive only to fill that position” (82). We must strive to break these stereotypes by living our lives as we wish and by being vocal activists, as we often do not fit neatly into labels.

The article “Queer and Present Danger” by Price discusses attempts by the media to fit gay parents into neat and manageable stereotypes. Price writes, “Thus children become yet another means by which queers are folded into a larger consumption-oriented, and hence less radical, American culture” (238). It is dangerous for us to accept media representations of gay parents at face value. Because the images presented are much less radical, institutions feel they can better practice methods of social control by minimizing real life complexities. Images presented in the media are not often true to life. “The push toward normativity” (Price 238) is merely another way the patriarchy wishes to control us.

The homogenization of sexuality is similar to attempts by institutions to fit people into stereotypes in other ways. As we learned before from Davis’s article, “women of color are urged, at every turn, to become permanently infertile, while white women enjoying prosperous economic conditions are urged, by the same forces, to reproduce themselves” (113). As globalization moves forward, these forces are increasingly at work all around the world. With the West’s cultural imperialism, there is a “push toward normativity” (Price 238) that our CAP attempts to address. Walker writes, “We are growing, thinking, inquisitive, self-possessed beings... We deserve to have our self-esteem nurtured and our personal agency encouraged” (24). My group hopes to present real images of people, rather than the homogenized ones presented by the U.S. And it is our job in general as activists to keep a wide variety of options open to everyone—options of bodily control, sexual agency, and many other aspects of identity. We must embrace a world that is filled with “complexity” (Walker 24) because is it more true and accurate and allows the most personal freedom.

Sex education promoting sexual agency:


-Erica

A Problem With No Name...For Guys?

Thus far in the course, and especially within our community action project group, we have been viewing the media though a purely female oriented lens.  We haven’t really taken the time to look at how the images presented to us everyday in the media effect not only ourselves, but our male counterparts as well.  It is doubtless that coming up in our celebrity driven, sex saturated society men have played just as much the victim as women.  So why is it so easy to forget about them?

            I think the obvious answer is that the really haven’t actually played just as much the victim.  After all, it’s easy to say that women are the ones who are reaping all of the damages of our current society.  After all, we have so much empirical proof.  After all, women are starving themselves and being beaten and not receiving equal pay for equal work.  After all, these are the obvious things.

            On the other hand we are currently seeing what Michael Kimmel calls “a virtual war against boys in America” (Kimmel, 187).  We see boys falling behind in school and being diagnosed with ADD and ADHD at alarming rates.  We are also seeing a rising trend in depression rates of young boys and a greater prevalence of behavioral problems.  So how come there boys, who are destined to grow up to be the ruling sex, are having so many problems at a 

young age?          

  Many have cited the media as the center of these gender troubles.  As girls are provided with role models in the form of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, boys are presented with Chris Brown.  They are taught from a young age that to be a man is to hind your emotions and to be “tough”.  Boys embrace what Pollack calls the “Boy Code”, “a kind of swaggering attitude that boys embrace to hide their fears, suppress dependency and vulnerability, and present a stoic front” (Kimmel, 188).  This is problematic because boys are growing up emotionally stunted.  We can see these effects even into other forms of popular culture; take for instance any sit-com or drama that has ever mirrored couple’s therapy where the therapist encourages the man to talk about his feelings, which he has doubted been able to do up until that point.

Ok, so there’s the problem, how do we fix it?  Well, by promoting gender equality in the most public way possible, popular culture and the media.  I am glad to say that the trend of broadening gender horizons seems to be secure among today’s television stations.  There are many shows, most of which have came around in the past ten years or so, which are showing gender roles in a new light.  Brendan O’Sullivan talks about some of these in his essay “Dead Man Walking” including Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Blowout along with others like Will and Grace, Friends, and Scrubs, all of which feature male leads, who actually cry. Some of them are even straight and still cry.

            Just because the symptoms of a larger problem are hidden, such the poor performance of boys within our society does not mean that there is not a problem.  For too long, it seems the feminist movement has centered too much on the feminine.  Although this phenomenon is completely understandable, after all we were the ones who were getting beat up and raped and abused.  We were, and still are to a great extent, the ones with the more visible symptoms.  But the problem runs deeper than something that can be fixed with the elevation of women within society.  Instead we need to work towards promoting equality between both genders, in all areas.

Same-sex marriage

When I first read the title of this article, “A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage”, I was hoping and expecting for the settle down of the gay-marriage issue finally; more specifically, I was expecting for a legalization of gay marriages or acknowledging same-sex marriage. But the article was more of suggesting that “We take very different positions on gay marriage. We have debates on the subject”. The article concentrates on how to corporate two extreme sides of treating the same-sex marriage: pros and cons.
The authors, Blankenhorn and Rauch, mention that although many people have disagreements on the merits of gay marriage, they agree on two facts; first, “most gay and lesbian Americans feel they deserve legal marriage” and second, “many religious groups are opposed to same-sex unions”. I, as a Christian who goes to church every Sunday, personally am pro-same sex unions. I think people are so selfish and egoistic to bother others’ preference in love. It is possible for a man to love different sex, and why not same sex? Of course, same thing applies for women. I think forbidding the same-sex marriage is the same as restricting one’s freedom of speech and expression. The federal government or any other groups of people do not have rights to judge gay marriage as crime. I was also shocked when I learned “Barack Obama and most other Democratic presidential candidates opposed gay marriage and most Americans continue to oppose it.” I was disappointed to see how people are yet stubborn and prejudiced to acknowledge equal rights and that we are equal human beings no matter what we prefer, look like, and who we love.
Also, I felt sympathy for gays and lesbians because they have nowhere to rely on when they are oppressed by the community; “most gays are opposed to the idea that religious organizations could treat same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples differently, without fear of being penalized by the government.” Most people rely on their belief in religion and become relieved by the study of their religion but gays and lesbians are not able to experience that relief. I really hope that “if religious exemptions can be made to work for as vexed a moral issue as abortion, same-sex marriage should be manageable, once reasonable people of good will put their heads together.” People are not interested enough in supporting gay marriage so that it does not seem to be settled down near in the future.
While not clinging to extreme sides, we need to respect each other’s opinions about why they support or oppose same-sex marriage. When a reasonable accommodation on a tough issue seems possible, both sides should have the courage to explore it.

Week 7: From Flannel Shirts and Denims to...Mantyhose?

Masculinity is dead; yet it is undergoing a revolution from beyond the grave. To use Brenda O’Sullivan’s phrase from “Dead Man Walking”; “sometimes death doesn’t matter, sometimes a carcass suffices” (101). After all, if traditional masculinity were truly dead and forgotten why would some new products for men still hold a degree of taboo for being feminine?

The article I chose for this week explores the growing ‘mantyhose’ movement in the United States. The man who previously wore ladies’ pantyhose “to keep him[self] warm” (Rao) or simply for “support, comfort and aesthetic purposes” (Rao) need no longer feel weird for donning lady ware. Nylons now come in his and hers varieties. Perhaps the increased, albeit still small, proportion of American men wearing hose is in part due to the increased varieties of masculinity portrayed in the media. There is more than the traditional ‘macho’ male on TV, in fact “there is now an explosion…of possibilities” (O’Sullivan, 101). There’s now the lovable beta-male, the slob, and shows such as Queer Eye and Will & Grace featuring homosexual males. Perhaps its helped to slightly lessen the stigma of being anything less than 100% macho. However the stigma is still there, for men and women. All of the men in the article denied giving their last names, one citing the embarrassment of his wife as the reason. The controversy involved show that we still believe the traditional idea of a man is necessary, if not only to show house the 21st century mantyhose man is so radically different from the past. The ‘mantyhose’ debate makes it clear that masculinity isn’t dead. It just wears nylons now.

The rising ‘new masculinity’ is not limited to only making pantyhose for a fella okay. The new masculinity allows other aspects of men’s appearances to vary. The traditional man had to be tall, muscular, gruff and physically intimidating. Men and boys who were slight of build, short and who appeared “weak” were mocked and slighted. This wider norm of appearance for the new man can extend to the new woman as well. The cultural construction has told men that they need a woman to be tall, blond and anorexic with silicone implants in her breasts to consider her sexy or “hot”. Perhaps new masculinity will help change women’s beauty standards as well as men’s. Men will be able to see women as beautiful outside of the narrow range that is expected to be thought of as beautiful by the traditional man.

~Kristen M.

Link to the MSNBC Article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28527841/




In the video above it is still clear that "mantyhose" while gaining in favor is still seen by some as a joke. Note the laughter of the crew and male anchor.




In this video John Green (a young adult author and vlogger) notes ways for a 15 year-old girl, who emailed him, to get boys to like her and in the process discusses the culturally contructed expectations for "hotness" as defined by traditional masculinity.

Constructions of Masculinity: How Disgruntlement Among Men Mirrors Discord Among Women

This week’s articles were particularly interesting, because they focused on men, and the “death” of masculinity, and not directly on women. Having observed how boys have been “failing at school, were their behavior is increasingly seen as a problem,” and how they are “fragile and have hidden despair and despondence,” therapists are eager to pinpoint the trigger to this fall of masculinity (Kimmel, 187). However, women were not completely out of the picture. Many are quick to pinpoint feminism as the problem.“”Because of feminism,” they say, “America has been so focused on girls that we’ve forgotten about the boys.”” According to Gurian, feminist ideals that have been embedded into “our educational system forces naturally rambunctious boys to conform to a regime of obedience…we’re no longer allowing boys to be boys” (187). Did feminism actually do this? In “What are Little Boys Made of?” Kimmel says that if anything, “feminists imagine, and demand, that men (and boys) can do better. Feminism offers the possibility of an new boyhood and a new masculinity based on a passion for justice, a love of equality, and the expression of a full range of feelings” (189). Regardless of the variance in views, most will agree that feminism has made an impact on masculinity, especially in the United States. Therefore, if the feminist movement makes progress, it will benefit both men and women.

The internal conflict that is triggered by racism and images promoted by media outlets such as magazines is common to both groups of men and women. These issues are directly related to what we hope to address in our CAP. To set an example for men and clearly dispute any blame for the “death of masculinity,” it is essential for feminists to solve their internal issues as soon as possible.

Though it may not seem immediately apparent, men and women are equally affected by advertisements. In “What Men Put on Appearances,” Diane Barthel says that “one recent study showed that the typical reader spends an average of 25 to 35 minutes daily looking at magazines, during which time he or she would be exposed to 65 or 70 advertisements. About 35 of these will be seriously scanned. In addition, the average television viewer sees 95 to 100 commercials daily, seriously watching about 60 of them” (137).

The images projected in magazines and on television of men and women are especially influential. A man in the peak of success is portrayed as a “solitary male figure that appears handsomely turned out in a three-piece suit and top coat. He is the existential executive” (139). A successful woman is portrayed in a similar manner. “They wear suits and tote cell phones pagers portfolios laptops purpose and they drive very nice cars. They are skinny and their hair shines brightly in the sun…they are sleek, like horses. They have careers,” says Sarah McCarry in “Selling Out” (247-8). Obviously the majority of men and women cannot live up to these standards. Unfortunately, as Barthel points out, advertisements “often paints an image in our mind-an image of the good life, of how the product can help facilitate its achievement, and an appealing, if flattering, picture of the people we would like to be” (152). More and more women have realized that the image the majority of the models in advertisements are ridiculous, and that everyone should be embraced as they are, regardless of their race, size, or any other variable; beauty does not come in just one flavor. As more progress is made among women, the feminist movement draws closer to another success. Such a good example will hopefully help men to follow suit.

Race is obviously another big issue within both genders. It has been continually addressed by feminists, but has not gotten enough reception. Racial discrimination is a constant source of issue, as seen in Veronica Chambers’ “Betrayal Feminism.” We are still acculturated to hate out dark skin, our kinky hair, our full figures. What are you gonna do? You’re not gonna talk to your white sisters because they’re so busy being defensive, so busy assuring you that they aren’t racist that they rarely hear what you’re saying at all” (263). Very similar conflicts are visible among men. While expressing their concern for the “death of masculinity,” “cute blonde boys state at us from the books’ covers…one boy of color is sometimes featured on a cover, there’s a nary mention of them side,” says Kimmel (188). As some feminists have come to realizing, excluding races from causes won’t make things easier. If they take more initiative for equality among feminists, they will promote racial equality among men. Then, feminism will clearly have a positive impact on masculinity.







-Lavanya Gupta

Manly Men

This week’s readings provided an interesting look into the mind of advertisers focusing on males in the media and how we have recently begun to portray men in more feminine ways in typically manly situations. The idea of man has changed recently, with the stoic, hardened, emotionless guy left behind and the “new man” with his soft and sentimental side ready to take over with full force. Diane Barthel’s Men, Media, and the Gender Order focuses on just this as well as several other issues in the changing gender roles of men and women.

Men today are not the men many of us grew up watching on TV. Today he is sensitive, takes an interest in developing lasting relationships with his family, and isn’t necessarily the sole breadwinner. It’s as if every televised dad strives to be the Danny Tanner of the 2000’s, making each family just like Full House from the ABC Family channel. The new man is encouraged to move away from attachments to his mother and instead strive for closeness with his father. As Barthel says, “While the young man must still maintain distance between himself and his mother, he proves his New Man status by breaking down the distance between himself and his father.”

This transition to the new man from the old man has resulted for some, in the death of masculinity. It is fascinating to watch the gender roles in our society shift at a barely perceptible rate only to suddenly spring them upon us, showering the world with bi-sexuality, homosexuality and trans-gender aspects of life. It seems as if everything we know of how the world “should be” is falling down around us, and frankly I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It is peculiar, however, that despite these changes in gender, we still operate within the confines of femininity and masculinity, although some would say it were dead (O’Sullivan, Dead Man Walking).

O’Sullivan’s reaction to this change in gender roles is particularly interesting to me because he makes a valid point regarding the loss of masculinity in our society and what that may mean for the future. He says that if people can’t tell boys from girls the “whole society would come to a screeching halt” (O’Sullivan, Dead Man Walking). After reading that I began to think about it. It seems that he may be right. Our society is so patriarchal that to even being to fathom a culture based on anything else is intimidating. Many people, many of them being women, are striving for such a change, but I often wonder if we’re ready to accept the burden of that change. I know I want equality for everyone but sometimes it feels like the rest of the world isn’t ready and it’s depressing.

It’s the same sort of thing that we have to deal with when we talk about abortion. Everyone says they want women to have reproductive rights—OK, a lot of people, not all—but the fact of the matter is that we as a society cannot settle down and decide on the issue when it should be long buried by now. But then again, maybe that’s just me. In Allison Crew’s essay So I Chose we see a fifteen-year-old girl go into Planned Parenthood to have an abortion only to be screamed at by pro-lifers. I know it doesn’t relate to the concept of masculinity and how society has changed what the ideal boy or man should be like, but for me both of these issues are similar in that they are growing ever larger and being fought all the way.

It’s a shame that in the rise of feminism boys have been left by the wayside so that girls can feel important again. It’s about equality people. You’ve got to love your children the same all around. It seems as if feminism has begun to take over in areas that we neglect, and has adverse affects on some of what it touches.

Here are some manly links:
http://www.arthurshall.com/x_manly_men.shtml
http://manlyjokes.tripod.com/

~Paige

Masculinity in the US and the "Feminization" of the Consumer and the World

Constructons of Masculinity

"Bros before hos." 3 out of 3 world leaders agree.

In “When Men Put on Appearances” Diane Barthel writes, “By finding our identities in and through products, we actually hand over our identities” (137). In a capitalist society, the role of the people is to be consumers of goods. The people sell their labor for money, presumably laboring away to provide goods and services, and then spend this money on more goods and services. Consumers practice commodity fetishism which is “how people empower goods, treating them like magical fetishes to be worshipped” (Barthel 138). “When such commodity fetishism occurs, we no longer have power over goods. Rather, they have power over us. They rule our lives and determine our actions” (Barthel 138). It logically follows that whoever controls the goods also controls the consumers, who are stuck in an endless loop of production and consumption. The consumers are molded by the large corporations and the government who own the rights to the goods that the people produce (as well as the media). In the same way that people within Western society are shaped by their capitalist leaders, so is the rest of the world shaped by those same countries that are considered “economic powerhouses.”

By examining how men are influenced by the media, especially advertising, in the West, we can see how the same media elite determines how people abroad should act. The media tells men how to be masculine in a variety of ways. Barthel describes many ways that advertising shapes men’s gender performance—from ads for clothes to ads for cars. Barthel writes, “In page after page the solitary male figure appears handsomely turned out in a three-piece suit and top coat” (139). Car advertisements talk about “power, precision, performance” (Barthel 144). “Sports terms and icons are used to sell a remarkable range of goods” (Barthel 150). All of these advertisements tell men which products they should buy to make them masculine and also how to perform masculinity. Similarly, large corporations, many of them American, sell products overseas and are presenting comparable images to people of other countries. The advertisements presented abroad tell people what their ideals should be—how they should act and how they should look. When most of the people in advertisements are white and Western, as are the corporations and governments in charge of these advertisements, the ideal tends to become white and Western, homogenizing a global community.

The goal of much of the media is to distract from the real issue—patriarchal dominance. “Like popular inspirational speakers, advertisements reinforce self-indulgence and self-promotion with buzz phrases like ‘Enjoy’ and ‘You’re worth it’” (Barthel 142). By keeping people busy purchasing goods to fulfill their desires, those in power stay in power because the focus is off of them. This especially applies when looking at cultural imperialism. If the rest of the world is expected to modernize and become developed, essentially to be just like the United States, and if the people of those countries are expected to look white and act Western, as that has become the ideal due to the media, then certainly much of the world will be too distracted to notice the US hands pulling the strings.

Barthel talks about the creation of the New Man because the old stereotype was a “straightjacket of traditional expectations regarding the strong, silent male” (146). Brendan O’Sullivan’s article, “Dead Man Walking” describes how even though traditional masculinity is dead, we’re all still engaging in the tradition. O’Sullivan writes, “Where once there was relative certainty about what it meant to ‘be a man,’ there is now an explosion of different—often conflicting—possibilities” (101). This complicates the picture even more. Men have even more people to imitate in the media, from men on such varied shows as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and According to Jim (O’Sullivan 102). In the same way, people abroad have many expectations and ideals placed on them by Western society, all of them increasing dependence upon the US and its media.

Barthel asks, “Is there really any way he can succeed on his own terms? Is there really any way he can be his own man, rather than, in fact, just another walking advertisement for the capitalist system…” (151)? “Advertising has encouraged a ‘feminization’ of culture, as it puts all potential consumers in the classic role of the female: manipulable, submissive, seeing themselves as objects” (Barthel 148). The model presented by Barthel of consumers playing traditional female roles is applicable to not only American consumers but to the whole world. The elite in power, the patriarchy, tells everyone else, the “women,” how to act. Those with power seek to maintain our dependence on them for directions on how to perform, just as US foreign policy has shown a tendency to be a colonial power and play a patriarchal father figure to other countries.

All of this relates to Pozner’s article, “Reclaiming the Media for a Progressive Future.” The article provides methods to undermining the huge amount of power that the corporate media elite wields. Pozner writes, “After the 2004 election, seasoned activists and apolitical liberals alike began asking how George W. Bush could have hoodwinked so many low-income, minority, and women voters into casting their ballots for a corporate-welfare-supporting, job-squandering, sex-ed-slashing, racial-profiling, archconservative administration antithetical to their interests” (3). With the corporate media elite in power, consumers will always be deceived. With the patriarchy in place, men and women in the US and elsewhere will always be part of a power play, and they will always be on the dominated end.

Ridiculous Displays of Masculinity:

Fix a Bitch? | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

Old Spice Manly Test Commercial - Watch the best video clips here

-Erica