Scared, But So Sexy

This week we chose two music videos to analyze and relate them to the Introduction to Women’s Studies course readings. I chose “Disturbia” by Rihanna and “Fly on the Wall” by Miley Cyrus. These two music videos are meant to appeal to very different types of audiences. Although Rihanna uses overt sexualization to get viewers’ attention while Miley is more subtle, both videos are a disservice to the perception of female sexuality because of how they are portrayed in the media.

In Rihanna’s music video of her song “Disturbia,” there are images of Rihanna behind a cage, wearing a collar, and wearing a feathered headdress. The creators of the music video specifically chose those images to emphasize the animalistic nature of “crazy” Rihanna. She’s an animal that needs to be caged because she is so dangerous. The exoticism of women of color reinforces the idea of white women as the beauty ideal because it makes non-white women animals; they’re less than human. It gives men and even other women society’s permission to objectify them in the real world. In Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye a young, black girl named Claudia explains her disdain for Shirley Temple when she says, “…I had felt a stranger, more frightening thing than hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world. It had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll” (19-20). Rihanna, a pop-icon of this time period, serves the same purpose as Shirley Temple and Barbie of their initial time period because they all did/do continue the notion that white is normal; one must idealize and exemplify “whiteness” and trivialize any other race or ethnicity. This thought is seconded by Anastasia Higginbotham in her essay Teen Mags: How to Get a Guy, Drop 20 Pounds, and Lose Your Self-Esteem when she writes, “Granted, there is that one light-skinned black girl in every fashion layout. But she’s just as thin as the white girl standing next to her, and that white girl is always there—like a chaperone. Like it’s the white girl’s responsibility to keep the black girl in line, make sure she doesn’t mingle with other black folks, start a riot or something” (88-89). Although Rihanna is the alpha female in her music video, this concept is illustrated when there are images of her caressing a white, male mannequin. The fact those images comprise one of few visual sequences of her being civilized reinforces that black women are meant to be taken by white men, controlled and civilized under their watchful gaze.

In Miley Cyrus’ music video of her song “Fly on the Wall,” there are shots in which she is singing in front of a black sports car. Why a black sports car? It has very little appeal to the tween girls who idolize her. The sports car is meant to please a male audience. Arguably, the video sets it up that women are similar to cars. You lust after the flashy, sporty ones that you can drive around the block a few times and show off, but you buy the dependable, sensible car that gets you from point A to point B in the fastest and most comfortable way possible. Despite the fact she’s singing about a doubtful, if not all out controlling, boyfriend, Miley’s facial expressions depict her as ecstatic rather than disgusted or fearful. She’s sending a message that a boy with trust issues is irritating and bothersome, but not wrong. He just has a quirk that could easily be solved if only employed “a little communication.” This is similar to the one described by Higginbotham when she writes, “Girls are bombarded with messages about the thrill of catching boys, so why is it shocking when a girl’s pursuit includes a little creative compromise, like forgiving her boyfriend for lying about the party, drinking when he tells her to drink, and being too drunk to care (or too drunk to resist) when he and his friends fuck her?” (88). Miley’s music video trivializes a serious problem. She gives her viewers mixed messages when in the second verse she sings, “If you were my boyfriend, I’d be true to you/If I make a promise, I’m comin’ through/Don’t you wish that you could/See me every second of the day/That way you would have no doubt/That baby I would never stray.” In this contradictory message, she assures us that she would be faithful but the boy in question might want to make sure for himself anyway. This supports the perception that women are untrustworthy and calculating. The attraction of this contradiction that Miley and other Disney superstars offer is their naïveté coupled with sexuality. Although they are not extremely sexual, these teeny-bopper stars are the embodiment of the virgin/whore dichotomy. Cyrus’ sexually enticing dancing and facial expression coupled with her clean “message” is an example of intersectional oppression, a seemingly harmless “invisible wire” that is part of a larger confining instrument (Frye 8).

Both examples of popular culture media illustrate the many ways in which women are not empowered in their surroundings. The vulnerability of women is sexy to men, which is extremely scary. Although a mentally crazed Rihanna and a paparazzi-hunted Miley do not seem to equate with rape, the fact that their vulnerability turn men on, and we market that fact, is extremely frightening. This tells us that female sexuality is being terribly misconstrued from what it was meant to be. This is the very thing I Wanna Be Like Britney is trying to communicate to the world. We want female sexuality to be normalized and for women to be able to identify the master’s tool that is marketing campaigns that allure us with sexual images.

~Katie Frye

Music Videos:

"Disturbia" by Rihanna http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zdhHLvT7k

"Fly on the Wall" by Miley Cyrus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RSlhNJFohI

T t t tastay tastay!

When I found out that our assignment for this week’s journal was supposed to be a music video free-for-all I was elated. I missed class and thought we were supposed to journal on the usual articles and books we’d read so finding out about this was a nice change. I chose to look at Christina Aguilera’s video “Dirty” and Fergie’s video “Fergalicious” in order to point out a few of the more ridiculous and somewhat outrageous bits in both videos. While both Christina and Fergie play up their sexuality, each video has a distinct connection to the feminist community and how women’s lives are being shaped today.

In “Dirty” we first see Christina and several scantily clad women enter what appears to be a wrestling arena set in a sort of pit below the audience of all male spectators. The girls are encouraged to fight each other cage-match style in a sense (because they can’t just jump out of the pit) and are cheered on by the men above them who scream and throw things at them. As I mentioned in my discussion questions, this scene is reminiscent of when the Roman’s used to watch their slaves fight to the death or fight for their lives against lions and other animals. If looked at this way, Christina’s video advocates the battering of women. What’s worse is that it shows women encouraging it too, right along with the men who’d be just as happy to join in the fight themselves.

I can’t help but think of Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools when I watch this music video, and pretty much all music videos showing women in barely any clothing. The influence of the patriarchy is pretty evident in “Dirty” based on what the women are wearing and how they’re dancing. Everyone is hyper sexualized. Despite all of this, Christina and her gang of female friends seem to relish the attention they’re receiving from the men, as though they were the ones with the real power in the situation. This led me to wonder whether or not the video was a social commentary on men’s perception of women, almost like a “screw you!” being shouted out from Christina and her girls as they proudly flaunted their bodies. But I thought about it some more and realized that this is just another master’s tool, and a good one at that. It did its job after all. I was distracted by the women’s clothing and dancing and not focused on the real issue that we see in the video, and that is the making acceptable of battering and sexual exploitation. As Lorde says, “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change,” (pg.38, FF).

In Fergie’s video, we again see women dressed in pretty much nothing and dancing ever so sexily, but that again shouldn’t be the main issue. After watching 30 seconds of “Fergalicious” I started to notice things I didn’t want to. First off, Fergie is dressed in a baby doll dress surrounded by brightly colored candy reminiscent of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Later we see her dressed up as a girl scout, saying things like, “Fergalicious (so delicious) but I ain't promiscuous, and if you was suspicious, all that shit is fictitious” all the while dancing seductively and eating candy in front of the camera. This just screams child pornography to me. That and that the ideal that women are supposed to be virgins and innocent has fully infiltrated society and probably isn’t leaving for a long time unless we start getting realistic about sex. It really bothers me that Fergie is using the innocent card to sell sex because it attracts perverts. In my discussion questions I talked about how this video sort of relates to Muscio’s Abortions, Vacuum Cleaners, and the Power Within because of some similarities I noticed between Fergie’s video and the reading both talking about innocence in two different ways, Fergie’s being that she was innocent and proud of it, and Muscio’s being ashamed of her sexual activity (to an extent). This idea that being sexually experienced is bad needs to go. We have to stop selling sexuality through innocence or we’ll mislead the next generation of girls and boys growing up in America and watching these things on TV, not to mention how many pedophiles we’ll make very happy if we continue.

It’s like Enloe says over and over again in her article Beyond the Global Victim, we must get involved and find out about what’s happening to the women of the world. Take the movie Senorita Extraviada that we watched in class the other day. Without documentaries like that being made and taught in classrooms, how many of us would know about the femicides in Juarez? If we keep letting the patriarchy define our lives, if we keep letting the master’s house be our only source of support, as Lorde says (pg.38, FF), we will never achieve anything. Videos like Christina’s and Fergie’s keep spreading the message that it’s ok for men to ogle women and see them as objects. That it’s ok—and even attractive--for women to be hurt and vulnerable. That it’s not ok to no longer be “innocent.” It’s time for a change. The last thing feminism needs is another setback.
~Paige

"Come On Eileen" and "Somethin' For the Fellas (That Like the Fellas)"

“Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners is a song about a woman whom the narrator once dated and his sexual desires for her. “Somethin’ For the Fellas (That Like the Fellas)” by TEAM PIMP is also a song about sexual desires. However, one of these songs would be considered offensive by many Americans because of the way it defies norms including heterosexual and gender norms. Cultural production and the public reaction to that production demonstrate a society’s norms and values. It is, therefore, important to look at why certain songs receive more negative attention than other songs.

“Come On Eileen” begins with lines that expose the patriarchy involved in the story. The lines, “Our mothers cried and sang along” and “we can sing just like our fathers” reveal the underlying gender norms and intent to follow tradition. The lead singer says, “With you in that dress/My thoughts I confess/Verge on dirty.” This is actually a very sexually-charged line that shows the narrator’s intentions. He also shows his intentions by saying, “At this moment you mean everything,” and “Ah, come on, let's take off everything.” In the music video, the band, and especially the lead singer, approach Eileen and proposition her. However, Eileen is walking with another woman and they are pushing a baby in a stroller. This setup is interesting because it implies that, while the lead singer and Eileen used to date, she has a new partner who is a woman. However, dating someone who later identifies as a lesbian threatens the masculinity and heterosexuality of the lead singer. He desires to have another chance with her and prove to her that she does not want to be with this woman. The line, “They’re so resigned to what their fate is/But not us, no, not us,” demonstrates the conflict between Eileen and the lead singer. She is not willing to resign herself to his orders, but he is not willing to give up. The band orders Eileen to “tell him yes.” In the music video, the band has to resort to carrying Eileen away from her partner.



“Somethin’ For the Fellas (That Like the Fellas)” by TEAM PIMP is also about sexual desire, but instead of undermining sexual agency, it encourages it. It is strictly about non-heterosexual sexual contact that is not within a marriage. Erika sings, “Dirty gay stuff is all I wanna do/I wanna fuck you and your boyfriend too.” Maxine sings, “taking off your shirt to make the fellas scream.” These lines in the song express sexual agency. The song is also about rejecting gender norms. Maxine sings, “You got me burnin’ up” and Erika adds, “My mussy’s on fire.” The song uses humor to be entertaining and fun, which are two adjectives that describe sexual exploration for TEAM PIMP. Erika sings, “It’s large like Charles in Charge” and “Fuck me in the ass ‘til you come real fast.” All of these aspects would make the song offensive for many parents. People reject media when it provides a free and open space to talk about sex, homosexuality, and gendered behavior. Yet, this is hypocritical. “Come On Eileen” is sexual and may even imply rape, but because it is through the heterosexual male gaze, this song receives no controversy.



These two songs relate to “Lusting for Freedom” by Rebecca Walker. Walker writes, “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). People want to prevent their children, and especially young women, from being exposed to songs like “Something For the Fellas (That Like the Fellas)” because it may just help them achieve sexual agency, something that would subvert the patriarchy. “Sex in silence and filled with shame is sex where our agency is denied” (Walker 23). When we censor media, the things that are usually censored often present a sexuality that is beyond the norm. But this silence has a negative impact on youth who need proper sexual education. “We are growing, thinking, inquisitive, self-possessed beings who need information about sex and access to birth control and abortion” (Walker 24). Additionally, if young people are exposed to material we normally consider “explicit” and are provided with a detailed explanation, they will be better equipped to deal with the sexual issues that face them as they grow up. Walker writes, “there is no magic recipe for a healthy sexuality; each person comes into her or his own sexual power through a different route and at her or his own pace” (23). Therefore, it is imperative that we provide a wide variety of media that expose children to many different sexualities and gender expressions so that they may come into their own and know who they are, rather than closeting their sexualities.


We must be given the keys to our sexual agency.

-Erica

Truth v. truth

This week we read Desert Blood: the Juárez Murders by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and watched Señorita Extraviada: Missing Young Women by Lourdes Portillo. Although Señorita Extraviada is a documentary and Desert Blood is a fictitious novel, they both use different ways to tell an audience about under reported crimes that are happening rather close to home. Many Mexican and Mexican-American women between the ages of twelve and twenty-five are being abducted, raped, and murdered. These atrocities have been going on since 1993 and they continue to happen today. Both Gaspar de Alba and Portillo use their art as feminist activism to let people know that this is a serious concern and needs to be given more attention and stopped.

Of the two choices, Desert Blood is the most effective at getting the true message across to Gaspar de Alba’s readership. The novel gives more of an insider view on the crimes; readers understand what is happening to the victims’ families and the dangers in investigating or researching the Juárez murders because they are on the same level as the character in this third-person limited prose. Also, it gives a glimpse into the situation as a captive. Irene’s character in the book, as well as the maquiladora workers, allows readers to understand what a captive must deal with in such circumstances. Her pain and fear hit a chord with readers and, although much of her story is based on speculation rather than actual accounts, those passages give readers more of a reason to identify with the nameless Mexican women who are murdered still today. The documentary is not nearly as effective to a non-Spanish-speaking audience simply because the subtitles are difficult to connect with the emotions of the speaker. The carefully chosen words of Gaspar de Alba are meant to invoke certain emotions. In interviews, the men and women are saying whatever comes to mind. This can be a very effective means to stir compassion within the audience… if they aren’t concentrating on the subtitles at the bottom of the screen, emotion and inflection of the men and women on screen completely lost on gringos squinting at the small words.

One bad thing about using a novel to convey an actual event is that everything cannot be taken as fact. Alicia Gaspar de Alba, no matter how thoroughly she researched to give us an accurate picture of the characters in her novel, takes many liberties. For some characters, she takes real people and makes parodies of them, and with others, she completely fabricates them. Also, to function as a novel, there has to be a climax and resolution. The true nature of these murders does not come with a nifty ending that wraps up everything nicely. The Juárez murders create an unending mystery that cannot be solved. The last pages that quell your sense of uneasiness are giving you something that shouldn’t be there: satisfaction and peace of mind. Many of the families and friends of victims don’t have that luxury and to give the reader that is a dishonest portrayal. Señorita Extraviada does a much better job of letting the audience know that there is no definite answer when the narrator asks “Who is responsible? The Egyptian? The gangs? The bus drivers? The police?” The audience knows that no one really knows. It’s everyone and no one.

Señorita Extraviada: Missing Young Women is the most accurate and definitely most truthful of the two mediums. You are given the information pertaining to these crimes straight from the source. Many of these different perspectives do not coincide and the audience has to come up with a conclusion of their own, much like the citizens of Juárez. What the documentary lacks in actual emotional involvement of the viewer it makes up for in music and cinematography. There are sequences in which young women are walking slowly across the desert and it seems as if they are disappearing. When there aren’t interviews, there are lots of still shots of sad faces and silhouettes. Between the cheerless faces and the gloomy music it isn’t difficult to realize that this is a somber topic.

There are a few things that both the documentary and the novel include. They both have some sort of focal symbol. For the documentary, it’s more tangible: the pink blocks with black crosses that we see being painted on tree trunks and telephone poles. For the novel, it’s pennies. The main difference is the cross is used as a symbol of hope, or at least remembrance, whereas the pennies are not only a symbol of the expendability of women, they become advantageous clues to the killers. These symbols function as a catchphrase or slogan for the movement which is helpful in keeping the feminist message alive within the audience. Also, they delve into different perspectives other than the loss of a loved one. Desert Blood and Señorita Extraviada discuss police brutality. It’s not just the criminals who are the “bad guys,” the “good guys” are bad too. Portillo conveys this message through the interview she has with the woman who was raped by police. Gaspar de Alba uses the interaction between Ivon and her cousin with the judiciales. Although neither of these mediums directly accuse the police of being the perpetrators of the murders, they illustrate the corruption of the entire system and give the audience an idea of how hopeless it often is for families of missing young women.

Although I preferred the novel to the documentary for its entertainment value, I realized that I needed both to fully understand the complexity of these femicides. I am not familiar with the culture represented and, because of that, I didn’t understand many of the characters Gaspar de Alba uses to represent real people and actual occurrences. The documentary was helpful in distributing facts about certain people and instances that allowed me to better appreciate the novel. What it comes down to is the truth versus Truth. Sometimes it’s helpful to know facts, dates, and specific pieces of information. When much of that data is hard to relate to, it is often easier to find work that gives an audience a more personal point view.

This novel and documentary are helpful to our Community Action Project because it helped me to explore different ways to convey our message about female sexuality in the media to our audience. I now know what types of things I would like to do with our documentary in respect to the Portillo created. Both of these mediums also reinforced how important it is to inform people. There are too many men and women who do not even realize the extremity of issues that result in the oppression of women. These projects reiterate how important it is that I Wanna Be Like Britney gets its message across as well.

~Katie Frye

Desert Blood

Before last week I had no idea that the women of Juarez, Mexico were being kidnapped and subsequently murdered consistently for over the past ten years. Watching the documentary in class on the missing women and hearing family members of the deceased speak of their encounters with the Juarez judicial system rocked me to my core. The police ignore requests for help and destroy evidence from crime scenes, blaming the destruction on disease and other kinds of contamination. All patterns found linking the missing girls to the actual number of dead bodies are ignored and the government claims the death toll is much lower than it actually is. But you know all of that. I just had to type it all out and really express how much this bothers me, and probably will continue to bother me, which isn’t a bad thing. Hey, it brings about awareness, right?
Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood encompasses every one of the things I listed above, delving into issues I didn’t even think were relevant to the Juarez murders at all. Throughout reading her novel, I noticed the underlying sexuality that permeated every chapter. Gaspar de Alba establishes very early on the Ivon is a lesbian who has come out to her conservative Mexican family, who received her with malice, save for a few characters, like her sister Irene. I couldn’t help but wonder what Gaspar de Alba was trying to get across to her readers when she placed sexuality at the forefront of a novel that has its main focus set on the Juarez murders.
I thought about it for a while and it hit me: Gaspar de Alba could be comparing homophobia to the violence against women in Juarez. It may sound far-fetched, but I think there could be something there. Gaspar de Alba does a very good job communicating how intolerable homosexuality is in the Mexican culture and throughout the world in general by showing us the scene in the beginning of the novel where Father Francis asks Ivon not to tell Cecila’s family she is a lesbian because if they knew they wouldn’t let her adopt the baby (pg.36). We also see Ivon’s mother call her all sorts of atrocious names when she goes to visit her after she finds out Cecilia had been murdered.
Gaspar de Alba links the verbal violence against homosexuality to the physical violence against women. By showing the reader the abuse Ivon endures because she is a lesbian next to the gratuitous abuse the women of Juarez suffer from, Gaspar de Alba makes the connection that these two crimes are the same on some level. The women being tortured and killed in the novel are merely objects and Ivon herself lesser-than human for her difference in sexuality. Gaspar de Alba subtly builds this image for the reader, leaving the message that the treatment of homosexuals as objects or freaks is in some way akin to torturing and killing women. Again, I know how out-there this all sounds, but it’s worth thinking about.
Gaspar de Alba also delves into the issue of same-sex couple adoption in her novel, but fails to elaborate on it entirely. However, given that this novel’s main focus isn’t adoption and is murder it’s understandable that she wouldn’t go into more detail about the process, but it’s something to be considered because it plays a big role in the fear of homosexuality that the world still harbors. We won’t let gay couples adopt without practically having them jump through hoops of fire, which is simply ridiculous. I think the issue of same-sex adoption is one that Gaspar de Alba feels very strongly about and one that probably could have been explored more in the novel if not for clarity’s sake, then for the sake of emphasizing the negativity felt toward homosexuality today, which would in turn emphasize the parallel we see between violence against women and homosexuality.
All in all, this week has been really eye opening. It sickens me to think that there are women dying horrible deaths across the country as you and I read these words. They say a baby is born every minute, or every few minutes, but in Juarez’s case, women are dying. I wish there was something I could do, something the United States would do, to help end this, but it looks like our government doesn’t really care about what’s going on “over there” in Mexico. It’s just like Enloe said. Women need to become more aware of global issues because they affect all of us. If one woman is murdered, we all feel it.

-Paige

Fact vs. Fiction When it Comes to Desert Blood

In the globalized world that we find ourselves in, it has become increasingly important to actively pay attention to world events. As countries around the world become more and more interconnected, occurrences that take place on the other side of the world begin to affect us in a more substantial way than we may expect. Unfortunately, women have only been granted the right to be directly involved in international politics for a handful of decades, and this has been a huge setback; many females of this generation do not take advantage of their rights and continue to be ignorant of what goes around in their surroundings. In “Beyond the Global Victim,” Cynthia Enloe discusses how “feminists need to pay attention to international issues not only because international politics affects our futures but also because patriarchy creates gendered divisions of labor…international politics leads to both inequalities among women and the possibilities of organizing against those inequalities” (496). If feminists take the initiative to make themselves aware of world events, they will be capable of spreading information with other women. As a component of our Women’s Studies course, we, as feminists, are attempting to make both men and women aware about the homogenized idea of beauty and how it affects both genders in their personal perceptions beauty and their general beauty regimens. Our job is simplified because there is a lot of information at our disposal; a lot of it is provided by dominant media outlets, so our resources are easily accessed. How does one successfully shed light on a major event that has been poorly publicized? The ongoing Juarez murders that started in 1993 is an example of one of the world’s most troubling unsolved criminal rampages; unfortunately most people have never heard of them. I have come across a great deal of trouble finding news reports about the Juarez murders, and the ones I find are not from mainstream publications. Fortunately, in the last few years, feminists have begun to strengthen the amount of publicity received by the Juarez murders, with the release of Laurdes Portillo’s Senorita Extravida, and the publication of Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood.

 Gaspar de Alba’s book gives readers an in-depth look into the experience faced by a family who has directly been affected by the Juarez murders. Protagonist Ivon Villa’s sister, Irene, is kidnapped while she as at a party across the border in Juarez. The majority of the plot focuses on Ivon’s desperate search for Irene while she seals with her accusatory mother and corrupt officials. As realistic the story is, however, Gaspar de Alba states in her disclaimer that this is a fictional account. “All of the main characters in this story are fictional, “she says (v).  Any similarities to living or dead people are purely coincidental…Some readers who are familiar with the “maquiladora murders” may recognized certain details about a given crime and find that they don’t match “what really happened.” Because this is a fictionalized account of true events, I have taken liberties with chronologies and facts” (v). The question that rises then is if Desert Blood can be considered a legitimate source of information about the Juarez murders. Having watched Senorita Extravida, which is a very accurate documentary, I can see that the points that matter, including statistics and descriptions of victims are all true. Thus, readers will not get the wrong idea from reading this fictional account about the Juarez murders. Additionally, if this book was not fiction, Gaspar de Alba wouldn’t necessarily be able to incorporate all the additional themes she was able to fit in, such as homosexuality, gay parenting, patriarchy, globalization and the field of women’s studies, and discuss them in depth. By not providing the public with a conventional account of the Juarez murders, Gaspar de Alba still succeeds in informing readers about the ongoing crisis while educating them about other issues they are connected to; Desert Blood should be considered a piece of feminist publicity regarding the Juarez murders.

- Lavanya

The Brown Women Who Blend In

Desert Blood, a novel, made the real life situation of the Juarez femicides more available to people in the United States and elsewhere to read in a narrative form. Several weeks ago a fictional movie about the femicides called “Backyard” premiered in theaters in Mexico. Following the release, two weeks ago, a meeting between the Mexican president and several international celebrities occurred to cast public attention on the murders. Is the in-depth narrative a work of fiction can provide what is needed to motivate the international public to call for a widespread investigation into the “labyrinth of silence” regarding the femicides and the secondary status of women in Mexican culture?
In Enloe’s article “Beyond the Global Victim”, she says “the need to create links and coalitions across national and cultural boundaries remains paramount” (496). These links will help the people of different countries focus on the “meaningful connections” (496) between people instead of the differences. It is these connections that will raise empathy for the families of the victims of the femicides that will motivate people of other countries to call for justice. The women in Mexico live under a patriarchal culture that demeans them into second class citizens, contributing to the violence against women. News articles or reports are taken with a grain of indifference in today’s society, jaded the constant barrage in which they come. Works of fiction are taken singularly. The in depth stories that they portray let people connect emotionally. With this connection comes a degree of empathy and a stronger sense to correct the wrong rather than being informed about the facts, the reader/viewer is immersed in the situation. It is this immersion that is needed to motivate justice for the victims of the Juarez femicides and help for the women of Mexico.

In Desert Blood the character Ximeyna notes that no one cares about the "brown women" down South. Our CAP project aims to change that. We want to make sure that no woman blends into the background solely based on appearance.

Chinga the United States?

“‘How could there be so many dead women and we not know about it, Ivon?’ ‘Because who cares about girls from the south’” (Gaspar de Alba 329)? Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders by Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a novel about the femicides in Juárez, México that began in the 1990s and continue today. While the novel is a work of fiction, the author researched the topic extensively, and the plot of the book is as viable as any other guesses out there about the cause of the murders. Desert Blood is important in part because it gives a voice to women who have none, but also because of its transnationality. Our Community Action Project (CAP) is about the effects of globalization on women, and we needn’t look any further than our country’s border with México for the effects.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a poster child for globalization, has been great for business but terrible for people. “If fathers, brothers, husbands didn’t gain some privilege, however small in global terms, from women’s acquiescence to those confining notions of femininity, it might be much harder for the foreign executives and their local elite allies to recruit the cheap labor they desire” (Enloe 498). The imagery here is one of paternal care. Large corporations and national governments, comprised mostly of men, are expected to look after employees and citizens in a paternal way, which is similar to the “big brother is watching you” idea. Yet these men have no real interest in maintaining the health of the women they control. Governments and big business profit from minorities by exploiting their labor. The patriarchy’s paternal persona has never had our best interests in mind. “‘Although we love having all that surplus labor to exploit, once it becomes reproductive rather than just productive, it stops being profitable. How do we continue to make a profit from these women’s bodies and also curtail the threat of their reproductive power’” (Gaspar de Alba 332)? This hits at the very core of the problem in Juárez, but also around the world. While efforts to obtain large profits and maintain control have manifested themselves as a series of ongoing femicides in Juárez, women around the world are paid less than men and are treated as less than men in many ways.

In this way, Ivon’s identity is very important. She is a native of the El Paso/ Juárez area and is a lesbian. She is rebellious and rejects norms and standards. She represents everything that these governments and maquiladoras fear. It is therefore essential that Ivon brings down the conspiracy surrounding the femicides. As Enloe says, “It can be seen like one more attempt by privileged outsiders—women and men—to dilute their political efforts” (497). Gaspar de Alba knows that it is very important to give voices to all women and to not allow others to enter local communities and take over. Ivon is the perfect character to reveal the patriarchal strings attached to everything in Juárez.

Another important aspect of the novel that demonstrates its knowledge of the effects of globalization is the use of the Spanish language. Some might call it “Spanglish.” It is inserted so seamlessly that one cannot help but wonder if this is the future of bilingualism. For example, “His car parked in the estacionamiento on the same street. ...shiny and red like the kind she's seen on the telenovelas” (Gaspar de Alba 153). Furthermore, the use of curse words makes the story feel more real. “‘He's always riding that chingadera in front of the buses.’” (Gaspar de Alba 43). “‘Chinga tu madre, buey’” (Gaspar de Alba 21). This is important because of the anti-Spanish and anti-Latina/o sentiment in the United States. Using the Spanish language challenges our notions of the superiority of English. It also provides insight into the way the two languages are used interchangeably in everyday life.

Overall, Desert Blood demonstrates the negative, exploitative aspects of globalization. It shows that the people in power want to gain money from agreements like NAFTA, but don’t want anyone else to ruin their profits, even if that means violently keeping women down. US racism, as shown along the US-Mexican border, is also a manifestation of globalization. An example of this is when Ivon is subjected to this comment on the plane: “‘You don't look Mexican’” (Gaspar de Alba 6). Americans want the profits, but don’t want to share anything with those people who work in maquiladoras and help make the profits.



In a global, capitalist, free market society, the rich will always get richer and the poor will always get poorer. Our CAP and other feminist groups need to keep in mind the various aspects of female identity around the world, including language, in order to promote solidarity among feminists so as to fight this patriarchal power.


An example of the government's point of view on the issue.


An example of some maquiladora workers' opinions.

-Erica

At Face Value

This week we read Beyond the Global Victim by Cynthia Enloe. In her essay Enloe makes three major points regarding women and how they influence and are influenced by foreign policy and international activism. Her argument speaks out against activists who try and persuade women that they need to be more knowledgeable of and active in foreign affairs.

Enloe discusses how demeaning it is for women to be expected to support activism and help solve these global problems, to help other unfortunate women, when they aren’t allowed to define this activism in their own terms. Enloe writes, “Because organizers aren’t curious about what women’s experiences could lend to an understanding of international politics, many women, especially those whose energies are already stretched to the limit, are wary of becoming involved in an international campaign. It can seem like one more attempt by privileged outsiders—women and men—to dilate their political efforts. If women are asked to join an international campaign—for peace, against communism, for refugees, against apartheid, for religious evangelism, against hunger—but are not allowed to define the problem, it looks to many locally engaged women like abstract do-gooding with minimal connections to the battle for a decent life in their households and in their communities” (497). This point is paralleled in the essay Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod. She too makes the point that women are used as the cavalry when it comes to helping foreign women but never as the generals. However, it seems that the support of Western women is needed for every foreign struggle. Abu-Lughod writes about the idea of American women as the international politics litmus test when she states, “Most revealingly, [Laura Bush’s] speech enlisted women to justify American bombing and intervention in Afghanistan and to make a case for the ‘War on Terrorism’ of which it was allegedly a part” (486).

Enloe also laments the fact that women are always represented as victims and not as fighters. She tells us that this is true of our victimized sisters in developing countries, as well as the white, God-fearing, Western women when she writes, “…The typical ‘women-need-to-learn-more-about-foreign-affairs’ approach usually portrays women as the victims of the international political system… In this worldview women are forever being acted upon; rarely are they seen to be actors” (497). Although many white women who are uncomfortable with upsetting the status quo (as women generally have been for centuries) often turn their heads at this fact, they still have recognized that their power only extends so far in the patriarchy. They acted upon this by overcompensating in their use (abuse) of authority over other women during colonization. Enloe writes, “… [Feminists] have discovered that some women’s class aspirations and their racist fears lured them into the role of controlling other women for the sake of imperial rule… To describe colonization as a process that has been carried on solely by men overlooks the ways in which male colonizers’ success depended on some women’s complicity” (497). The power women exert over other women is still very popular. It is most noticeable with the employment of upper-class women who are difficult employers to women of color. These actions aren’t confined to the wealthy who interact with foreign women and use money to define their status. They occur also within every Western woman who ever thinks that it is her “duty” to save women of others cultures. While acts of compassion are often appreciated, to take on the role of savior is to oneself more capable and competent than those who need to be saved. Often it is simply because we are more privileged.

Enloe explains how important women are to international policy when she states, “Corporate executives and development technocrats need some women to depend on cash wages; they need some women to see a factory or plantation job as means of delaying marriage or fulfilling daughterly obligations. Without women’s own needs, values, and worries, the global assembly line would grind to a halt” (497-498). Women are so crucial to the functioning of so many entities. It is a master’s tool that we are not able to realize this. We are useful to the patriarchy as long as we don’t understand how important we are and how much influence we actually have. Enloe goes on to say, “But many of those needs, values, and worries are defined by patriarchal structures and strictures. If fathers, brothers, husbands didn’t gain some privilege, however small in global terms, from women’s acquiescence to those confining notions of femininity, it might be much harder for the foreign executives and their local elite allies to recruit the cheap labor they desire. Consequently, women’s capacity to challenge the men in their families, their communities, or their political movements will be a key to remaking the world” (498). Only when we are comfortable enough with our own power and rights as women will we be able to gain access to equality of the sexes. We are “victimized” by a tangle of wires, of patriarchal expectations, that when examined individually seem harmless, but cooperatively cage us (Oppression by Marilyn Frye). I believe that Valenti says it best when she states in her essay You’re a Hardcore Feminist, I Swear!, “It pays—literally—to keep women half there” (13).
Although this reading has little to do with female sexuality in the media, it has a lot to do with the misrepresentation of women in a specific forum. Women are portrayed a certain way and we automatically agree with what we are told verbatim. Women are not always the global victim nor are they always hypersexualized. We need to make a point to search for accurate information politically and recreationally so we no longer have a skewed impression of our own gender.

~Katie Frye

Juarez and Recognizing the Global Victim

While it may not immediately seem so, international issues have a substantial influence on our daily lives. Cynthia Enloe, a feminist political scientist, claims that “feminists need to pay attention to international issues not only because international politics affects our futures but also because patriarchy creates gendered divisions of labor…international politics leads to both inequalities among women and the possibilities of organizing against those inequalities” (496). International politics’ role in our lives continues to grow as the world becomes more and more intertwined due to globalization. Our CAP is a clear example of how Western standards heavily affect the rest of the world. Having realized how much of an impact cultural imperialism has on the idea of female beauty, it also became clear that women quite often are the objects and victims of these international issues, which Enloe points out (497). Unfortunately, the majority of women are not aware of these happenings.

One event that seems to have received far less attention than it deserves, especially from women, is the ongoing saga of the Juarez murders. Shockingly, many of the locals know very little about it unless they have been directly effects. It is more essential than ever to promote the circulation of international events and policies. One very effective method of spreading information is through video; Senorita Extravida: Missing Young Women, Lourdes Portillo’s documentary on the Juarez femicides is very successful in relaying all the information that was available at the time. Unfortunately, due to a low budget, this film is very poorly circulated. In order for women to play a more substantial role in international relations as they are encouraged to do, dominant media outlets must work in conjunction with the creators of such essential films so they can be made available; then a higher level of awareness among women will be more possible.

What makes Senorita Extravida successful as a documentary is Portillo’s use of cinematic techniques; they function to catch the eye of the viewer and keep them engaged during the entirety of the film. Additionally, they make the content of the film very easy to interpret. The first technical aspect that is noticeable is the somber music that plays as a series of newspaper clips of missing women are shown throughout the film. The newspaper clips have a lasting impact on viewers; the quick transition between each picture functions to enumerate the victims of this rampage, but the music really confirms the grim nature of these segments. Additionally, a large portion of the film is composed of interviews of people who have directly been affected by the Juarez murders. Interviewees include victims, people involved in solving the case, and potential culprits. A personal touch was added by the interviews, as they worked to humanize both the victims and offenders; viewers most likely found they could relate to the circumstances some of the interviewees were put in.
Perhaps the most startling part of Senorita Extraviada is the interview with the two local girls, who are shown at the beginning and end of the film. At the start of the documentary, the girls claim that they don’t know much about the Juarez murders and that they don’t feel particularly frightened by the disappearance and death of hundreds of girls. Towards the end of the film, it is revealed that the sister of one of the girls went missing. This reverts back to the prospect of women being aware of international affairs, even though these particular girls don’t seem to be very knowlegable of what is happening in their own back yard. Can we expect that all women will suddenly learn everything there is to learn? What about the fact that for most of history women were not permitted anywhere near the realm of politics of any sort? Enloe states that “a woman working in a garment factory in Ireland should learn more about the EEC because what the EEC commissioners do in Brussels is going to help determine her wages and maybe the hazards she faces on the job” (496). She would become more educated about the EEC by “devoting precious time and energy to learning about events outside her own country because as women she is one of the objects of those events” (496). While it is completely true that this garment factory worker is an object of world events, I don’t think she is in any position to devote so much time to keep track of current events, which is possibly why the local girls in Juarez did not have an inkling of the scope of the Juarez femicides until they were directly affected.


-Lavanya

Seeing Through a Different Eye

This week our assignment was to read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. It is the story of a young black girl in Loraine, Ohio towards the end of the Great Depression. It is told through the perspective of many people, most notably, her younger friend Claudia who has yet to be affected in the way older children and adults have regarding beauty and race. This novel contains many themes regarding race, beauty, and love.

One of the main themes that guide the progression of this novel, as well as it guides us in society, is that white skin is the standard of beauty. To discuss this warped ideal Morrison writes, “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (46). This is the first time that we learn Pecola desperately wishes for blue eyes. It is not that she wants to beautiful by white standards, however. She also wants to see “new pictures, new faces” and believes that if she had blue eyes, people wouldn’t want her to witness all the painful things that she does now (45). This is also reinforced when boys who are teasing Pecola choose to cease their malice after a lighter-skinned Maureen Peal happens by. They no longer want to commit crimes in front of the beautiful eyes of Maureen Peal. Although Pecola never wishes for white skin, her desire for blue eyes emphasizes how features of white women, even if they would be ridiculous on a black girl, are more “beautiful”. These same ideas are seconded as Abra Fortune Chernik writes in her essay The Body Politic, “Hatred of my body generalized to hatred of myself as a person, and self-referential labels such as ‘pig,’ ‘failure’ and ‘glutton’ allowed me to believe that I deserved punishment” (104). Although she suffers from hate of her body size rather than color, Chernik too believes that she is defective. If she were skinnier, she needn’t be punished; if Pecola had blue eyes, she needn’t witness bad things. White skin as the beauty ideal is also noted when Morrison writes from the perspective of nine-year-old Claudia. Claudia explains her disdain for Shirley Temple when she says, “…I had felt a stranger, more frightening thing than hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world. It had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll” (19-20). Her view is extremely different from the views of her older peers as well as the black community featured in this novel as a whole. Shirley Temple is idolized; she is pretty and worthy of affection. The motifs of Shirley Temple and a white doll are used to represent a master’s tool such as the ones described by Adre Lorde in The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Only the childhood innocence of Claudia who has yet to be tainted by the psychological damage her older peers have already fallen prey allows her to see the absurdity of admiring a little white girl or doll when they are treated more preciously than she is.

Another major theme in The Bluest Eye is sexual experience and its abuse. Through the character of Claudia, Morrison writes, “It never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair” (6). Through this quotation, we first learn that before the close of this story, Pecola will have been impregnated by her own father. The thought that it mayn’t have been Claudia’s fault that the marigold seeds her and her sister Frieda planted never sprouted mirrors the thought that there mayn’t be anyone to blame for Pecola’s pain. Although Pecola’s parents (especially her father) are a huge part of the problem, both of them have also received much pain at the hands of others. The possibility arises that there is no escaping suffering. Pecola’s first sexual experience is more violent than many of the others but not necessary less hostile and humiliating. Frieda is fondled by a tenant Mr. Henry and Pecola’s father carries out his first sexual experience under the hostile gaze of white men. The implications of sexual abuse within this novel are not simply the fact that sex is dangerous for black teenagers; black girls are ill-equipped to handle the consequences. Frieda’s parents do not explain the extent of perversion associated with Mr. Henry’s actions and she thinks that she’ll be “ruined” and fat. Pecola’s mother doesn’t believe Pecola has been raped making it possible for Pecola’s father to do this a second time. Pecola seeks solace in the comfort of a friend who can see Pecola’s new blue eyes. The girl is driven to madness because there is no place for her to be beautiful and loved and cared for as long as she is black.

To conclude her melancholy story, Morrison once again uses the voice of Claudia to say, “Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover's inward eye” (206). These thoughts convey a scary argument that love does not heal or help. Pecola’s father felt love for his daughter and committed such a horrific act out of that love (though mingled with disgust). Love can’t ever be perfect because even loved ones hurt you. Even though there is a hope for perfect romantic love, a black girl like Pecola can never achieve that love. She is black and, therefore, she is ugly. She doesn’t deserve that kind of love. The only beacon of hope Claudia gives us about love is that no matter how grotesquely this love is shown, the way Cholly demonstrated love for his daughter, it was still an act of love; he cannot be completely bad. If even this disgusting man can show love, perhaps there may be a “gift for the beloved.”

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye ties in with our CAP project because it discusses perception. The sexuality of black women and girls in this time setting is nothing more than an obstacle. It is to be possessed by men (such as Cholly’s first conquest, Pauline Breedlove, Frieda, Geraldine, and Pecola) or to be used as a means of living (such as the prostitutes). Although the media does not highly impact their sexuality as such, it is responsible for their self-perception as women and as people. The recurrent themes of Shirley Temple, a white baby doll, and blue eyes are what these women and girls desire to be or to have. Similar to today with television shows, music videos, and magazine advertisements; these women are given an unachievable ideal to live up to. At that time there weren’t black dolls or child celebrities; there weren’t accurate representations of their femininity, as there often isn’t accurate portrayals of female sexuality. The problem lives on but it has simply taken on a new form.

~Katie Frye