The Socially "Constructed" Body
"There are tremendous penalties for women who don't conform to the culturally accepted standards of beauty"(Kilbourne).
"There are tremendous penalties for women who don't conform to the culturally accepted standards of beauty"(Kilbourne).Styles of the female figure vary over time and across cultures: they reflect cultural obsessions and preoccupations in ways that are still poorly understood. Today, massiveness, power, or abundance in a woman's body is met with distaste. The current body of fashion is taut, small-breasted, narrow-hipped, and of a slimness bordering on emaciation; it is a silhouette that seems more appropriate to an adolescent boy or a newly pubescent girl than to an adult woman. Since ordinary women have normally quite different dimensions, they must of course diet. If you are a woman with financial means or good credit, why dread the perils of dieting? You can have your body surgically sculpted into the masterpiece our unforgiving society has convinced most it should be!
The Abortion Debate
"By casting two interpretations of female lives against each other, the abortion debate masks their common roots in the problematic condition faced by women living in a system in which wage labor and individual achievement are placed in conflict with reproduction, motherhood, and nurturance. These dilemmas are faced by all parties to the debate but are played out on women's bodies in particular. In this sense, there is a tragic dimension to the polarization around the issue. Thus, abortion persists as a contested domain in which the struggle over the place and meaning of procreation in women's lives, and its relation to the place of women in reproducing the culture, are being reorganized in oppositional terms"(Weinbaum, 2007).
Reproductive justice will not be gained through laws, Supreme Court appointments and rulings alone, but will also require broad-based measures that strengthen women's economic position, education, autonomy, sexual freedom, and health care. The abortion debate reflects the controversy surrounding the moral and legal status of abortion. We must move away from polarized debates and toward dialogue that exemplifies individuals and not representatives of causes. In these dialogues we must value the unique experiences and beliefs of individuals. These conversations must not be based on discourse weighed by broad stereotyping, or dehumanizing images.
Miss America?
"From the first moments of her tenure as Miss America, Williams...seemed to accept the inevitable controversy and even crave the distinction of being different. That" is one mark of her generation, born in the throes of the civil rights movement, immune from the physical strife of direct racial bias-and taught that a colorless world is the reward the last generation has bequeathed. The obvious contradiction in this statement, that of "craving the distinction of being different based on color and then reveling in the reward of a "colorless world," frames all of the media coverage of William's crowning. This contradiction precisely captures the tensions characteristic of diversity in general and representation of black female subjectivity in particular within the pageant: the strategies of assimilation (the "colorless world") and eroticizing difference ("craving distinction") are mutually constitutive processes. Black contestants have no choice but to attempt to employ both of these strategies even while it is evident that this is an impossible task" (Meyers, 2004).
S E X...sshhh
"Power is essentially what dictates its law to sex. Which means first of all that sex is placed by power in a binary system: licit and illicit, permitted and forbidden"(Foucault, 1978)
The 35,000 year old sculpture above is thought to be a symbol of just how old our fascination with sex is. Sexuality like all other physical acts is not inherently bad or good. It can be used to cause both pleasure and pain. I feel that the restrictions on sex should be limited to those acts that are hurtful. We are social creatures that benefit from sex both on a practical and emotional level. In such an age as ours, where we have advanced wonderfully in all fields of knowledge, it seems almost as though our sexual behavior has become more primitive and more barbaric. There might be something to the concept of free love for its foundation lies in the belief that to improve happiness and allow liberty are the greatest of all deeds.
GENDER TROUBLED? Who's asking?
"...if gender is instituted through acts which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which mundane social audience, including actors themselves believe, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief""Gender is also a norm that can never be fully internalized; "the internal" is a surface signification, and gender norms are finally phantasmic, impossible to embody" (Butler, 1990).
I never really contemplated the technical aspects of gender roles until my recent venture back to the U of W, instead I was dealing with the issue (and I use the term issue in a non-judgemental or critical sense) as a lay person. My 3 year old at the time (who is now 7) announced to us one day (without solicitation) "I am a boy that wants to be a girl." I with my liberal frame of mind was certainly caught of guard, but still amused by the prospect. My husband with his strict Baptist up bringing became immediately defensive and attempted to redirect our daughter. It has been four years since that revelation and I am proud to say, Dajane still remains the person she insists through words of her own, that God made her. I have said it before in class, I worry about how the world will receive her, but have no doubt that she will leave a lasting impression on the world.
SETTLEMENT
"I submit that together with the experiences of alienation and displacement come the experiences of rebirth or a second chance, or more succinctly, experiences of pleasure and settlement" (Manalansan, 2003).
My late Uncle Bruce or DJ Wayback as he was known by the gay community lived the above stated quote. I recall being a child and knowing that I my mother had a brother that had moved away, but his where abouts was never made quite clear. As I got older I would learn that Uncle Bruce had moved to San Francisco. It seems that 30 plus years ago, Seattle was not the same forgiving or embracing community it is given the credit for being today. Being a black man was difficult but being a gay, black man was an exhaustive existence. My uncle sought out the support of a thriving, gay community. He resided in San Francisco until the early 90's. I always looked forward to his visits. With age tends to come maturity and I am proud to say that was the case for the members of my family. We all came to adore holiday visits from Uncle Bruce and his partner Chris. My uncle would return to Seattle after being diagnosed with HIV. He lived out the final years of his life a stoic example of both persistence and compassion. He is missed and revered not only by our family but by an entire community that is only the better for having claimed him a member.
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