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Anne's blog
“...The most visionary task of all remains that of re-conceptualizing masculinity so that alternative, transformative models are there in the culture, in our daily lives, to help boys and men who are working to construct a self, to build new identities.” (p. 63-4, bell hooks, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics)
“I could partake at last in the assumption of heterosexuality and ask out any woman I liked without insulting her.” (p. 92) Vincent’s chapter on love was intriguing. Performing the role of a man, she had to “get out there” and be the proactive one, making the first moves. The recurring theme was that Vincent, as a man - as every man - had to work double-time to prove himself worthy of the woman’s trust. “It was the woman’s job to be on the defensive, because past experience had taught her to be.” (p. 97) The women Vincent-as-Ned dated brought with them their past experiences and future expectations. 2 comments | read more | 454 reads
The most appealing aspect of these first three chapters is Vincent’s critical analysis of (and judgments on) her experiences as a man, her introspection. The most striking examples of this can be found in chapter three. I am so glad she is giving us her dual perspectives, such as on page 2 where she discusses walking down the street as a woman and being leered at as “just another pussy to be put in its place” while offering us the experience of walking those same streets as a man (“...the respect [those same men] showed me by not looking at me, by purposely not staring” p. 3, emphasis in original).
Norah Vincent was on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" in January to talk about her book, Self-Made Man. You can listen to it online, but I suggest reading (at least) the first few chapters of the book first. login to post comments | 264 reads
I kept reading and reading, waiting for the ending. Yet this was not the ending I was hoping for. I wanted the narrator to find Louise and for them to get back together - the happy ending. It is fitting that it did not turn out that way. What was all this? What have I just finished? Obsessing over Louise helped the narrator to forget hirself (pg. 153), but all of this was about the narrator, about love and loss. Starting on page 156 the narrator began to realize hir mistake, “the facts of what I had done. [...] I had failed Louise.”
Winterson, pgs. 96-145 I found this section so depressing. Sad, depressing, but full of beautiful descriptions and metaphors.
This is such an enjoyable read for me, mostly because of the descriptions and abundance of cliches. Everything the narrator is describing has been said and done before... “Nouns have no worth these days unless they bank with a couple of Highstreet adjectives.” (p. 52) What can you say that hasn’t already been said? We qualify words, add a little zing, but it is all the same. “Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there.” (p. 89) Does this mean, ‘written on the body are our experiences’? 3 comments | read more | 274 reads
“this is the oppressor’s language yet I need it to talk to you” Adrienne Rich, The Burning of Paper Instead of Children” I have to admit it, I was irked that I had to stop reading once I got to page 48 of Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body. I find it to be an easy and interesting read and I want to keep reading to see what other experiences the protagonist will share. It’s like voyeurism but the person we’re peeking in on knows we’re looking and so is intentionally showing it all. 3 comments | read more | 292 reads
So, perhaps like some of you, I wasn’t really expecting Gro to beat the living shit out of Petronius. I should have known Brantenberg would tackle domestic violence, as we call it, as she’s tackled most other subjects. Still, it was a difficult read, as is anything involving intimate violence. When Petronius awoke, I was hoping that he would be in a hospital or actually in Baldrians arms, not those of Gro. I get the feeling Petronius is going to be permanently disfigured due to the hack job Gro did on his nose, so he won’t just have the psychological damage to remind him of Gro beating him, all he’ll have to do is look in a mirror.
This was an exciting section with a lot of developments. I’m having to keep myself from reading ahead to see conclusions. In “Fish and Romance”, all I could focus on was Gro’s condescending remarks, her belittling comments made at Petronius. And it’s all sexist. “You’ll for ever be unearthing piles of stuff written by menwim no one’s ever heard of on subjects no one’s ever heard of.” (p. 181) Here Petronius is branching out, educating himself, but since it isn’t Sparksist literature or written by a wom, it has no value to Gro.
This section of “Egalia’s Daughters” fits in well with the Butler reading. Favorite part of “Egalia’s” I’ll pull out: What was mysterious - and truly incomprehensible - was that menwim had always accepted it. They had accepted the inferior position wim had allotted them. They must have believed wim when they said it was part of the natural order. Why did they believe them? They, the members of the Masculine League, didn’t believe all that crap. They could just as well have said that it was part of the natural order for wim to mind children and for menwim to go out and make decisions. Nothing was really in harmony with any so-called ‘natural order’. Everything was the contrivance of huwom beings. A systematic contrivance with a target in view: to hold huwom beings of one sort down, so huwom beings of another sort can exploit them and thrive as parasites. (p. 173)The arguments Brantenberg is highlighting through her satire are the arguments convieniently left out of our social discourse. “The system” as we know it to be was constructed (before our time) and imparted upon us from birth and is reinforced throughout our lives (and generations). Brantenberg and Butler are pointing out that gender is a farce - a lie we have blindingly accepted as truth and one we continue unquestioningly to propagate. We have seen how gender is reinforced in Egalsund and how gender non-conformers are actually punished for not believing in the fairy tale. Wim in Egalsund benefit from subjugating wenwim in various manners, including socially, politically, financially, and emotionally. One reason the menwim accept this subjugation is because this is way things have always been. They are denied their history, given instead history as according to wim. Spn Owlmoss tells us that “those who describe history merely do so from the rulling-class point of view, because they belong to that class themselves” (p. 174). It is in the wim’s best interests to ensure their way of life continues, that everywom assumes that the prescribed way of being is the only way to be.
“The shore, the stone statue and the oak wood” was a bit uncomfortable to push through, but that is my normal reaction to rape. The morning after when Bram confronts Petronius highlights the act of blaming the victim and, as within the family, keeping the rape a (shameful) secret.Within this first half of the text, the inequality in Egalsund has become even more blatant. This is highlighted in “Petronius as seawom” as the seawim remind me of (stereotypical) men in an office harassing secretaries. The seawim treat Petronius as eye-candy and entertainment, all the while denigrating him because he is a manwom.
It took me quite some time to chug through Butler’s “Arguing with the Real”. I was following the content in the beginning but started to get lost around page 195. It wasn’t until page 210 that I was pulled back into what she was discussing. Still, I feel I have an extremely general understanding of this piece as a whole, not to mention her analysis of Zirzek and Laclau that went over my head for the most part.
The subjection of every ideological formation to a rearticulation of these linkages [stated above] constitutes the temporal order of democracy as an incalculable future, leaving open the production of new subject-postitions, new political signifiers, and new linkages to become the rallying points for politicization. (193).
Perkins-Gilman was a surprisingly fun read. I had come across this piece on numerous occasions in WS courses, but had never taken the time to read it. What a mistake! In the beginning, I had assumed the story would chronicle the wife's experiences of suffering from the likes of postpartum depression, as she spoke only twice in passing of her infant and admitted to feeling depressed. I also noticed I had begun to feel a lack of sympathy towards the wife, as I found her comments to be akin to stereotypical bourgeois complaints (e.g., "Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, --to dress and entertain...." [pp. 3]). All the while, however, I was skeptical as to the true plot due to the mentioning of how the wife was treated and regarded by the men in her life. Once the wife's preoccupation with the wallpaper became more dramatic, I then thought she would eventually crack and end up a loon, which could indeed by what happened, due to the overprotection imparted by her husband/others.
This is just a tester post. If this were a real entry, you might see actual content worth reading. login to post comments | 253 reads |
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