In Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools
Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” she focuses a lot on community and the
differences between women. That women are a group as a whole, not just part of
different subgroup like black or white or gay or straight. That women as a
group in themselves need to come together and embrace the differences between
them to make their lives as a whole better. “Advocating
the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. It is
a total denial of the creative function of dif- ference in our lives.
Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary
polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then
does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. Only within that
interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power
to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and
sustenance to act where there are no charters.” I think that this paragraph
really sums it up and shows what she wants the women as a community to be. That they need to work together and use their differences to their advantage to help better themselves.
http://imgur.com/WiEErAZ
But
while I was on reddit I came across this picture. Now I know that it says what feminists
think is happening, and that’s a stupid assumption to say that this is the way
that they think. But it made me think about the way that women as a whole operate,
and the way that they treat each other. The way that Audrey Lorde writes her
article, she believes that all women should stand up for each other and support
each other whenever they can. But I feel like that this does not happen all the
time and the differences are not celebrated and embraced, let alone even
tolerated. I think that this was a good point, because I’ve seen it plenty of
times where it is another girl that calls a girl a slut, or makes her feel bad
about the way that she expresses her sexuality. Or that if a girl dresses and
acts one way, the girls that are different than her will make fun of her. I don’t
think that a lot of differences are embraced and a lot of the ways that they
act help reaffirm their oppression in a male dominated society. The women are
judging each other and making other women feel like an object because of the
way that they are trying to express themselves. And I’m not saying that men don’t
do this too to women, or to other men. But I saw this picture the day that we
read her article, and it made me think about the way that women treat each
other.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteI think that your comment illustrates the ways in which everyone living in a patriarchal society internalizes prejudices like sexism, as Bartky discusses in her article "Psychological Oppression." This is not to say that individual women cannot take personal responsibility for their actions within a given system, but one must also acknowledge that women are playing by the rules of the game, rules that they had no ability to determine from the get-go. By socializing women to compete with one another for the attention of males, patriarchal society teaches females to be catty, as if that is a biological predisposition of the female sex.
I know that it is difficult for many people to understand or even agree that women's (and men's) behaviors are products of patriarchy; because we cannot point to one single individual sitting behind the scenes of life instructing men to oppress women, etc., people are reluctant to believe that female cattiness is a product of a larger oppressive system. However, one needs to look no further than mass media to see how women are socialized to compete for the attention of men rather than to compete in arenas like athletics, academics and the work force. Shows like Real Housewives, Gossip Girl, Flavor of Love, The Bachelor and many others teach and reinforce specific aspects of gender performance for women vs. for men. To learn more about the ways in which media socializes women and men, watch the film we discussed the other day in class, Miss Representation. It's on Netflix Instant and I highly recommend it. Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting interpretation of Lorde because it speaks to both her own anger over the way differences in feminism are not embraced as well as perhaps a more modern interpretation of the way these differences can undermine the goal of feminism as a whole. It's a valid point that does have relevance, especially in terms of the general behavioral examples you mention that all women are shamed for left and right.
However, when the granddaughters of the exclusionary white feminists that Lorde speaks of use "togetherness" as an excuse for their exclusionary behavior, it becomes a problem. Just as Lorde said, simply tolerating differences or worse, negating them as such, is the wrong way to go about it. The differences have to be not only embraced, but treated as vital (which they are). Ignoring the problems that face women of color, poor women, and queer people because feminists should "stick together" instead of focusing on allegedly "smaller" problems fails to create a type of feminism that encompasses the vastly different experience that different marginalized groups of women experience.
Another quote by Audre Lorde, from a different piece, declares, “The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors' tactics, the op¬pressors' relationships.” Just because women are oppressed by a sexist system does not mean that they can’t be oppressors themselves, as we have discussed in class. It is necessary that we all reflect on the ways in which we perpetuate and participate in the oppression of others.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think Lorde would attribute this antagonism between women to the structure that we are all a part of, which encourages us to place value in whatever white, male culture deems to be valuable. Women are encouraged to believe that the pursuit of a male partner, or at least male approval, is the most worthy of their time and energy. As a result, women feel as though they must be pitted against one another. As Alex stated, images are so powerful. It is relevant to ask; “Do the images we see in mass media reflect reality?” or “Is reality attempting to imitate the media?” I would like to echo her examples of the ways that women are portrayed in reality TV, as well as the portrayal of women that young girls are socialized with at an early age, such as Disney Princesses and Bratz dolls. These hold very powerful messages about womanhood.
As we have discussed in class and as some of the above comments have previously mentioned, we are all products of the patriarchy. The fact that Lorde writes about how we should acknowledge our differences and use them as our tools to tear down the masters' house rather than just merely tolerating them is a statement about how our hegemonic culture has influenced our way of thinking. We have only ever been part of a system that oppresses women and even the way we fight the system has been influenced by the system.
ReplyDeleteThe link you posted to that comic is a perfect example of how women have been taught to notice one another's differences, yet fail to embrace them. Annika's point about the media is very valid as we cannot deny how much influence it has in American culture, and I would also agree with Alex and suggest you watch Miss Representation. In class, we discussed how hegemony is made up of two elements: coercion and consent. Of course patriarchy would not work if all women did not consent to it; sadly, as this comic proves, we still have a long way to go.
When I first read Frye's essay I was completely puzzled as to why she would use the example of men holding the door open to illustrate how oppression works, however, after discussing the article in class, I realized it was one of the systematic ways that women have been oppressed for years. We are told gentlemen hold the door open for ladies, but what is really being drilled into our heads is that we are weaker. And while this example of oppression may be charming, it's not as endearing when it's less money on a paycheck or when politicians attempt to regulate your body. These systematic ways in which we are oppressed are hard to fight against and it will always be a challenge to overcome what we have been taught our entire lives.