Interesting article about state of nature

We talked earlier about the state of nature and whether or not people would naturally be violent and motivated only by selfish desires. Interesting view that goes against most established views on the state of nature.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-it-natural-for-humans-to-make-war-new-study-of-tribal-societies-reveals-conflict-is-an-alien-concept-8718069.html

Coming Next Week!

Hi all, 

I wanted to pass on information about an event coming up next week. It is a play being directed by a theater minor for her senior piece. The following is a description: 

"In David Ives's seductive, darkly funny Venus in Fur, a playwright-director, Thomas, has written an adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's classic erotic novel Venus in Fur, the story of an obsessive relationship between a man and the mistress to whom he becomes enslaved. At the end of a long day in which the actresses Thomas auditions fail to impress him, in walks Vanda, very late and seemingly clueless, but she convinces him to give her a chance. As they perform scenes from the play, the lines between writer, actor, director, and character begin to blur. An unsettling drama, a playful comedy, Venus in Fur​ also constitutes a masterful exploration of the art of acting - onstage and off."

It also touches on the power struggle between men and women in general, the objectification of women, and the danger of idealizing each other (both men and women). We will be having a "talk-back" after the show where the audience can ask questions and offer feedback after the show. I'm really excited to hear what people have to say about it. I think it will spark some interesting conversation and maybe some controversy.

I think it'd be worth it to attend one of the shows. It's running Monday April 7 and Tuesday April 8 at 7:30 at McCoy Theater.

~ Brooke

Anna's moral dilemma in Frozen

What would you do with the trolley problem? If you can't decide, then what would you do if you were Anna in the Disney movie Frozen? If you were told you are going to be saved by a kiss, are you going to give up the kiss to block a blade coming down on another human being, Elsa? In this case, you are choosing to save yourself and saving another human being. If Anna and Elsa were “mushrooms” suddenly mature in a world without prior human connections, in a Hobbesian “sate of nature”, then Anna would definitely save herself. There is, however, never a time in our lives where we are disconnected to other human beings like mushrooms. Then what is the use of the "state of nature" dreams but to misguide us to think that justice in substitutionalist universalism is the only mature moral option?

In “The Generalized and the Concrete Other: The Kohlberg-Gilligan Controversy and Moral Theory”, Seyla Benhabib articulates what she calls an “anticipatory-utopian critique of the universalistic moral theories”. The problem that resides in the old white men’s moral political theory is that they took the experience of that particular group of old white men to be the experience of everybody else (which is the meaning of “substitutionalist” they can substitute anybody with the persons in their thought experiments). How is it that you can imagine what it is like to be a woman, or more specifically the women sitting next to you this morning on the bus, if you have been a man all your life? This leads to Benhabib’s first criticism: disembodiment and disembededness are not accurate descriptions of the conditions of social actors.

Feminist critiques assume that the gender-sex is an axis of oppression against women. Even our language is implicitly patriarchal. Whatever that is feminine are symbolically passive and bad; whatever that is masculine are always active and good. I believe this is an accurate assumption of our society. Feminists like Benhabib criticize that the old white men’s substitutionalist universalism for marginalizing the experience of people associated with femininity: A Kantian universalisable rule is masculine, a consideration to the uniqueness of each person is therefore feminine. Masculinity is maturity and femininity is immaturity. Therefore justice is the only measurement of moral maturity. It is obvious there’s problem with this criteria for maturity. It assumes that women, who are forced to have the biology that signifies femininity, to be feminine and thereby immature morally. Psychological studies that show more women than men adopting the care model of moral theory therefore confirms the claim that men are more mature morally than women. It makes the mistake of putting care and justice on two ends of a maturity ladder. Care and justice should be considered equally as moral options that both lead to moral maturity.

Let’s think about Anna again. Would we say Anna’s action is moral? Most audience would agree. Even the little kids. This is because who Anna is saving is not just another mushroom, but her sister friend that she loves deeply. Maybe moral dilemmas are really a convention of the patriarchal culture. What do you think? Dr.J said it’s better to think about moral dilemmas before they happen. The thing is, they are never going to happen! They help us figure out what we value sometimes but purely thinking that there are universal moral laws that govern everyone is not helpful. It only reinforces the idea that there is only one kind of right and there’s only one kind of people with similar experiences.

Benhabib, Seyla. "The Generalized and the Concrete Other: The Kohlberg-Gillgan Controversy and Moral Theory." The Feminist Philosophy Reader. By Alison Bailey. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. N. pag. Print.

Lets look at Books

Sometimes I am struck by the nature of the texts we read as students of a liberal college. There are many novels we meet through our studies, and more we discover through our own exploration of books. As a gender and sexuality studies minor, I tend to find problems in many of these books. More recent texts sometimes try to subtly address the virgin/whore dichotomy, which has remained a staple of literary criticism and theory for a while now. While this theory is described in different forms and given unique backgrounds, the conclusion remains that society (tends to) divide femininity into a binary of "good" virgin and "bad" temptress. We iconicize (is that a words?) this in our ideas of the Virgin Mary and the Temptress Eve. 

So we read texts where authors attempt to undermine these theories. They create dynamic females, and try to give strong literary heroes. But of course, they do this within the Judeo-Christian enculturated structures of gender. Which mean that often times these "dynamic" female characters are such a joke. 

After class, I went back to my apartment, and thought about how wonderful unique contributions of experience could be to our understandings of morality. We could allow Gilligan to impact this idea. Men tend to favor the justice perspective - so having a female perspective allows a deeper understanding of care. Or we can recall the ideals discussed by Benhabib. This would mean recognizing that moral philosophy often excludes women in their privatization of women's experiences. Since this conceptualizes the relevant other as male, we as participants in a "moral" society need to criticize universalistic moral theory.

Using Benhabib - we can complicate many works within the literary world. Leah hints to this in her precis for class:

 "Benhabib finishes by bringing up the “generalized other” and the “concrete other” to further illustrate these moral perspectives. The generalized other is focused on rights, formal equality, and reciprocity, while similarity constitutes moral dignity. On the other hand, the concrete other is focused on each individual’s needs, equity, and complementary reciprocity, while difference constitutes moral dignity. Benhabib states that Kohlberg and Rawls find it important to put yourself into someone else’s shoes in order to maintain moral reciprocity; however, their veil of ignorance about social conditions causes moral philosophers to ignore the ways that others are different from themselves. Benhabib suggests the use of a communicative model of need interpretations, where moral agents communicate with each other in order to understand each other better when developing morality."

So I challenge you to criticize one of the many texts within English Literature using Benhabib. Analyze A Tale of Two Cities. Create a counter argument for Pride and Prejudice. Flip through the Great Gatsby. Or use one of your own favorite novels. I adore Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. But holy mercy, this work can be so messed up. Bulgakov presents Margarita as a current day Eve through the elements of fertility, passion, and nudity. Then he portrays her as a temptress through articulating both her passionate nature and resulting nudity. But Bulgakov’s writing DOES STEM from a place of culturally engrained ideas. And without the impact of other experiences, his writing is locked within a place of patriarchy and ethno-centrism.

Try it out yourself. No worries if you're not an English major. I sure as heck am not. 

 

HBD, Gloria!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tabby-biddle/happy-birthday-gloria-ste_b_5025232.html

Ban and Be Bossy

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and founder of the Lean In movement, recently initiated the Ban Bossy campaign, employing the star power of Beyonce, Condoleeza Rice, and Jennifer Garner to illustrate that young girls’ assertiveness is punished through negative labels (e.g., bossy, stubborn, pushy), leading to gender inequality as shown by girls being more interrupted than their male peers, less likely to raise their hands to ask questions in the classroom, and less likely to pursue leadership roles. As the name implies, Sandberg responds to this inequality by calling to ban the word bossy.

The Ban Bossy campaign is not without its criticisms. Most prominently, bell hooks raised a counter movement under the #bebossyandproud Twitter tagline, encouraging women to reclaim bossy instead of banning the word by tweeting that they are “bossy and proud because (fill in the blank)."

This response prompted me to ask a few questions: First, what advantage does bell hooks's movement offer over Sandberg’s? Second, why is this response necessarily juxtaposed against Sandberg’s movement?

Although the ends to promote gender equality are equivalent, the means are different. #bebossyandproud reframes feminist causes from functioning as thought police to functioning as a form of empowerment. “You should not say bossy” becomes “we should embrace bossy.” While both acknowledge the damage inherent in such gendered insults, bell hooks’s campaign places the locus of power and change in those affected by the insults. It says women policed by language should strip the insult of its derogatory intent and embrace it as symbolic of their assertiveness.

Sandberg’s message has a different target audience. While it does not empower the insulted women to own and reclaim the insult, it states that those who insult women should stop insulting them.

Seeing these differences, why are these posed as counter movements? It should be a both/and instead of an either/or. To elaborate, I would still sanction gendered insults that marginalize women as I would promote women to remove the power of those insults (likewise, SlutWalks empower some women to embrace their sexuality and protest rape excuses; however, we should still call out those who insult sexually active women as sluts). I enjoy that some women are able to channel the insult to be a source of energy and a reaffirmation of their strength; however, there is still value in calling out sexist insults. Both arguments should be present to effect change.

In short, there is room for both a “fuck you” and a “fuck yeah.”

Reproductive Justice: It's About Way More than Abortion

One of the issues I'm most passionate about is reproductive rights, health, and justice. Since I'll be missing class next week due to my activism around this issue, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about it.

For several decades, the United States pro-choice movement has worked towards securing the legal right to abortion for women. Although Roe v. Wade declared a right to abortion in 1973, many state laws have been passed in the forty years following which have worked to limit this right. Pro-choice organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) have focused their political advocacy work on fighting these Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws in order to give women the “choice” to have an abortion. There are several issues involving reproductive freedom which are left out of this pro-choice discourse. The pro-choice movement, like many other feminist-led issues, mostly represents the experiences of middle class white women. In response to this lack of representation of all women, a group of women of color worked to create the reproductive justice (RJ) movement. This movement addresses the many systems of oppression which function to deny women of color and low-income women the right to control their reproductive lives.

SisterSong: A Women of Color Reproductive Justice Coalition defines reproductive justice as “the right to have children, not have children, and to parent the children we have in safe and healthy environments.” Reproductive justice connects reproductive freedom to other systems of oppression which contain and control the autonomy of women of color in particular. Intersectionality frames reproductive justice, as it is an understanding of the interconnectedness of these systems of oppression which guides reproductive justice. Intersectionality helps activists to uncover the ways that this system of oppression functions and to continue working towards devising a social movement which addresses all facets of this system.

Whereas the pro-choice movement emphasizes the legality of abortion as a “right” to abortion, reproductive justice emphasizes access to abortion over this legal right. Thousands of women do not have financial or geographical access to abortion, therefore making abortion a choice which is not available to them. The Hyde Amendment, tacked to appropriations bills beginning in 1976, barred the use of federal funds to pay for abortion. This amendment essentially ended the right to abortion for low-income women, as the cost of abortion is prohibitive to their ability to access these services. Due to the passage of TRAP laws, thousands of women are forced to endure mandatory waiting periods and to travel hundreds of miles to access basic reproductive services. This hoop-jumping is only an option for women who have the finances to afford hotel rooms, lost wages for days off, childcare, and transportation out of town. This reflects the inequality of opportunities which are available for women of color and low-income women.

At the same time, abortion access is not the entire scope of issues of reproductive freedom. Women of color have historically been denied the autonomy to birth and raise children in the ways that they want to. In an attempt to “purify” the gene pool of the human race, the eugenics movement sought to end the reproduction of women of color through methods such as sterilization. In fact, Margaret Sanger, a founder of Planned Parenthood and a birth control activist, was a known supporter of eugenics. Sterilization has been practiced as recently as 2010 in California prisons, despite the state banning the procedures in 1979. Birth control has also been used and is still being used coercively against women of color and low-income women. Many women on welfare were pressured to use Norplant, a contraceptive implant which is inserted in the upper arm. When some women were offered Norplant insertion for free, they were often either refused removal or asked to pay for the removal later.

Reproductive justice cannot exist without economic justice, as low-income women will not truly have the right to reproduce if they cannot afford to raise their children. This economic justice includes promoting such initiatives as raising the minimum wage, securing reliable public transportation for all, providing paid parental leave, and providing free or affordable daycare for the children of employees. Racialized mass incarceration plays neatly into this economic system of oppression as well. American de-industrialization led communities of people of color to primarily work in the service sector, which offered fewer benefits and less unionization. This fostered poverty in these communities, which often creates situations which enable crime to occur. The War on Drugs has also been proven to disproportionally target people of color for drug crimes which white people commit at the same rate. Mass incarceration is an extension of reproductive justice’s systematic control of the bodies of people of color. As an extension of the War on Drugs, laws such as the Interagency Policy on Cocaine Abuse in Pregnancy have subjected pregnant women to non-consensual drug testing. This drug testing results in reporting to police, which then leads to the arrests of pregnant women who test positively for drugs. Many of these women are forced to give birth while in shackles; many of them have had their children taken away and put into state custody. Unsurprisingly, the great majority of women who are affected by these laws are women of color and low-income women. These laws have the power to decide who is “worthy” of mothering.

In order for the reproductive justice movement to be truly successful, the goals of reproductive rights, reproductive health, and reproductive justice must be attained. The lack of access to abortion and contraception, and the denial of the right to childbirth both function to deny women of color equal opportunities in the field of reproductive freedom. Through growing the reproductive justice movement, forming alliances, and making important policy changes, this women of color-led movement is working its way toward reproductive freedom.

Reflection on News Comments: The story of a Transgender Father who gave birth to Twins

In another class today, we discussed the nature of differences - how they are often hidden away in order to progress equality instead of being embraced. (Think back to our discussion on "born this way" to re-center yourself on the topic) Later on in the day I encountered a news story that focused on a transgendered man (FtM) who had recently given birth. The initial segment was of course interesting in and of itself; the journalists spent an exhausting amount of time explaining how it was a scenario like this could have happened, and why this man was still a "mother". What was more interesting, however, was the comments.

In case you didn't know, comments on news stories are almost always the most entertaining things to read.

The people commenting on this story seemed to be divided on their beliefs. In one group - people used this story to argue that the normalization of transgendered identities was unethical. The rights and welfare of children born to transgender parents (or any LGBT parent, it seems) are severely compromised. This argument seems fairly ridiculous, as there is very little evidence to prove it. Another group argued along a tangent that LGB parents were fine, but that having transgender parents could irrevocably harm a child. Again, there are no studies which clearly support this claim. One final group argued that there is little evidence to suggest that having transgender parents will negatively impact a child. A transgender mother or father will be a parent just like any other parent.

In case it is not clear, I much prefer the third group.

That being said, I also hate it.

I do not believe that LGBT parents will harm children anymore than heterosexual parents will. That does not, however, mean that both sets of parents are statistically the same. In fact, I'd be willing to say that children of LGBT parents are more likely to explore their sexuality and develop a better sense of self. There are likely differences that exist between the two - and these differences should not be assumed to be bad.

Maybe a fourth argument could be made. Maybe having a transgender mother or father DOES impact you differently that having a heterosexual mother or father. And maybe that difference makes your life effin' awesome.

I can't even...

http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/03/13/an-open-letter-to-liberal-feminists-girls-dont-have-it-any-worse-than-boys/

thoughts about statistics

Of interest to me as a result of the conversation in class on Thursday are the data sets which elucidate that violence and criminality rates are highest in areas of poverty or urban centers, and are even reported to be centered in these areas as the locus of its origin. Predominant in these areas are peoples of color. Psychological and anthropological studies alike report these findings. My curiosity about these statistics, after our discussion, is whether they exist and exhibit such high findings as a result of hyper-surveillance, or whether the presence of such statistics produced hyper-surveillance, or if either can be truly distinguished from the other.

Also interesting are the findings that in cases of non-nuclear families, single black mothers are reported to have the greatest positive influence upon their children. These single, black mothers are statistically demonstrated as being better at solving and resolving violent or criminal behaviors in their at-risk children. These children are deemed "at-risk" not because of their non-nuclear family, but because of the socio-economic position in which they are typically found, which is a resulting factor from the single parent, but not necessarily the fault of that parent. Cohort studies between single mother families in similar socio-economic positions demonstrated that black mothers were better than white mothers in teaching their children to avoid criminal or violent behaviors (see Garbarino Lost Boys or Way Everyday Courage for more information).

Similar studies also find that nuclear families, whose maintenance comes at the cost of the children, are more likely to produce children who engage in violent or criminal behaviors in both black and white communities.

My main questions revolve around the question of whether or not, as the statistics suggest, the relationship between hyper-surveillance can be clearly elucidated and, if they can, does the relationship between hyper-surveillance and criminality need to be refocused upon the dysfunctional nuclear families who seem to be producing higher rates of criminality? Hyper-surveillance, if unavoidable, seems to need an alternate outlet.

Doing intersectionality?

Here is search result form youtube that came up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e92jxFbW2_A

In the video, Karma Chavez says that there are ways to "do intersectionality" in our daily lives.  Does this make sense in the way Crenshaw uses the word?

Doing intersectionality for Karma Chavez has two uses: 1) reach across cultural boarders, and 2) bring everyone to a cause that they all believe. This does not seem to mean the same things as Crenshaw suggests in Mapping the Margins, where intersectionality is the name for the general experience of black women.

I find it difficult to understand Crenshaw because of the scattered/loose definition of words such as intersectionality and the difficult language. Does anyone else have that problem and how do you deal with it?

A Frame Shift Isn't Enough - Another Word of Caution

                Crenshaw claims that we need to shift analytic frames such that we include Black women in the scope of our understanding of mass incarceration. She also points out that we must avoid shifting to the wrong frame—as in the case of the neoliberal frame—otherwise we will not be addressing what we intended to address in the way we intended to address it. I would like to add another word of caution: Even if we do alter frames so that we understand the situation of Black women in relation to mass incarceration, we must be careful to avoid the same scripting or stereotyping that we have placed on Black men. Otherwise, we will more formally script their lives.

               Sometimes it is referred to as a cycle.  Sometimes as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes as labeling theory. It is all of these things, but with minor differences in each case. What I am referring to—and what is constant across its various names—is the phenomenon in which the blaming of, or labeling of, or finger pointing to an individual or group tends to recreate the very behavior, action, or condition that the accused were thought guilty of in the first place.

                 In Criminology, this phenomenon is called Labeling Theory. It is the theory that labeling an individual as a criminal is what makes them a criminal. Not only this, but it is likely to induce the same behavior that “earned” the status as well as inducing other related “criminal” behaviors. For example, no one thinks of their friend as criminal for smoking weed, or breaking into an amusement park at night, or some other minor illegal activity, until they are caught and arrested and labeled “criminal.” In fact the very notion of criminal is defined by society; and as we can see with the change in pot smoking laws, the content of what society views as criminal behavior changes over time.

                Crenshaw notes a similar, cyclic occurrence in the UCLA Law Review. She calls it a vicious cycle given rise to by the silence about the involvement of girls and women in mass incarceration. It goes as follows in the words of Crenshaw verbatim:

•   Discursive focus on men and boys leads to research and intervention that generate increasing knowledge and public awareness about their vulnerability
• Yet this frame often excludes research on women and girls
• This in turn reinforces the assumption that women and girls are not also suffering because the evidence is comparatively sparse
•  But the evidence is comparatively spare because the frame precludes the inversitgation.

Within this cycle is an idea very similar to labeling theory. The research done is with respect to the vulnerability of Black males to mass incarceration. The general assumption is that minority groups, especially Black males, are more likely to behave criminally because of their race. This, in turn, gives rise to some of the criminal behavior exhibited. It is not that they are actually anymore criminal than what we might call the normal person. It is simply that they are labeled as such, which tends to create a sense of criminality in the individual him/herself, and tends to induce crime. Not only this, but they are only criminal in that we call them, or label them, criminal.

              Crenshaw’s point is that this idea has been so scripted in society, that we tend to only think of Black males as “at risk,” and we are hyper-aware of them as Black males in relation to mass incarceration. This tends obscure the reality of Black women who experience a similar relation with the law.  Crenshaw wants shift analytic frames so that reality of Black women can be addressed.

              Yet, we need to be careful, even if we get this shift right. Otherwise, we will have just expanded/altered our script from only Black males to Black males and Black females. This could, in effect, further exacerbate the relation of Black women to mass incarceration just as it has done for Black males. In our shift, then, we need to recognize the power of name-calling and blaming; that such behaviors can give rise to very behavior which “earned” the name in the first place. 

Postcards from the Edge

Postcards from the Edge, run under the site gawker.com, recently sent letters to all of the U.S. death row inmates who have execution dates in the upcoming year. Below, you will find a link to their first reply from Ray Jasper. Jasper was convicted of the 1998 murder of a recording studio owner. Jasper was 18 years old at the time. He has been in prison for the past 15 years. The purpose of publishing these letters is to hear directly from people whose voices are not often heard.

Coincidentally (or maybe not so much so…) we get a message reminiscent of our discussions in class today: the mass incarceration of black people (though Jasper also falls into the trap of focusing on black incarcerated MEN).

There's this. But before it came this.

He talks in the earlier letter about the legality/fairness/whatever you want to call it of removing black people or other minorities from the jury (obviously, not cool or representative). He also discusses the high proportion of black people in the prison system, commenting in the later letter on the profitability of incarceration. Whatever your opinions on capital punishment, he also discusses his opinion about it.

His insight is also greatly appreciated: empathy, he says, is needed more in the world. Really interesting read, though the more recent letter is quite long.

~ Brooke

Oppression in the Abstract and Privilege

In class on Thursday, I tried to make the point that, especially in grassroots organizing, one should not be too hasty to criticize the individualistic - indeed, neoliberal - position adopted by those directly affected by an issue at hand. 

For example, there are quite a few programs which try to teach young men of color how to avoid interactions with the carceral system, many of these programs being led by folks who themselves have had extensive involvement therein. As per Crenshaw’s critique, these programs both ignore the experiences women of color have with the carceral system, as well as fallaciously individualize the problem of mass incarceration. However, my point was that it is often an enactment of great privilege for one to be able to circumvent thinking about things on an individual level, given someone (like myself) has never directly or indirectly been affected by the carceral system in a substantive way. It is very easy for me to detach myself from an individualistic critique when such a perspective is all but vacant from my experiential knowledge. 

My point is not at all to encourage neoliberalism, or even necessarily to discourage a critique thereof. Rather, I simply want to highlight the privilege inherent in being able to think about the carceral system solely in abstraction, in theory. 

Moreover, I think this also identifies a vicious circle, a self-fulfilling prophecy of neoliberal thinking that may occur in highly marginalized and oppressed communities. When oppression and domination is not a topic reserved for Feminist Philosophy, but rather is a quality of everydayness, when one sees friends and family member being sucked through the school-to-prison-pipeline, being harassed and beaten by police, being forced into dangerous informal economic means, there is very likely an accompanying sense of hopelessness. A sense that one is not in control of these tidal forces, that they are far too hegemonic and insidious to be affected. Thus, it would not be inconceivable that if one nevertheless retained a modicum of hope, one would direct this energy towards effecting change in one’s immediate sphere. The idea that one could dismantle oppression on an individual level is alluring, no doubt. I am not saying it is “right,” but rather it is understandable, moreover rational (given such environmental conditions). 

Again, I am not trying to purport or advance neoliberal thinking, but rather I am suggesting that without an empathetic disposition regarding why already-marginalized communities would adopt neoliberal (and thus further marginalizing) thinking, one will never be able to build trust, and thus effectively organize, in these communities.  

Duke Porn Star and the Porn Industry: Empowering or Degrading?

This Time article argues that the libertarian feminist Duke porn star, Belle Knox, is not as empowered as she claims. I think the author dismisses her claims as teenage naivete prematurely without providing depth to the larger question of whether or not sex work, especially in the contemporary pornography industry, can empower women. This question raises larger issues about what empowerment for women means and prompts the limits to autonomous self-expression.

When people discuss pornography as empowerment, they are stipulating that it combats the patriarchal thought that women -- especially white women -- are pure and should be pure, and that sex acts pollute her as a fallen woman, or a slut. This social control of women's sexuality indicates power relations more than it signifies some simplified process of our culture determining its own sexual norms in an absence of oppressive structures. One must simply see who labels whom and how this justifies systematic discrimination and even violence. For two examples: (1) systematic discrimination limiting economic freedom: this Victorian-era ideal reinforces that women should remain in the private sphere as homemakers and thus remain financially dependent on her breadwinner husband in the public sphere  and (2) violence: justifying sexual assault if she dressed in a certain way and is perceived to commonly engage in casual sex, you know she wants sex with anyone as women are seen as either pure or totally depraved. In this line of thinking, pornography thus empowers women by embracing female sexuality and sexual pleasures in a symbolic, political effort to elevate their status and destroy this frame. In a sense, this thinking asserts that pornography dismantles patriarchal influence on women's sexuality.

However, due to its constant, reaffirming images of objectification, subordination, and abuse of women, the porn industry relegates women to be objects for heterosexual male pleasure -- not autonomous agents expressing their sexual desires. Furthermore, it likely influences how people practice sex and could perpetuate violence against women, for as Gloria Steinem pontificates "Pornography is the instruction. Rape is the practice, battered women are the practice, and battered children are the practice." Thus, as a paradigm of run-of-the-mill pornography, I argue that Belle Knox's work does not empower her or women generally. She acts in videos that normalize and eroticize male dominance and female submission, such as a man ejaculating on her face. Furthermore, despite her arguments for sexual autonomy and self-expression, she discusses only three perceived options: go to college and be saddled with extreme debt from student loans, go to college and work in the sex industry to pay off the debt, or not go to college. This implies a sense of unwillingness and pressure to perform sex work. It does not suggest that she pursues the job as an autonomous act of self-expression.

Nevertheless, I hesitate to assert that recording sex acts and publicizing the footage necessitates degradation, even if one does it for pay. Is there a way for one to perform a sex act that embraces women's sexuality and shows female pleasure in a way that establishes them as agentic and capable of subjective experiences? Furthermore, if the porn actress chooses to eroticize submission or abuse, does this combat the social control of women's sexuality? I am inclined argue that this sexual expression is informed by the patriarchy and reinforces it, as no decision is made in a vacuum; however, this obviously limits how one defines genuine autonomy and self-expression.

Understanding Intersecting Forms of Oppression using Models and Sets

A classmate asked me to expound upon my final statements in class today in a blog post because they were presented a little nebulously.  This post is an attempt to clarify from my point of view, specifically from the view of a mathematician.  

We can differentiate different aspects of our identity into categories.  This post will use the examples of Class, Race, and Sex.  We can treat these categories as sets, having certain elements that correspond to an individual's identity.  Furthermore, we can assume these social sets are partially-ordered sets (aka posets) under the binary relation of privilege.  There is a "greatest element" in each set, which is the most privileged element.  For the simplicity of an example, we can use three elements for each set: Class = {Lower, Middle, Upper}, Race = {Black, Asian, White}, and Sex = {Female, Intersex, Male}.

Any type of model that we create will have to make assumptions about the group it describes and hence will have to choose an element from each social set; this will create a new set which describes the assumptions for a model.  Since the topic of our analysis is oppression, preliminary models require choosing one non-privileged element of a social set, while assuming privileged elements for all other social sets.  This essentially means that to start with, we only examine one variable at a time.  Thus, the set of assumptions for preliminary models follows as such: { {Upper, White, Female}, {Upper, White, Intersex}, {Upper, Black, Male}, {Upper, Asian, Male}, {Lower, White, Male}, {Middle, White, Male} }.  There are 6 models here, and we can call this set 'x'.

Now, we move to the topic of analyzing intersecting forms of oppression.  This task is not as simple as analyzing two preliminary models because assumptions contradict.  For example, let us look at the black female.  The preliminary model for blackness assumes maleness.  The preliminary model for femaleness assumes whiteness.  As we can see here, an assumption for each model contradicts an assumption in the other, rendering these models incompatible.  Thus, we must now go past the preliminary models and create new models, new sets of assumptions, that are not constrained to contain only one non-privileged element.  This expansion results in the following set of expanded models for the intersection of two oppressed groups: { {Upper, Female, Black}, {Upper, Female, Asian}, {Upper, Intersex, Black}, {Upper, Intersex, Asian}, {Lower, Male, Black}, {Lower, Male, Asian}, {Middle, Male, Black}, {Middle, Male, Asian}, {Lower, Female, White}, {Lower, Intersex, Asian}, {Middle, Female, White}, {Middle, Intersex, White} }.  There are 12 models here, and we can call this set 'y'. The set of expanded models for the intersection of three oppressed groups is as follows: { {Lower, Female, Black}, {Lower, Female, Asian}, {Lower, Intersex Black}, {Lower, Intersex, Asian}, {Middle, Female, Black}, {Middle, Female, Asian}, {Middle, Intersex, Black}, {Middle, Intersex, Asian} }.  There are 8 models here, and we can call this set 'z'.

The number of elements in a set can be denoted by absolute value bars and is called a set's cardinality.  Because sets x, y, and z have no overlapping elements, we can see the total number of models created by finding the union of these three sets' cardinality, namely | x U y U z | = 6 + 12 + 8 = 26.  A simpler way to calculate this is just through knowledge of combinatorics: | Class | * | Race | * | Sex | - 1 = 3 * 3 * 3 - 1 = 27 - 1 = 26.  Why do we need to subtract 1?  Because there is no need to take into account the default model, namely {Upper, Male, White}; this model is already how we view things and thus is not included in the creation of any of our sets.  We defined a model as requiring at least one non-privileged element.

All of the above is by no means an actual, strict way of analyzing intersections but rather presents the basic concepts at hand.  It is just an example.  Obviously, there are more categories than just Class, Gender, and Sex, and each category actually contains more elements than given.  Regardless, we can see that models cannot be 'additive.'  Any metric for oppression is defined under a certain model, and since no two models are compatible, an understanding of a metric is not transferable between models.  From a mathematical point of view, addition is just an binary operator that maps two elements from a set onto another element in the same set (for example, under the set of integers, the addition operator takes the arguments 3 and 4 and maps them to 7).  A way of understanding that oppression is not additive is that since different metrics of oppression arise from different models, they cannot be placed in a set under which the addition operator is defined (at least in any reasonably coherent way).

One last thought about class

I think Aditya left us with a great closing statement today on the inadequacies of individual models to describe the lived experiences of multiple forms of oppression; however, I wanted to briefly comment on the qualitative/quantitative debate we had circulated. I feel that while we may concede that a poor, homosexual woman will experiences more instances (in sheer number) of oppression than say a middle-class heterosexual woman, that is just not enough to describe the reality of oppression for that woman. Instead, I think Spelman and Crenshaw encourage us to not only look at the quantity of oppressive acts, but also on the quality of them both individually and in tandem. I think Schaeffer is right in that we can assume that individuals and groups in more oppressive categories experience "more" (instances of) oppression, but without looking at how the instances overlap and interact with each other qualitatively we miss a big part of understanding that person's (or group's) oppression. Thus the study of oppression of marginalized or largely forgotten groups requires both a quantitative and qualitative study.

I am not a geisha

Y'all-

Here's the article I mentioned in class, written by a friend of mine, Carlina Duan.  Actually, the entire Michigan in Color series has been phenomenal, if you're interested in reading more.  As I recall, Tallyn posted an articles from the series written by one of her friends a while back.

https://www.michigandaily.com/opinion/michigan-color-i-am-not-geisha?page=0,0

interesting article on intersex babies and rights

http://www.vice.com/read/the-group-campaigning-for-better-intersex-rights

Oscar winner addresses sexism in acceptance speech

(SPOILER ALERT)

So immediately following some arguments with my dad and brother, who just were not understanding the significance of the Bechdel test, Cate Blanchett comes out with a comment addressing sexism in her acceptance speech for Best Actress. Check it out here. Not the best video maybe, but at 0:16 she gets into it.

Next family movie night: I think we're watching Miss Representation!

~ Brooke

Sex With No Body: Gender and Sexuality in "Her"

The Oscars are tonight and the internet has been flooded with predictions about who will win and what the nominees will be wearing. And although I am excited to see who will take home Best Picture or Best Actress, the film that has struck me the most this season probably will not win either award. Spike Jones' Her has been echoing through my head since I first saw it in January as it raises important questions about the future of technology, the fickleness of love, and, most interestingly to me, what it means to have a sexual orientation.

Okay, I am going to try to not spoil anything about the movie, so the the basic plot is that Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) lives in the not-so-distant future (2025) in a world where operating systems have become artificially intelligent and even have the capability to adapt and evolve. If you couldn't tell from the trailer, Theodore falls in love with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), his OS. 

The movie makes interesting points about gender performativity; Samantha is female, although she has no body (Theodore decides he wants a "female" voice when he has to choose between two genders). Her name is spelled in pretty cursive when she "calls" Theodore, she giggles softly at his jokes, and she “plays” the role of the female when they have phone sex (which gets pretty steamy), but is Samantha really a female? This question ties in with our discussion of how one chooses to separate sex and gender and particularly when they don't (butch lesbians vs. FTM trans folks). Samantha does not even have to consider "matching" her sex with her gender because she has no biological sex, yet she still performs one gender clearly. Even as she continues to "evolve," she never seems to take on a more complicated approach to gender that does not fit within the binary. But is Samantha, as an OS, taking on the position of a third sex? Also, what are the implications of Theodore's sexual orientation? It is never implied that he is anything but heterosexual and, as previously mentioned, he never thinks of Samantha as anything but female, but is being heterosexual even applicable when there is no body? 

All I can think about is Catfish. In today's world, people fall in love online without ever having seen each other in person and the people they fall for can later turn out not to be the sex and/or gender they originally told their "partner" they were. Then, of course, the people who have been catfished are distraught and cry and make for great television. But why does it even matter? If you're in love with someone, does it not transcend gender? Is our heteronormative culture so ingrained within each of us that we sacrifice true love for the sexual orientation we have always thought we had? None of these questions can be answered easily, but I am glad there is at least one mainstream movie this Oscar season that is getting us thinking and talking about more complicated views on gender and sexuality.