I should have been an Outlaw for Halloween

Bunch discusses the idea of the Heterosexual Privilege in society, and how heterosexual women (and men) are validated for being so. I remember Taps discussed an example I'm sure we are all familiar with - the high school party. We all remember her - that gorgeous girl with perfect teeth and amazing clothes walking in with the one thing that pieced her "look" all together - an equally amazing man on her arm. The whole picture to a lot of girls was perfect, and I'm sure a lot of them (myself at times included) wanted to switch places with her. But all that was in place here was assumptive logic. We all assumed that because she had this man that she was "better" in some sense than all of us. How hysterical it is now though when we see what she is up to in comparison with us. Okay, enough caty judging back to the point. I am trying to link Bunch to what Hooks proposed in her article about shared sensibilities. Back at that party, were we not just a bunch of girls? We had that in common, and among other things too! Why then could we not see through that heterosexual privilege and just see a person. Hooks describes walking nihilism, which I think could be linked to the way we saw that "perfect" girl and her arm candy. In a way, we were behaving as walking nihilisms to ourselves, as women, no matter what sexual preference we had. I think that Hooks was on to something when she proposed to make these nihilisms empowering ones. We could take the idea of being what Bunch describes as an "outlaw" and BE that woman alone, embracing her in all of her glory. Would we really need a man there to give us the subjectivity we "need" in order to feel important? Why would it matter if we had a date to an event or not? After all, we (the woman) would be there wouldn't we? Wasn't that enough? I can't help but think that more of us (in and outside of the women's studies group) should take on this empowering thought. After all, Bunch says that "patriarchy is furthered by not deconstructing heterosexuality", and as we've all seen in Feministeppin' we all like to think that we do our part in challenging patriarchy. So why then do we still feel SO alone when we are by ourselves sans l'homme? I hate that in the culture industry there is such a negative spin on "outlaw" and on the "single". I think that we should take Mary Daly's idea of spinning in this sense. For those who spin resist the reification that I think the heterosexual privilege has placed on us. I think we should re appropriate our ideas of that lone woman and take it to be that she is independent, confident and powerful. She is not alone, she has herself (and her girlfriends of course) and she does not need an image of being "with man" to make herself feel important. She's already important, intelligent and beautiful without him. So here's to all of the outlaws out there... just remember " the sisters are doin' it for themselves"!!!!

Steppin' All Over Discourse

Our Steppin' on Thursday took Mary Daly's idea of spinning to the next level. We questioned both language and discourse and took over a public space. We refunctioned "stepps" into somewhat of an antagonistic discourse and morphed raw materials (bras, tampons, bananas, sheet metal and the like) into tools which empowered us and gave us a voice. Speak loud ladies, speak loud. The audience that watched us (as small as it was) I think had no choice but to give us significance because in order to enjoy the performance one had to reflect and listen well to the words being chanted. We may have even converted what Mary would call "Moronic Women" into believers. haha. I think that Foucault's tenant of spatialization (knowing thy place) was also challenged on Thursday, and personally I feel pretty good about that. In that space in time I think all of us were in such a state of mind that we would have performed that short little step of ours on any stage in the world no matter what the size of the audience. I don't know if we would put ourselves in that position if we did not feel as strongly about the material we were to perform, as we did about Feministeppin'. I think we all had a little spring in our step after the show was over. Whether that was confidence, adrenaline or rejecting all that was R-E-PR-E-SS (ive) I can't be sure. All I know is I loved doing this project, and I think we're all a little more "conscious" in our subjectivity. So step on steppers, I think we should all be quite proud of what we accomplished Thursday, if only to dirty Tory floor with soiled tampons and banana peels.

Why 8 year olds are Revolutionists

This week's readings of Kipnis and Baudrillard made me question basically everything I know and hold dear after class ended. But not to be discouraged I thought I would think a little deeper into things considering it was so aptly put by Baudrillard that "significance requires reflection".

I understand that the world we live in today is obsessed with perfection (ie Extreme Makeover, constant Ipod updates and the impossible body image thrown at us in magazines). This "false need" (a near impossible need) is a result of what Baudrillard describes as a hyper reality, a simulation of the real. In this space there is an acceleration, a complex simulacra (if you will) that is unavoidable. This is completely terrifying if you spend a day as I have actually paying attention to it. Traffic signs telling you how to drive, menus telling you what you can eat, models showing you how to dress, and news broadcasts telling you what "happened" around the world. Since I gave everything what I felt was "significance" by looking deeper into what I was being bombarded with I found myself sceptical of everything around me. The deceleration of images truly was overwhelming since I couldn't just let myself be indifferent to it all.

Was the news I was watching true? Or simply was the story edited by a Canadian for how he or she (but probably he) wanted us as viewers to view it? But since every simulacra we've ever been exposed to comes with bias and editing to some extent, what then can we ever deem "the truth"? I cannot believe I just typed that...I find philosophy for the birds - too many "what ifs".

We've learned that the people who own the modes of production of "image" are the most powerful - for it is THEM dictating to us the things I have described above. They "know" what I like to eat, drink, wear and do. For when you do pay attention to the image sphere we occupy one main idea does stand out - repetition. Are the coffee shops all that different from one another? Do we really need (like in Tap's shower) six different types of shampoo? Or are these just false needs created by a capitalistic culture industry? But why then, since we are women of agency, popular discrimination and popular selection do we all feel the need to own or be a part of copies after copies after copies of things we are TOLD to like? When I turned about 8 years old and realized that I could make my own decisions without my mother's approval, I don't know about the rest of you, but I decided I was pretty much the most intelligent and correct person I knew. I realized that I could choose for myself what I wanted and what I needed and that felt pretty damn good. So when Kipnis reveals to me that I do in fact exhibit false consciousness, that I may not be a conscious subject or that a thing such as interpellation exists I begin to get a bit defensive. I would hope that my (or anyone of a sound mind's) agency, or in an extreme, an antagonistic discourse would not be merely a provisional act. It would be sad that our attempts at refunctioning the use of raw material for discursive purpose or false representation as unassimilable. Maybe then we should embrace Kipnis' encouragement to "formulating a strategy for the production of a left popular culture". This way the average Jane can put her hair back in that sideways ponytail and resort back to her self involved eight year old revolutionary self and give this image centered world a kick in the pants!

The excerpt we watched in class from Showcase's The L-word has stayed in my mind for longer than I probably would have liked. Was I shocked? Yes. Was the feeling tactile? Definitely - my heart raced and I was terrified. But as the rape scene between lesbian lovers created a tactile space for me, did it do the same for everyone in the class? The simultaneous contemplation we experienced is something that I have been intrigued by for years. The whole "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is one of the most believable cliches out there I think. I find that everything (not only in the art world) is so subjective, that no matter how outraged or frightened that rape scene made me, I'm sure the person sitting to my left had a different take on things.
A point that I could not help but think about is the scene from Unfaithful with Diane Lane. A similar thing happens, although here in a heterosexual space, where the male partner forced himself upon his mistress. She eventually "gets into it" and allows him to have his way with her. So why then was I not so "shocked"? Was it perhaps that I didn't have the "heightened presence of mind" to cushion what I was looking at? Was it because it was between a man and a woman, and the woman was the victim to which we are so accustomed to seeing? Was it slightly arousing or outright horrendous? The frustrating point is, that everyone puts a different subjectivity on what they view, and through popular selection and agency, skews the idea even further.
This leads me to the idea of mass and popular culture being different, yet completely reliant on each other. If our practice in daily life not only relies on but is a result of commodities and products I can only ask myself WHO is creating this mass culture for me and everyone around me to gobble up (mmm turkey). If I can use popular discrimination to decide what I will buy into and what I won't, then how is it that someone is still spoon feeding me a commodity that I'm not even really sure I "need". And sure Fiske makes a great point that popular culture is seen as "pleasure" but then who gets to decide what is pleasurable for me? If they are the "all knowing" and can in fact determine what the great mass of individuals deem as false needs, then why can't we all use our better knowledge and see right through this capitalistic ploy? Do we really need brainless "excessive" ideas that have "escaped the control of the norm" to pleasure us (see The Simpsons)? I'm asking too many questions. All I have to conclude with is let not only these blogs, but those who they reach and those who engage in them become what (or whom) Fiske calls "the people". I want us to be (even though I think we are inherently in this WST class) those individuals who do shift away from the norm. We have to be the non-compliant resistance to dominant discourse. Because if we weren't all of these things, if people like that ceased to exist... I cannot imagine the "rape" that would occur of mass culture being forced upon us against our better judgement