Brain Drain Blog

Archive for the ‘Feminism’ Category

I’m?devolving into a babbling?idiot. I blame the mad dash?for the semester’s end.?In true cyborg style I warn you:
RAM IS CRITICALLY LOW.
NO MORE INPUT PLEASE.

PREFACE:
In June of 1977, my grandmother watched the launch of NASA’s Viking 1 Mars mission on TV. Before the craft sent photos back to Earth, scientists believed that?the little red planet possessed a life sustaining atmosphere. At 6 1/2 years old, my only focus was deadlocked on Dumbo and a fat blue crayon.

“Did you hear that, Kim? They’re talking about space shuttles. Someday you?could live on Mars.”

My?concentration, and life as I knew it, was shattered. Me??Trade the beautiful Earth and its pulpy coloring books for a technological shelter and an iPod? I dropped?my crayon.?Tears breached the borders of my lashes. The?flood gates?broke open.

Gram’s?hand rested on my shoulder. “Oh no. Did I scare you?”

I think now, “You bet yer ass you did, and so does Donna Haraway.”

DONNA HARAWAY, A MANIFESTO FOR CYBORGS:
Cyborgs have the ability to delve into the borderlands, or as Gloria Anzaldua would say, the last mestiza. They challenge the boundaries between?human and animal; organism and machine; physical and non-physical. My favorite quote from Haraway falls under the first category:

Biology and evolutionary theory over the last two centuries have simultaneously produced modern organisms as objects of knowledge and reduced the line between humans and animals to a faint trace re-etched in ideological struggle or professional disputes?between life and social sciences. Within this framework, teaching modern Christian creation should be fought as a form of child abuse. (2271)

Rock on, girlfriend. Eat vegetarian. Down with religion. Equality can never come from a patriarchal Christian hierarchy.

Because cyborgs?have no origin story, no dominating patriarchal?tradition or otherwise, there?exists possibility for freedom?from these Western dualisms:

Self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man. (2296)

This is brilliant and beautifully Utopian. I love it. I love Haraway… until I remember where?she says:

Microelectronics mediates the translations of labor into robotics and word processing; sex into genetic engineering and reproductive technologies; and mind into artificial intelligence and decision procedures.?(2285)

Communication systems and technologies are the tools?necessary to recraft our selves, to disassemble and reassemble, to recode who we are. Okay. But… (This is where I cry like a 6 year old.) I don’t want to live like this. Is?this even living? Are we really already there?

Warning, Will Robinson! Tangent ahead: Sure, modern medicine provides artificial limbs that respond to mental stimuli. This ability?is truly amazing and beneficial to people who have lost body parts. But what happens when the Bionic Woman becomes a reality? (Answer: Countless?Lindsay Wagner?reproductions sell billions of?Sleep Number Beds.) What?becomes of?talent, ability?and stamina for physical training in arenas like the Olympics? We chastise those who take performance drugs for being dishonest. Sneaking in a pair of knees with?mnemonic assist can’t be good.

All Systems Online: To get back on track, I found great value in the text and got all sorts of serious while?commenting on Joei’s Blog. Pardon me while I plagiarize myself (with a few tweaks):

My take on page 2269, where Haraway says, ?Modern medicine is also full of cyborgs, of couplings between organism and machine, each conceived as coded devices?? is that people are no longer being seen as the sum of all their parts. The medical realm has created artificial limbs, and thus human/machine hybrids. Do we consider these hybrid people/cyborgs any less human, whether male or female? No.

This leads directly into the next quote?[Joei] pulled from the text.

Identities seem contradictory, partial, and strategic. With the hard-won recognition of their social and historical constitution, gender, race, and class cannot provide the basis for belief in ?essential? unity. There is nothing about being ?female? that naturally binds women. (2275)

In agreement with Joei, I say this. Gender in our society is based on biology, yet Judith Butler says that maleness or femaleness is not a ?natural? assumption based on?body parts. If some men are born with ovaries and breasts, women with male genitalia, or?some women undergo hysterectomies, all of these provide a gray area within the dichotomy of ?men??and ?women.? To invert this system of categorical breakdown, the same holds true for women as a collective. Being female, possessing the required parts, does not create unity among the group. As Haraway points out, society, history, difference in race, class, and gender are divisive.

The?end game is that cyborgs hold the key to possibility in that they breach the boundaries of dualism. The list on page 2296 [and above] shows all the ways that cyborgs circumvent the categories. This circumvention can lead to freedom because the categories of identity break down.

Shutting Down: As a web geek, I love technology.?Still, I beg, can’t?the plight of humanity be?improved?while remaining?human? Or?are cyborgs Haraway’s way of?”letting the dead monster fall?”?(Think Watchmen.) Here’s my trouble. I hold close to a Native-American-style reverence?of the Earth, its creatures and their spirits. I hate cell phones . People that wear them “hands free” on their heads look stupid.?Borders employees?are freaks. They agree to assimilation, wearing ear devices to connect with the Mother Ship’s corporate command center. Cyborgs. Sellouts. Corporate America gets?fat because communication travels faster than bodies. Sit back, sip 12 Cokes, and take it all in.

Post Script: Maybe I’m?a victim of?Horkeimer and Adorno’s theory. Brainwashing IS present in film. Do I have the utmost respect for the wonderfully villainous?Borg?on Star Trek? Yes.?Could I ever?see them as heroes, breaking through the barriers of Western duality? Not so much. They want to cruelly assimilate Captain Piccard’s individuality and that, my friends, is a crime against humanity. Similarly, AI (Speilberg’s Artificial Intelligence)?boasts the dangers of loving?the clone of?a “real boy,”?one developed through genetic and technological advancement, while cyborgs?riot against?humanity for hurting their wittle feelings. In the end it all goes to hell. I’m a sucker for this message of pending doom. I believe.

BODY AND SOUL
Judith Butler, in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990),?explores the process by which society inscribes identity on the body. Before this happens, a body has a sex or silhouette?but no specific gender. External sources, not internal,?determine gender identity by way of “surface politics” (2496) and?”the law of heterosexual coherance” (2498). Whatever doesn’t fit the mold?is cast out, scorned, punished?for being?dirty, polluted and polluting to society.

PERFORMANCE PARODY
Performers have been raising the gender question for as long as there have been performances. The most popular and contemporary gender parody is the Pat skit on Saturday Night Live. Androgenous to the core, Pat is never forthcoming with clues as to which gender he/she belongs. Because Pat can’t be identified as male or female, the people that Pat interracts with?are?generally polite in their confusion.?Does this really raise awareness and acceptance of alternate identities?

GENDER AS PASTICHE
Parody playfully mocks an original but since gender is not an original identity, parody is imitating?an imitation.?This becomes pastiche, which Jameson says has lost its humor. Butler disagrees:

The loss of the sense of “the normal” … can be it’s own occasion for laughter, especially when “the normal,”?”the original” is revealed to be a copy … In this sense, laughter emerges in the realization that all along the original was?derived. (2499)???

So, this is why we have cult classics like The Rocky Horror Picture Show?and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

THE REMEDY?
I have to wonder, are audiences getting it? Are they laughing with the transvestites or at them? And how do drag?performances build support for tolerance when those who are performing are preaching to the already converted?

Don’t many heterosexuals feel they deserve the right to?act as?Gender Border Patrol? If those who define their heterosexuality by way of opposition to alternative identities are dangerous to the mental and physical health of others, how do we break the restrictive social mold?

Laugh, take two queens and call me in the morning…

I find the idea of drag interesting as a remedy for intolerance, having never contemplated how:

We are actually in the presence of three contingent dimensions of significant corporeality: anatomical sex, gender identity and gender performance. If the anatomy of the performer is already distinct from the gender of the performer, and both of those are distinct from the gender of the performance, then the performance suggests a dissonance not only between sex and performance, but sex and gender, and gender and performance.

Having friends in several shows, I knew?their performance?was an expression of repressed sexuality and identity. Still, I don’t think even my drag queen friends were aware of the intricate triangular relationship between sex, gender and performance. Of course, this difference is what Butler says is crucial. I guess I’ll have to tote my Norton to the next show and let everybody know what’s really going on.

FICTIONAL CHIC
Clelebrity examples of gender bending are always interesting and influential, I suppose. Patti Smith dressed in men’s clothes to speak out against the male domination of Rock n’ Roll. David Bowie was “cool” as Ziggy Stardust,?a fictional, genderless poet character from Mars. I just don’t see the acceptance crossing beyond the boundaries of rock’s trendy tolerance yet.

WRAP IT UP, I’LL TAKE IT
So, for those who feel no affinity for their body’s sex, gender becomes a performance. Those?who seem to align “naturally” with the law of heterosexual coherance are also performing a learned behavior. In essence, gender is nothing more than a social construct, not a reality. We all just play our roles as a collective, striving for acceptance by the whole… or challenging the confines of the social construct called identity.

A Research Proposal:

In Anne Bront?’s novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the character of Helen Graham challenges the inequality of gender in society. This inequality, at worst, fosters abuse and the silent oppression of women while, at the very least, it reproduces the same oppressive social system from generation to generation. Helen?s debate at the Markham house addresses this societal reproduction. The role of the mother in the raising of a child is dependant upon the gender of the child. For boys, learning from experience is most valued. For girls, virtue is attained through the sheltering of their innocence. Helen believes in moderation for either gender, particularly since experience has taught her well and made her no less virtuous. As Helen?s full story unfolds, Gilbert Markham and the audience of the novel are educated about the horrors that can exist if societal expectations of women remain unchallenged. Because Helen remains moral regardless of the experiences she faces and is rewarded with love and happiness in the end, Bront? demonstrates that to break from those aspects of tradition that foster vice, abuse and inequality can and must be a success.

The social values and customs of the early 19th Century are of importance to study because remains of those gender imbalances are still present in society today. To understand where gender inequality fails and reproduces oppression for women can help to pinpoint ways in which it can be remedied. Historic trends provide commentary through literature, allowing for study of causes and effects of this division. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall provides such a social commentary as it is the first novel of its kind to reveal the harsh reality of those women who suffered the worst of oppression at the time.

Materials regarding this line of inquiry are present in JSTOR. A cursory search provided three pertinent points of reference and more surely exist. The first is ?Cultural Reformation and Cultural Reproduction in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? by Russell Poole, the second is ?Feminism and the Public Sphere in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? by Rachel K. Carnell, and third is ?The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Narrative Silences and Questions of Gender? by Carol A. Senf. As for the application of theory, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism provides a wealth of information.

Theoretical application can move in several directions. Feminism is an obvious lens through which the novel can be viewed. Gayle Rubin speaks of women as a social gifts for societal connection. For the women in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, consideration of societal connections is of high important as mothers are continually concerned with their daughters? acceptance of socially respectable gentlemen. To move just outside the feminist realm, Franz Fanon speaks of being defined in relation to ?other.? Although this novel does not deal with racism, it does deal in the oppression of women as they are defined by men. Women, like Fanon?s description of black men, are imprisoned within the nature of their bodies by social structures outside their own being. Additionally, Althusser is applicable. As a Marxist, he speaks of repressive and ideological state apparatuses such as religion, school, family, laws, and political systems which have a cyclical effect on the reproduction of society. These apparatuses reproduce gender roles and class distinctions in addition to the reproduction of labor Althusser discusses. Because Helen moves, as a woman, beyond the limitation of class distinction when she marries Gilbert, she contradicts those apparatuses doubly.

Again:

Why must women carry the shame of violation when men are guilty of committing the crime?

I can’t depart from?this nagging question. Lucy, her life changed forever, still won’t talk. She?can?do no more than survive, engaging with the culture of the time, marrying a man for protection,?giving up her land,?and doing it all at the expense of her “self.” I?had hoped?Coetzee would provide?the reason for?her burden of silent shame, something?beyond his provocation of the reader to?ponder the practice.?(Alliteration abounds.)

I consulted JSTOR and stumbled?upon Reading the Unspeakable: Rape in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace?by Lucy Valerie Graham. (Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2. (Jun., 2003), pp. 433-444.)

Graham?finds that while Coetzee?could?be categorized as a?male-author questioning the practices of rape discourse, unable to escape the trap of ambivalence, she instead believes that “not only is his reticence self-reflexive, it also leaves a certain responsibility with the reader” (434).

(That’s what I said.)

Although Graham’s focus is on Coetzee’s effort to use silence in order to question silence, what particularly interests me is?her investigation into?women’s silence?as present in?life, lit and art.?Particularly in?life, “place and time” are everything.

Disgrace points to a context where women are regarded as property and are liable for protection only insofar as they belong to men. As a lesbian, Lucy would be regarded as ‘unowned’ and therefore ‘huntable’ and there is even a suggestion that her sexuality may have provoked her attackers. Lucy insists that in South Africa, ‘in this place, at?this time’,? the violation she has suffered cannot be a public matter, and her refusal to report the crime may represent a rather extreme refusal to play a part in a history of oppression.

I find this only partly true. Life and culture certainly dictate the circumstances in which reporting such a thing matters. In a legal system unable to accurately?locate a stolen car, there is no purpose. In addition to the inability, if we?assume that the?justice of law enforcement?reflects the culture described above,?they will do nothing more than turn a blind eye. Such a refusal of help would do no more than trivialize the act, further negating Lucy’s worth in their eyes and her own as well. On these?points, I agree. What I can’t agree with is that Lucy’s silence is?a “refusal to play a part in a history of oppression.” Staying on the farm? Yes.?That is?obvious resistance against the forces trying to run her?off.?Keeping silent??That is?oppression in?its own right.?

Graham says this is not the sole reason why Lucy’s?account isn’t present in the novel. As for lit and art,?the “unspeakable act” is classically?left as such:

Although sexual violation was common enough subject matter in classical art, the violence of the act was both obscured and legitimised by representations that depicted sexual violation in an aesthetic manner. (440)

“Legitimised” is the word that?strikes me. To leave?details to the imagination is one thing, but to leave them so vague as to be blind to the wrong doing is, well, a disgrace. (Sorry.) Graham brings to light?Coetzee’s knowledge of this tradition.?Coetzee uses examples of actual art and lit to emphasize the need to read?beyond it’s limitations, something his character David eventually begins to do.

After the farm attack,?David finds?a reproduction of Poussin’s?The Rape of the Sabine Women… and asks: ‘What did all this attitudinizing have to do with what he expected rape to be: the lying of a man on top of a woman and pushing himself into her?’.

Men carrying women off in public, women cowering in submission, rioting in the streets under the dominant male in a red cape says nothing directly about the actual horrific act of rape. To seek the meaning behind the painting doesn’t gratify?David’s expectations.?He would be more satisfied with an internet bondage site?depicting?male power?and female submission. Taking?pornography into account,?it has only one purpose.?The?imagery created, if particularly horrific,?is solely for the pleasure of those who wish to dominate or enjoy being dominated, not as forms of expression for those who are victims.

As?Graham points out, David is wrapped up in another, more prominent example of art legitimising the act:

Thinking of Byron who ‘pushed himself into” and possibly raped ‘countesses and kitchenmaids’, Lurie speculates that from where Lucy stands?’Byron looks very old fashioned indeed.’ Here is a critique of the Romantic/humanist posturing that obscures, even justifies, forsaking ethical responsibility in the realm of life. And yet David, scholar of Romanticism, is left ‘attitudinizing’when he excuses his violation of Melanie Isaacs as an act motivated by Eros. (441)

David’s?speculation is interesting here. He knows that the art falls short in depicting the horror his daughter experienced. Coetzee shows?David’s smallest sliver of enlightenment through?his changing interpretation of art, providing?the reader?with the power to see the clues as David does.?Enlightenment has little effect here.?To present her trauma, even if she had the desire, Lucy still has no imagery short of?the failure of pornography,?nor useful language as she dances around the loaded term “rape.”?(Hello, Saussure.)

I admire?Coetzee’s creativity and desire to challenge tradition and culture, using the lack of realistic?representation?in art to speak out against the very lack in question. (Hello, Derrida.)?Okay, so Coetzee?wants?the reader?to question life, and art as reflection of that life, at once.?To parallel?the effect of this technique?with Lucy’s ineffectual use of silence or “oppressed truth”?to combat oppression, it doesn’t appear that it will get us very far. As readers, we’re left to question without the benefit of a solution.

I still?want an answer to my particular?query. How does being a victim of violence translate to shame in any culture, not just in Africa? We?continually see examples of peacekeeping by attempted assimilation and/or separation, yet the shame produced by violation of “body and being”?still exists.?(Hello, Fanon.) To take this stance means the power of culture is too strong to change. It must be toppled and rebuilt. (Hello, Rubin.) To change who has political power is not enough. Oppressive and ideological state apparatuses continue to survive the change. (Hello, Althusser.) So, when do we get to read a theorist who has all the answers?

PS:?Pardon my very narrow approach to Lucy’s experience, without further exploration of the complicated layers of race and gender relationships. I just couldn’t fit all that in. Seriously, read the criticism I cite. It’s worth it.

—— Fun with Observations ——

I’m still hanging with Derrida. It’s all a bunch of chaotic and?shifting centers of understanding bumping up against one another. We don’t have the perfect tools of observation and theory?to get it right. Like a Rubik’s Life Cube, we spin the different combinations until, we hope, one cube twists into place along side another and?aligns in harmony. We just can’t seem to harmonize one side, let alone the whole darn thing. My?Rubik’s theory is broken too. Even if?the individual cubes?are considered centers, they all revolve around one central point,?and harmony is dependant upon separation of?color… unless you break with the traditional cube?and use the one to the right.?It’s?a perfect example of seeing people rather than color, and yet it does nothing to solve the problem of abusive?power.

So, we return this week to J. M. Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace, and?the lower-than-snake-shit-in-the-track-of-a-wagon-wheel main character, Dr. Lurie…

DAVID AS COLONIZER
David is the epitome of a colonizing political force, defining women?in terms of?”other.”?He sees them as uncivilized?and ignorant sexual beings?until,?once conquered by his desire, they benefit from the experience of knowing him. ?Melanie is complicit in this sordid experience only to the extent that?African citizens were robbed of their homeland during apartheid, or Native Americans?lost their?Great Turtle Island. They were all manipulated and conquered. David is but one player of many in a long social history of oppressing women. His type is the catalyst for the trials they face.

David’s point of view?resembles?remnants of racial opinion in America, at the very least. He is speaking with Lucy after she has been raped, telling her:

Either you stay on in a house of ugly memories and go on brooding on what happened to you, or you put the whole episode behind you and you start a new chapter elsewhere. Those, as I see it, are the alternatives. (Coetzee 155)

This smacks of the sentiment prevalent in the South after Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves. Yes, we know you’ve been used to our benefit. You have been raped of your culture, your identity, your religion, your language, your parents, your wives, your husbands, your children,?your health… But can’t you just get over it and move on??Oh, you can stay here and brood for the rest of your life,?OR you can go back to Africa. Those are your two options, as we see it. This same attitude seems prevalent in the relationships between David and all his women – his daughter included.

LUCY AS A COMMODITY
When?David’s daughter Lucy is raped, her sense of being is forever changed. Only when it happens to “one of his own” does David try to protect her from men no different than himself. Still, she decides to stay on the farm, regardless of?the debilitating?fear that she will be violated again. She says in regard to her transgressors:

I think I am in their territory. They have marked me. They will come back for me … what if that is the price one has to pay for staying on? Perhaps that is how they look at it; perhaps that is how I should look at it too.

This idea of payment in terms of a sex/gender system is discussed in?Gayle Rubin’s theory?”The Traffic in Women.”

Women are given in marriage, taken in battle, exchanged for favors, sent as tribute, traded, bought, and sold … Women are transacted as slaves, serfs, and prostitutes,?but also simply as women. (Rubin 1673)

First off, Lucy’s acceptance of her role as payment suggests the strength of social structures oppressing women in Africa. To keep the life she creates and loves, she considers the cost as imposed by these men. It is also possible that these men didn’t take payment of their own accord. David?alludes to?Petrus’ involvement, which?seems to be substantiated when Petrus confidently claims the power to protect Lucy from a recurrence. If this is true, has Lucy?become a commodity for trade – as a woman? Has Petrus offered the sex/gender of?his neighbor?for his own personal gain? We can only suspect at this point, but I thinks it’s a pretty good hunch. He is a man with two wives, after all, and?what they mean to him is “pay, pay, pay.” Pretus won’t acknowledge that Lucy is the one who pays the highest price. She may be poisoned with HIV and has no idea yet?if AIDS is in her future. If so, will she even have a future in a country so limited in health care.

A side note that deserves further examination:
The sex/gender role is played out between two men and a woman. In light of Lucy’s sexual preference, does this deepen the wound?

LUCY AS BEING
Lucy’s decision to stay on the farm, regardless of the?danger,?lays claim on her being?much in the same way that?Fanon returns to Negritude.?

I defined myself as an absolute intensity of beginning. So I took up my Negritude, and with tears in my eyes I put its machinery back together again. What had been broken to pieces was rebuilt, reconstructed by the intuitive lianas of my hands. (Fanon 138)

Negritude embraces both the French meaning of black and derogatory Martinique meaning of?”nigger.”?Those who accept this inclusive definition?empower themselves?to redefine their own meaning. (As Dr. Phil says, we cannot change that which we do not acknowledge.) Lucy also embraces the duality?of her being,?encompassing who she was before as well as who she?is?after transgressions were commited?against her. This?provides no comfort in the face of being violated, as Fanon too experiences, but to relinquish that sense of?being, to retreat?and accept?the identity of victim as imposed by another,?would allow only for absolute?defeat.?

OBLIGATORY RANT
Interestingly, David is such a goddamn baby when he loses an ear. Lucy has her very soul damaged, questioning whether or not it exists, and she is still far braver than her wuss-ass father. This book might redeem itself yet… but?will it tell us WHY women?bear the shame of violation when it is men who are committing the crime?

CONJUNCTION JUNCTION: WHAT’S YOUR FUNCTION?

A Modern Day Rubinesque Example:
Kim Gritzke AND Tim Clune?Get Married?
Yes, the historical derivation of gender exists. We all have been molded to live it. Then you get married and things become more surreal than you ever expect.

Gayle Rubin’s The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex made me better understand Jacques Derrida. She mentioned him but briefly, yet I saw the cultural baggage we unintentionally carry in conjunction with examination of the role women occupy in society. This was profound for me. I was suddenly struck by how I’ve lived both theories without knowing. I teased this stuff out,?finding meaning?outside the text… or, in this case,?ritual.

FEMALE EXCHANGE RATE
My father walked me down the aisle, ?giving me away.? I didn?t think it was so applicable. I was LONG gone years before I ever got married. I consciously turned this event into my own liberation rather than exchange, and thus could accept the idea. I was walking away from my father – although that assumes he had me to begin with. When I look closely at how things panned out, nobody else was outwardly jumping on board my liberation train.

Linking Rubin’s idea to Louis Althussar’s, I learned that although I “thought” I was making a statement of individuality as a woman, declaring my own meaning for the father/daughter ritual, I was simply perpetuating the Ideological State Apparatus by including it in my ceremony to begin with.

IDENTITY – AS PROPERTY?
The idea of “name change” illustrates Rubin’s theory that, although the gender roles no longer serve the purpose they once did, we still keep them firmly in place without examination or challange. From my grandparents’ generation to present, patterns of social/tribal/genealogical alignment are difficult to reform, lacking any value of individual recognition.

I symbolically took my husband’s last name, not as a sign of his ownership over me, but to consiously break with?my crappy past and redefine?who I?am on my own terms. Tim was all for me keeping my maiden name… In fact, he tried to talk me into it. But, hey, what the hell do you do with Gritzke anyway? So, there’s my spiel.

Still, wedding cards and gifts came addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Clune. My name?ends with “im” but it starts with a big fat K, thank you very much. Unifying our last names to form?our family unit is fine. Being assimilated into my husband’s identity? That’s not okay with either of us. Really.?

ALLIANCE/SOCIAL CONNECTION
Then there’s the family perception. My family?wreaked of odoriferous abandonment, somehow embracing the thought that I had left the nest. Tim’s family immediately assumed ownership over me. His sisters?adopted me into their recipe circle, his father and brothers welcomed me into the family with only mild recognition that I had my own. When my side was mentioned, it was also joining theirs, not the other way around. His brothers, as best men, toasted my grand entrance into their tribe with, “Let me introduce the other side to what is so special about our side of the family.” Hurm.

SIGN OF THE WOMAN
As Ferdinand de Saussure says, the value of a sign (woman/wife) is accepted by society, not an individual. I was struck with the implications of something so ritualized as a wedding. We lose sight of what the acts mean. We see them so often that we forget to question. You can try to make things mean what you like, changing the”sign” to suit yourself, but society/family asserts their?definition anyway and you?must defend and redefine yourself repeatedly. Derrida is right. Intended meaning brings along baggage of social construct, often?without any awareness of it’s insertion.

The effect of marriage on your identity is not for the feint of heart. It is a topic rarely talked about. People always ask, “When are?you getting married??Where? What kind of dress?” They focus?more on the event than the impact, never asking, “How do you feel about this? What does it mean about who you are? What does being a wife?entail?” The older generation of women?is particularly eager to give you some odd advice about having dinner ready and doing laundry. I warn you now… Hold true to yourself. Think about what it is YOU want from marriage.

RUG-RAT REPRODUCTION
Okay, and now I come to the whole reproduction issue. Tim and I aren’t going to have kids. This realization came much to the dismay of?several family members. When we recently received our wedding video, we found we?had been?cursed with a wish?for triplets upon our house. Really, particularly?after reading Rubin’s theory, why would we submit our daughter – let alone three of them -??to such a society?just so she can become an economic?commodity of culture and capitalism??There is this inherent idea that one must have children to further human existence, perpetuating the machine that reproduces the effect to infinity. We’re not buying it. Over and out.

SUGGESTED READING
Copies of Rubin’s theory for everybody! Revolution abound!
I agree that culture needs a good toppling and that nothing will change without opposition. People need shaking up. Maybe it needs to be sudden, as in?”Let the dead monster fall.”

Women have been fighting and winning, slowly but surely. Changes are occurring in my lifetime alone. Most of my friends have kept their maiden names. The acceptance of women as individuals in that regard is far more prevalent than 20 years ago. Once the previous generations die off, maybe there won’t be any more Mrs. Tim Clunes.

As for the acceptance of?equal gender power, patriarchal religion would have to go. I can’t see it happening any other way.

So…
Topple culture!
Give birth to a new brain child!!
Equality and free love for all!!!

WATCHMENESQUE INTRO:
The English department is trying to break me and they’re about to succeed. I’m really goddamn tired… tired of the high-gloss, quick-pick course designs where nothing is allowed to penetrate in depth before we’re?jerked off down some new path. The tub is taking on water and it’s all just spilling over the side today. For that, I am pissed. It’s time for a warm bath… and maybe a razor blade.

And with that dramatic introduction, I offer my fully unformed and meandering thoughts on Watchmen…

REALITY REDEFINED:
What is real? Humanity seems destined to confinement?within a predisposed genetic identity while we suffer from a past which offers us no control over our environment as children, for better or worse. These things have an impact on who we are, to be sure, but Watchmen demonstrates how “choice” also creates?both our?identity and our future. Rorschach and Nite Owl feel more comfortable in their costumes than they do within their own skin. Their alter-egos beg the question, is reality simply what is, or is it something we can define and redefine as we see fit? They believe the latter. Eventually, Dr. Manhattan does too.

Rorschach, perceived as a character played by Kovacs, becomes the reality. While avenging a child’s murder, Kovacs can’t stomach the sight after hacking the dogs that were eating the child’s bones. “It was Kovacs … who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again” (VI, 21) From this point on, the internal shift to Rorschach is brought to life through outward appearance. Kovac’s natural face and clothes are no longer real. Taking his costume pieces from the alley, Rorschach says, “putting them on, I abandoned my disguise and became myself, free from fear or weakness or lust” (V, 18). Similarly, as the authorities remove his mask during his arrest, Rorschach says, “My face! Give it back!” (V, 28). The transformation eventually evolves full-on, seeming to require no mask. Because he creates his own reality, even his therapist calls him “Rorschach,” unwillingly and without the disguise. As Rorschach says, “Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long” (VI,26). Rorschach is what Kovacs imagines for himself, and thus his existence becomes what he makes of it.

Like Kovacs, Dan is only able to fully experience his identity in costume. While seduced by Laurie, Dan can’t perform sexually, and not for lack of trying. Laurie pegs it when she says, “Y’know your trouble? You’re inhibited” (VII, 13). Once asleep, Dan fantasizes that Twilight Lady’s true identity is Laurie and Laurie reveals Dan’s true inner identity of Nite Owl by peeling back his skin. Only when their true inner identities are revealed do they experience their full sexuality… until they’re nuked (VII, 16). Later, the dynamic duo dresses up and performs a heroic act to find that dreams do come true. After heating things up to full-on flames, so to speak, Laurie asks, “Did the costumes make it good?” Nite Owl answers, “Yeah, I guess the costumes had something to do with it. It just feels strange, you know? To come out and admit that to somebody. To come out of the closet” (VII, 28). Admittedly, the Nite Owl costume is what allows Dan to experience his identity to the fullest, a reality unable to be achieved simply as Dan.

Jon brings Laurie to Mars to discuss his intervention with the possibility of nuclear war on Earth. According to him, the questions and answers are preordained but must be played out in time. Laurie accuses him of being “just a puppet following a script” (IX, 5). Jon replies, “We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings” (IX, 5). After a good old shot of Nostalgia shattered by reality, Laurie’s realization that the Comedian is her father persuades Jon to shift his own perception, to see that life isn’t meaningless. The random collision of circumstance and science that created Laurie’s life was nothing short of a miracle. Jon proclaims, “We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet, seen from another’s vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away” (IX, 27). Rather than an alter-ego, it is Laurie’s influence that alters reality, breaking from that which is predetermined.

The message throughout is hopeful. We all have the ability to create change by simply imagining the possibility. We have potential that needs only to be tapped by that imagination and freed from that which binds it. We are not emprisoned by our selected identity, but liberated by our chosen reality and our assertion within it. Taking on an alternate view gives us a more rounded picture of what truly exists. Now let’s all don our costumes and get out there!

WATCHMENESQUE OUTRO:
I plan to eat a?bowl of alphabet soup,?shove the can on my head, and tackle the English department of Saint Rose with a vengeance. In just this one week I’ll kick out the Theory Carnival, finish Watchmen, lead my student discussion in Brit Lit AND write the paper due Friday. For Tuesday, I’ll read those two chapters on how to write Flash Fiction, read ten sample stories AND write two of my own. I’ll take on Ezra Pound and all his image map allusions with one hand tied behind my back. And for Stress Management, I’ll put that fucking pedometer on my dog’s collar so I can bang out three miles of walking all from the comfort of this chair – which sports a permanent imprint of my ass. First, I might just hop in the hot tub… razor blade no longer required. Like my new action figure?

POST SCRIPT:
So, I’m driving home today (Wednesday, Feb 21) and can’t get this Alphabet?Barbie image out of my head. I think I’m going mad. The term SOUPer hero flashes through my gray matter. I totally crack up. Probably not funny, right? Okay, it’s just me.

Medieval scholar, Yvonne Kendall, offered greater insight than the classroom text into the connection between Hildegard and her music. To say that music was important to Hildegard scarcely glosses the depths to which it affected her everyday life. As we know from her first letter to Bernard, she refers to the ?sound? of God, meaning not only his voice as he speaks his word but, just as importantly, the divine way in which the Lord and his angels express themselves through music. As Hildegard often develops complex philosophies surrounding her visions, theology, and remedies as they exist in nature, she accepts as fact that music, at once, binds the soul with understanding and faith. In essence, this is the glue that unifies the body, faith, and senses of humanity directly with God.

The importance of her music was commonly understood among those who knew Hildegard. We have learned how her refusal to exhume the excommunicated and repentant foot soldier buried in the monastery’s cemetery was the impetus for banning musical prayer. We also know how profoundly this punishment afflicted her with depression. Interestingly, Yvonne Kendall offered fresh insight into Hildegard?s appeal to her abbot?s superiors. Rather ingeniously, Hildegard used the denial of her music to register with those who suppressed her. She strongly suggested that to continue this restriction, neglecting to abandon the orders to exhume nor to acknowledge the foot soldier?s commitment to and heavenly bond with God, may lead them to a place where they would never again hear the heavenly choirs of angels. This crafty reference obviously made a grand impression upon Hildegard’s superiors. The ban was immediately lifted allowing her monastery once more to rejoice in song.

While Hildegard is duly credited with the composition of her music, this recognition was never intended for her own glorification. In fact, music was written for the benefit of monastic services not available to the public and was generally not signed because it was believed to belong to God, not the composer. The shear volume of Hildegard?s music that still survives today is attributed to her popularity as a traveling speaker, healer and consultant, and to the journals in which she documented her works for her own use. Coming from outside sources, it is important to mention that Hildegard had not made personal claim of her credit. She humbly believed that her music was a gift from God and the glory belonged to him.

Aside from attributed credit, the greatest indication of Hildegard?s compositions was her unique style for the time. To compare her powerful emphasis on certain lyrics with the more even tones of the Gregorian monks, Hildegard moves far beyond the trend of her day. Her expansive use of musical scales did not become common tradition until 4 centuries beyond her time. This dramatic effect of stretching lyrics through a series of ascending or descending notes placed a new importance on interpreting the meaning behind the lyrics. This technique was perceived as dangerous because, unlike the tradition of reading prose and explaining its meaning, music lent a level of emotion and uncontrolled emphasis at the will of the performer, not the church.

Hildegard was aware, not only of the importance of song, but of the components of what made up that song. The instruments of the day included the recorder, vielle, organ, harp and bagpipes. All were comprised of natural elements using wood for structure and animal organs for the bellows. This too demonstrates how every aspect of music joins God and his every creation. This inclusive concept was one Hildegard commonly used to push beyond the negative societal perceptions of women.

As seen in her correspondence, the Scivias, and particular visions depicting the egg as fertility blessed by the fire of God and the soul residing – fully formed by the eyes of God – within the womb of a pregnant woman, Hildegard believed that women should be cherished for all they had to offer humanity. Her music provided yet another avenue to reinforce this idea. Her lyrics were comprised of references to the mother and child relationship between not only the Christ child and Mary, but also to earthly family relationships. Additionally, music as it existed in her morality plays can be thought of as the great equalizer. Hildegard awards God and the monastic nuns, those enacting the roles of the virtues and the soul, roles of song while only Satan is restricted to the spoken word. This arrangement of instrumental music and lyrical message demonstrates for Hildegard how God connects with all of his creation, Satan being the only exclusion from his holy realm and song.

Performing Hildegard?s music today requires interpretation much as it did when she was alive. Because timing was not indicated by beats and measures as it is now, the music is driven by lyrical cadence alone. Hildegard documented only the lyrics and vocal portion of the composition allowing for less structured instrumental interpretation, perhaps leaving room for God?s inspiration to move the musicians. Musicians today combine both their knowledge of trends known to have existed then and the written record of the vocals to create the most probable feeling of the music, overcoming the impossibility of replicating an exact rendition. It is in this way we are able to enjoy the musical compositions and message of Hildegard at present, joining not only the soul, senses, faith and God, but also bridging the gap between centuries of time as Hildegard believed God’s message is for all time.

Scarlett O?Hara Makes the Hero?s Journey

Joseph Campbell, in his book Thou Art That, argues that every hero?s journey consists of three parts: the departure, the initiation and the return. He also identifies the four functions of myth as ?reconciling consciousness to the preconditions of it?s own existence? (2), ?to present a consistent image of the order of the cosmos? (3), ?to validate and support a specific moral order? (5), and ?to carry the individual through the various stages and crises in life? with integrity.? (5). In the movie Gone with the Wind (1939), adapted from the book by Margaret Mitchell, the character of Scarlett O?Hara neatly follows Campbell?s analysis of the hero?s journey and also follows his functions of myth.

As Campbell explains, the departure begins with a call to adventure or with an event which spurs the character to leave what they know. The hero may teeter between going and not going, but they eventually cross the threshold into the belly of the whale. When we meet Scarlett O?Hara, she is a stubborn, sixteen year-old, Southern belle, living comfortably within the supportive and nurturing environment of her parents? home. She romantically daydreams of her love, Ashley Wilkes, and is oblivious to the hard realities of the world. In one day, everything begins to change for Miss Scarlett. She learns that her Ashley is intended for Melanie Wilkes, news of the Civil War breaks out during her much anticipated barbeque, and the young men in attendance at the barbeque rush off to sign up as soldiers. Suddenly, nothing remains as she knew it. Scarlett is entering that belly of the whale through no choice of her own.

Campbell points out that the hero is never alone on their journey. People often accompany the hero, such as a wise old man. The wise old man of this film is Scarlett?s father, Gerald O’Hara. In the midst of all this change, he expresses his wishes that Scarlett won’t fawn over Ashley when Ashley doesn?t love her, and that he doesn?t believe Ashley could make her happy anyway. In the same scene, when Scarlett complains that Tara, the family plantation, doesn’t mean anything to her, her father reinforces the value of “the land” and the priceless inheritance that Tara represents.

The next step on the hero?s journey is the initiation. Here our hero is confronted by trials in which she meets with the goddess, achieves atonement with her father, and experiences a transformation when she receives her boon. Scarlett experiences a break with the goddess, as Campbell describes it, when her mother dies from typhoid during the ravaging of Tara by Yankee soldiers. Scarlett atones with her father by caring for him, in his failing mental state, on his plantation. In the role of adult, she begins to see why he took so much pride in his land. After Mr. O?Hara dies, Scarlett leaves Tara again and marries Rhett, but their child dies along with Rhett?s love. Everything she knows has been stripped away, including Melanie and Ashley, leaving on her own to face her destiny. With nothing left, her dead father?s voice calls to her, telling her of the importance of Tara, that land is the only thing that matters and the only thing that lasts, a reminder of what she truly finds important. Scarlett realizes that even if she doesn’t get Rhett back, she can draw her strength from Tara. In truth, she has had the strength within her the entire time, with or without the land.

Upon return, Campbell says that the hero is no longer the same person they were when they left. Scarlett has drastically transformed from a spoiled, short tempered and pouty young girl into a heroic woman with the ability and will to survive nearly impossible feats. She has also graduated from caring only for her own interests to expanding her care toward others. She has developed an enlightened sense of value in both herself and her family heritage. This is a far cry from where she began, although the physical location is the exact same point.

In reference to Joseph Campbell?s functions of myth, the following aspects of Gone with the Wind account for all four. First, when faced with the deaths of her family, friends, and many thousands of soldiers, and after shooting a defected Yankee in self defense, each of these instances lie in direct contrast to Scarlett delivering Melanie Wilkes? baby. Scarlett becomes very aware of the life and death cycle as well as her place in it. Second, Scarlett is exposed to ?a consistent image of the order of the cosmos? (3), thanks to her mother who raised her with the teachings of Christianity and demonstrated these practices often. Third, Scarlett?s parents, sisters, aunt, Mammy and Melanie Wilkes, constantly reminded her of what was proper and what was not. This could possibly to be construed as the story teaching society?s moral order, although Scarlett surely had a tough time with this lesson. It is unclear whether or not she would hold to morals of her society any more after her journey than she did before and during it?s duration. Fourth, she did come through a state of crisis with integrity, experiencing herself, her culture, her universe and the tremendous mystery beyond herself. When she realized that Melanie was her best friend, when she previously saw her as the enemy who had stolen Ashley away, this required insight beyond her own desires. This story has elements of myth embedded within it even if the story is not necessarily sacred.

Gone with the Wind has an impact much in the way a myth is intended to. It carries with it the message that women can be strong in the face of adversity. While Scarlett?s character is not the type of person that I would wholly aspire to be, she does embody aspects that appeal to me. It is Scarlett who offers hope and the belief that one can overcome any misfortune.