Main Post for 09/23/2010

Straight Privilege
I come from a city well-known for a large number of homosexuals, especially lesbians, in China named Chengdu. However, for all these days reading various feminists’ works, I have never thought about lesbians. In fact, I am more familiar with lesbians who I used to live with and be friends with than I am with white women, black women who I merely know in real life before coming to Colgate. But for all these days feminism awareness training, not a single idea about lesbians has ever come up to my mind while sympathetic feelings towards these withe and black women always bump up in my brain. Does that happen because actually I do not count them as women? I say so not because I think they are abnormal and I do really respect every people despite sex orientation. I say so because I have never really bother to know about them before. Do they also crazy about fashion? Are they shopaholic? How does it feel to live in the same room with women while you may have feeling towards them? I did not bother to ask them because I was raised up in a straight-teaching society. Yes, although we have a lot of homosexuals around, major media, education system never raise topics about homosexuality. And many people do not take homosexuality seriously, on the internet and among teenagers especially, it seems cool to be homosexualities so some straight teenagers try to date with homosexualities just want to know how does it feel while being cool. However, adults, like my parents, never raised a single word related about homosexuality. We do not have LGBT Association in school, public medical organizations do not instruct homos on having safe sex, China even opposed the United Nations Bill about anti-sex orientation discrimination. I was raised up by teaching that everyone has a mom and dad and things like this while never aware of the existence of homosexualities and their feelings, just like Peggy Malntosh was taught to be conditioned into oblivion about the existence fo white privilege while take is for granted. It was until I read Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House that I failed to count lesbians as an important part in feminism.

I think I need to know about them more. Now, as Peggy MaIntosh did, I decided to try to identify some of the daily effects of straight privilege in my life so I will be aware of them later in my life.

I can talk about boys with fellow female friends.
I can take my partner home without scare my parents by taking a female partner home.
I would not encounter anyone who is anti-heterosexuality.
I can marry legally every where by my wish.
I can dress unfeminine without being called a credit to my sex orientation.
I would not feel troubled about my own sex orientation.

I failed to notice these privileges before and nor do I care about lesbians because I am in the majority, so I can choose whether to care or not. But I think I really need to raise my own consciousness about lesbians for in some part I may also in the minority.

Short Response 9/23

Although I found all three essays interesting, I found Peggy McIntosh's article extremely important and insightful. The analysis of white and male privilege highlights the prevailing inequalities and injustices in American society. The danger of any form of privilege is that it is often times unacknowledged. Many people like to give themselves credit for their success, instead of realizing that their achievements may be due to the advantages awarded to them because of their skin color or gender. McIntosh's realization that one group's disadvantage leads to another group's advantage is fascinating. She notes that men are willing to admit that women are disadvantaged, but become defensive when their status and privilege is called into question. It is predominantly white men who run our country and thus being white and/or a man is seen as the norm ( of course there are some exceptions.) As we mentioned in class, no label or marking is given to white people when we read a list of names, because to be white is to be normal / ideal. Being white means that you do not have to question events and interactions the same way that a minority does. However, as Frye previously discussed, in an oppressive relationship, both parties suffer, even if it is subconsciously. Thus, our society is quite sick.

Both Lorde and Miles seem to touch on the same theme in their work- female division and the need for unity. There are an innumerable amount of differences between women - class, marital status, education levels etc. These differences, for the most part, have sought to put a wedge in the feminist movement. As we read in the Feminist Mystique, white housewives wanted to get out of their homes and away from household duties. Whereas, black women saw it as a privilege to own their own home and not have to work. Many women view these differences as justification for separation, instead of the the catalyst for creative change. As a gender group, it is crucial for women to take a step back and realize that our differences do not have to drive us apart, but instead can actually bring us together.
  

short Response to reading Audre Lorde, Peggy McIntosh, and Tiya Miles

Tiya Miles and her work on the magazine called the Rag is not a story I have not heard before. Countless times you see women getting catty over things that are unnecessary. I don’t want to make stereotypes but most women do have this problem. We can’t face a problem head on; we have to talk behind peoples back and things like that. The issues that this magazine were big, but easily fixed in my opinion. The major problem was that the black women do not like the fact that it was labeled as a feminist magazine because that discourages black women from writing for it because feminism has long been associated with white women problems. What they should of done is create a section in the rag called the womanist, so that black women can be heard and so the title remains the same. Black and white women do have different issues in society and it’s all right to acknowledge that. White women don’t have to pretend that there is no difference in the problems of white and black women. Together they could of joined ideas and expressed their views and struggles and become even closer through their differences. This issue has popped back in time before. Tiya Miles even say that the group was, “… unfamiliar with feminist history and contemporary feminist theory (Miles 177).” She also says that, “We were so focused on our individual development and liberation that we failed to reach out to women with different experiences and to plan group activism (177).” If they were going to be a feminist magazine they should of a least done some research and looked up ways not to go under like most magazines like that do.

Peggy McIntosh’s article on White privilege was an interesting read. Her basic theme through the article was certain groups have privilege that they were born with only because of color of their skin or their sex, and these people deny having any privilege at all. To her the main problem with this is that they are the only ones who can change the system and if they don’t acknowledge this privilege how will it ever change? She gives multiple examples of how white people have more privileged then us and it’s a lot of things. I actually really enjoyed reading these privileges because I wanted to see if I felt either privileged or not because I’m half black half white. So where do I identify? I really can’t tell whenever I see either race I identify so I guess I’m lucky, white or black I identify with it.

Audre Lorde article really spoke of how underrepresented black, lesbian, and poor women are in feminist theory. She wishes that everyone comes together and recognizes the differences between each other. She doesn’t want to come together and turn into each other- she likes the differences. Which is a good thing there is nothing wrong with being different. Audre Lorde says that, “It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.” She also explains how white women need to educate themselves about the differences between white and black women. I think this can go in multiple ways. I think all women need to sit down and learn about our differences, so that we can better understand each other.

Short Response to Audre Lorde

In Sister Outsider, author Audre Lorde maintains that the exclusion of race, class, sexual identity, and age from feminist theorizing simply ignores the differences that exist within the female sex and as a result further separates women in their endeavor to rise above patriarchal oppression. She says that since many women who come from fortunate backgrounds ignore class, race, sexual identity and age differences, they too participate as oppressors in a hierarchal relationship, privileged over women of color, or lesbians, or the poor. Furthermore, ignoring the differences that lie among women from different backgrounds also ignores the varying struggles that exist and as a result, the differences that must exist in feminist theory and discussing patriarchal oppression. I think that Lorde’s discussion of race, class, sexual identity, and age differences among women is very important because if we do not aknowledge our differences as a gender, we will not be able to rise above oppression as a community of women.


I think there are many instances today that show there are divisions within the female gender according to race, sexual orientation and class. Women who seek equality with men in the workplace generally come from a priviledged background and have the opportunities to obtain the same education as men. White women who are able to make strides in politics also come from priviledged backgrounds and for the most part represent a small portion of the femal population. We rarely see black lesbians in the media alongside white upper class women in one concerted effort to see change. This division along the different categories that define us certainly hinders the feminist movement and our ability to rise above patriarchy and oppression.

Short Response 9/21

In Oppression, Marilyn Frye discusses the double standard prevalent in our society. Similar to our class discussions, women are often faced with the choice of sexual freedom or restriction. We are either labeled promiscuous or prude. Especially in todays fast paced sex obsessed society, it is very difficult for women to feel sexually liberated. This is extremely prevalent on Colgate campus. When at a party, if a girl goes home with a guy and doesn't put out the guy feels as if he wasted his night. However, if she does put out she is usually labeled easy and can be passed on to his friends. It is extremely interesting to examine what type of girls men find it suitable to date. For the most part it is totally unacceptable to date a girl who has had sex with one of your "boys". I feel that being sexually oppressed is a serious problem. Even if girls have a lot of sex they can still be sexually oppressed due to the judgments and labels we must endure. Frye also discusses the difficulty women have showing their oppressed status. If we walk around looking sad than society thinks we have an attitude, but if we hide signs of oppression and walk around smiling than we must not be oppressed. As a society we must take a step back and look at the larger picture instead of small individual cases- which she references with the bird cage metaphor. 

Allan Johnson discusses patriarchy and its long standing existence. This is due to the fact that as a society we collectively embrace and accept this concept. Men for the most part embrace patriarchy because it empowers them and gives them many privileges- some of which they might not realize. Unfortunately, these privileges are mostly exclusive to the male species and thus gives them benefits over women. I think it will be an extremely long time before patriarchy is fully dissolved, despite the fact that numerous cultures actively practice matriarchy. Some qualities are simply biological- men are naturally stronger than women- this biological discrepancy cannot change. I feel like some biological differences help to perpetuate patriarchy and will be extremely hard to change. 

Short Response to 'Oppression'

As Marilyn Frye says in Oppression, women are often caught in no-win situations. Both sexual activity or inactivity can be good charges against women; if a woman is sexually active, she can be blamed as a whore, when she is the opposite, then she can be accused of being a man-hater or abnormal woman. White women worked in the Freedom Summer were also sank into such no-win situation: they would be criticized as loose for accepting black men’s sexual advances while they would also be charged as racists if they rejected such advances as illustrated in Prologue: The Re-Emergence of the “Woman Question”. So is the dilemma women now facing in China. Many male in China are still obsessed with virginity. They want their wives keep chastity until marriage and they attribute such virginity obsession as another masculine nature. Ridiculously, they do not apply the same rule on themselves and they also want to enrich their sexual experiences before marriage. Because they consider marriage as prison of later sexual lives, they think it is largely advisable to have as much fun as possible in sex before marriage. But here is a simple math question: according to The Fifth Population Census of People’s Republic of China, the birth rate of male to female in 2000 is 106.74 to 100, so how many men can get married with virgins while they also want to gain rich sexual experiences before marriage? This question is quite simple because the answer can only be: impossible! Even if men only have sex with married women before marriage, there are still not enough virgins available. So, what many Chinese women facing today is that before getting married, they meet a lot of men trying to persuade them to ‘enjoy non-marriage sex’, if they accepted this kind of suggestions, they are no longer welcomed as suitable marriage partners because they are ‘touched‘ and ‘impure’.

Besides, Frye’s explanation about the root of the word “oppression” is extremely useful in making ‘‘oppression’’ sensible to readers, at least to me. She says, to press is to “Mold. Immobilize. Reduce.” Oppression women faced is trying to make us molded to be feminine, be immobilized in the feminine circle, and be reduced to do lower level of working. I think feminism can be said as finished only when women finally actively working in various areas not just ‘feminine circles’.

The simile Frye uses to explain why people can hardly recognize the oppression they are facing is really enlightening! Just like people observe a bird in a birdcage, people can only recognize that the bird is being circled only when they set back and ‘take a macroscopic view’ of the birdcage. So is the situation about women being oppressed. Many people, both men and women think that feminism work is done and women are not oppressed simply because they fail to take a macroscopic view of the whole society. Although I largely advocate this supposition, I think it is easier to say than to do. How can we really take a macroscopic view of the present society? Just like how can birds take a macroscopic view of the birdcage which they live in?

Short Response to "Patriarch, the System"

In "Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us," Allan Johnson talks about how patriarchy is set in place by humans and perpetuated by everyone's constant acceptance of it and participation in it. Johnson explains that "patriarchy is based in part on a set of symbols and ideas that make up a culture embodied by everything from the content of everyday conversation to literature and film" (Johnson). One symbol that he points to is language. Johnson explains that words that used to have one meaning and connotation during prepatriarchal times now have completely different meanings and evoke drastically different images under a patriarchal system. One such word is the word witch. While "the witch was the wise-woman healer, the knower of herbs, the midwife, the link joining body, spirit, and Earth," she is now considered evil and coniving (Johnson). Simply because we have accepted these negative connotations of otherwise positive words under the patriarchal system, we have perpetuated the oppression of women.

This specific passage relates to the current political scandal, which shows a television clip of Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell admitting that she "dabbled in witch craft." While the clip is from eleven years ago, it is gaining much media attention and is being used to portray the candidate in a negative light. One Republican stategist Karl Rove warns, “In southern Delaware, where there are a lot of churchgoing people [who are] probably going to want to know what was that all about” (Stelter). It seems ridiculous to hold this against O'Donnell. First, she says she "dated" a witch, and wasn't really aware of what she was getting herself into. Second, the clip is from eleven years ago and she was clearly speaking about an event that occurred even earlier, when she was in high school. Furthermore, even if O'Donnell participated in witch craft, who is to say that this makes her a bad political candidate? Who is to say that witch craft is not positive, just as the wise-woman healer of prepatriarchal times benefited society? It seems that the use of this tape is clearly to do harm to O'Donnell's campaign and to portray her in a negative light. Moreover, by employing the norms set by the patriarchal system, her political opponents are succeeding in raising questions about her moral character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc5HXVxe7XM

Allan G. Johnson, "Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us."
Selter, Brian. "Political Cauldron Stirred by Old Video of Candidate." The New York Times, 19 Sept., 2010.