tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78138762306752690372024-02-07T02:33:42.596-05:00Feminist Studies at CornellResearch findings and papers by undergraduate students in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University.CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-66914701241336511872014-02-06T22:04:00.001-05:002014-03-15T14:27:18.246-04:00Bride Kidnapping in the News<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embedded/public/2013/11/04/kidnap2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embedded/public/2013/11/04/kidnap2.jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">kidnap2.jpg</span></i></b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> from Noriko Hayashi's "Grab and Run: Kyrgyzstan's Bride Kidnappings"-- </span><i style="font-size: x-small;">Newsweek </i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Web)</span><br />
<i style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.newsweek.com/grab-and-run-1634</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">US Media Representations of Bride Kidnapping
in Kyrgyzstan </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">by B.F.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In her 2001 article
“Feminism versus multiculturalism”, Leti Volpp argues<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref1"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn1" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[1]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>that
minority women are frequently portrayed as “victims of their culture”. That is,
Western accounts of violence against minority women tend to paint minority
women as lacking in agency, and completely under the control of “cultural”
forces (which somehow do not affect white, Western women). One particular
problem to which this applies is that of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan (and
Central Asia in general). There have been a few representations of this
phenomenon in US media in the past ten years, most of which have confirmed
Volpp’s thesis. I will examine these representations in depth, and argue for
change in US media reporting of foreign violence against women. In particular,
we will see that there is some misrepresentation of bride kidnapping in US media,
and that there are many parallels that can and should be drawn between bride
kidnapping and violence against women in the United States. Because this is
inherently a women’s issue, we will be referencing work from feminist media
studies and feminist anthropology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Bride kidnapping is a
phenomenon in Central Asia, and Kyrgyzstan in particular, that has gone through
an “apparent resurgence”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref2"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn2" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[2]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>since
the decline of the Soviet Union. It tends to involve the abduction of a woman
by a man for marriage with or without her consent. The nonconsensual ones (the
ones that are the topic of this paper) often involve “three or four men, a car
and vodka”.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref3"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn3" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[3]</span></sup></a>The
woman is often captured during the day as she is walking down the street, or
alternatively, she is lured out of her residence at night to be abducted. This
is often a traumatic experience for the victim of the kidnapping. Kidnapped
women are frequently raped or face threats of rape if they do not accept the
marriage.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref4"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn4" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[4]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>Furthermore,
if a kidnapped woman escapes, she is often rejected by her family and village,
either because she has dishonored Kyrgyz tradition<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref5"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn5" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[5]</span></sup></a>,
or because the kidnapping itself dishonored her family, and the only way to
restore honor is to go through with the marriage<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref6"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn6" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[6]</span></sup></a>,
or possibly for some other reason, depending on the analysis. Bride kidnapping
can be viewed through a broader lens of a desire to go back to “traditional”
Kyrgyz customs after gaining independence from the Soviet Union.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref7"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn7" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[7]</span></sup></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">There are several
reasons why bride kidnapping is a particularly interesting phenomenon to
consider in the context of US media representations of violence against foreign
women. There has not been so much reporting done on bride kidnapping in the
first place, compared to many other reports of “conflicts” of women’s rights
with multiculturalism. For example, there have been many more discussions in
the Western media of various institutions banning the wearing of hijabs.
Because of the relative lack of reporting on bride kidnapping, I imagine that
there is also a less “self-aware” reporting. That is, the reporting that we see
is not filtered through a lens of awareness of minority women’s rights, which
might come about from discussions about a phenomenon that is reported on more
frequently. Thus, I think that by studying a less well-known phenomenon, we can
see more directly the ways that news institutions <i>themselves </i>view
violence against women perpetrated in other countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In “Feminism versus
multiculturalism”, Leti Volpp gives one perspective on how minority women are
represented in the West. She writes that “incidents of sexual violence in the
West are frequently thought to reflect the behavior of a few deviants – rather
than as part of our culture”, whereas acts of violence in the Third World “are
thought to characterize the cultures of entire nations.”<sup>8 </sup>She
argues that the consequences of this representation is that women (particularly
those from non-Western cultures) are deprived of agency in Western culture.
That is, they are portrayed as victims, and not as people who have power to
change their situations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In my opinion, one of
the major contributions to this characterization of non-Western women is the
way that they are represented in Western media. My aim is to study in the
particular case of Kyrgyz bride kidnappings how this is done. By looking at
specific reports about bride kidnappings in the US media, I will describe the
ways in which the reports support Volpp’s ideas. We will see that the
representations of Kyrgyz women serve to preserve a cultural hierarchy that
places the West at the top.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">My method of research is
as follows. I have studied three news reports on Kyrgyz bride kidnapping from
the United States. The first is a website published by PBS including an article
about bride kidnapping, a video, and some facts and pictures; this was
published online in March of 2004. The second source is an ordinary news
article published in the <i>New York Times </i>written by Craig S.
Smith and published in April of 2005. Finally, my third source is a 2013 photo
essay by Noriko Hayashi published on the <i>Newsweek </i>website. I
want to use these reports from the last ten years to look at how modern US
media portrays violence against women in other cultures, to confirm Volpp’s
thesis about representations of “other” women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">All of the news reports
studied included pictures of Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyz people along with the text.
In many ways, the way they use photography already marks a distinction between
Western people and Kyrgyz people. They almost always depict women in
“traditional” dress, often in situations that emphasize their cultural distance
from the Western world. The PBS report, for example, includes many pictures of
Kyrgyzstan, none of which have anything to do with the subject of bride
kidnapping. Most of the pictures are of rural scenery; one of them is a picture
of a woman milking a mare. All of this serves to exoticize Kyrgyzstan to the
Western eye, emphasizing the differences between the experiences of the
intended readers of the news and the subjects of the reports.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In some ways, there is
nothing wrong with these choices of pictures. Bride kidnapping is a primarily
rural phenomenon in Kyrgyzstan, and perhaps the more westernized Kyrgyz people,
who might be easier to identify with for viewers of PBS, are not very likely to
be kidnapped. However, I want to argue that while these depictions may be <i>realistic</i>,
they may not always be <i>relevant</i>. This is an important distinction
to make in these situations. There are two ways in which we are influenced by
news. First of all, the facts that we learn from the news can affect the way we
think about things. But, secondly, the way that news reports <i>frame </i>stories
is just as important as, if not more important than the facts presented. While
the pictures of rural Kyrgyz people we can find on the PBS website may be
representative of what things really look like, the question that really needs
to be asked is what purpose these photographs serve. To me it appears that they
only serve to exoticize Kyrgyz people, and thus provide a way to separate the
situations from Western readers of the article from those of the subjects of
the article.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The <i>Newsweek </i>article
studied relies even more heavily on photography than the PBS report. It too
contains many pictures of people in traditional clothing, but now the pictures
are more focused on people than landscapes. They are mostly taken indoors, and
in all but one of the photographs, the subject of the picture is a person or
group of people. These photographs mostly depict people in traditional dress,
just as on the PBS website. However, what is most striking about the pictures
here is that the people portrayed always look dejected, with their faces
usually turned away from the camera. This is different from the representations
of the PBS website in that everything is not as clearly focused on the cultural
differences between Kyrgyzstan and the West. However, the dispirited people
depicted in the photographs do invite the viewer to think of Kyrgyz people as
victimized. This is in line with Volpp’s analysis of depictions of minority
women: they are often portrayed as victims, and as lacking in agency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">We see that the <i>Newsweek </i>article
too frames the suffering of Kyrgyz women in a particular way. By portraying
Kyrgyz people (women in particular) as victims, it deprives them of agency.
Again, it is certainly true that a large portion of Kyrgyz women are “victims
of their culture” in some sense, but by framing this suffering in a context
only of victimization, the essay paints a very one-dimensional picture of what
the situation of Kyrgyz women is like.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The news reports also
tend to unquestioningly take the stance that there is a “correct” culture, i.e.
the Western one, and that non-western cultures should aspire to be more
Western. This is very evident on the PBS website, which invites readers to
answer the question “Should the international community intervene when cultural
traditions clash with modern notions of women’s rights?”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref8"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn8" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[8]</span></sup></a>This
makes it clear that the authors are painting a cultural hierarchy. One should
ask oneself why the “international” (presumably this means Western) community
should be intervening in Kyrgyz affairs. Certainly nobody asks whether the
international community should intervene when women are raped in the United
States, even though this is something that happens systematically.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The short documentary
film that can be viewed on the same website poses near the end the question of
the morality of bride kidnappings given that many of the abducted women end up
happy in the resulting marriage. This particular question is often portrayed as
a unique ethical problem facing the people of Kyrgyzstan. The <i>New York
Times </i>article I studied spends many paragraphs describing the violent
kidnapping of one woman against her will, and then ends up with a few short
sentences about how she is happy with the arrangement now. I think that these
descriptions serve to portray other cultures as particularly violent compared
to Western ones. Furthermore, by noting that there clearly is some ethical
dilemma at hand here, but not asking Kyrgyz people for their opinions, they
implicitly make the claim that it is the duty of Western people to make
judgments about the morality of events in other countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">At this point, I think
that I have established that the portrayal of Kyrgyz women in major US media
outlets has to some extent deprived them of agency by depicting them as victims
of their culture. This is not an unusual phenomenon; Volpp discusses it in some
generality in her paper. It has also been studied in some other specific cases.
For example, Reimers describes in her paper “Representations of an honor
killing” how very much the same phenomenon has occurred in Sweden regarding
discussions of honor killings by Kurdish immigrants<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref9"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn9" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[9]</span></sup></a>.
She comes to the conclusion, very similarly to me, that Swedish representations
of these killings contribute to a picture of Swedish culture as “superior” to
Kurdish culture. She writes that “the purported difference between ‘them’ and
‘us’ intersect with a nationalistic and colonial discourse.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref10"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn10" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[10]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>I
now want to look more closely at how portrayals of Kyrgyz women serve to
elevate Western culture above other cultures, and in particular describe how
this in itself can be seen as an act of violence against the women of
Kyrgyzstan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">One analysis of violence
is put forward by Patricia Hill Collins, in her paper “The tie that binds:
race, gender, US violence.” She argues that violence is often defined in a way
that benefits people who are higher up in some social hierarchy, and that the
acceptance of these definitions leads to a perpetuation of those hierarchies.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref11"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn11" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[11]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>One
example she gives is that “American soldiers who killed people during the Gulf
war were excused and even celebrated,” whereas “civilians killing police in
inner-city neighborhoods remain vilified.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref12"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn12" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[12]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>From
these observations, Collins argues for a broader definition of violence, which
should better take into account the suffering of socially disadvantaged people.
She writes that violence can “be viewed as a group-based institution of abuse”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref13"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn13" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[13]</span></sup></a>;
this will be an important frame of reference for my analysis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">To elaborate on this
idea, we can note that even according to traditional definitions, violence can
be conceptualized as an act that limits another persons freedom, albeit usually
physically. However, from a point of view of analyzing injustices, there is no
clear reason to limit one’s definition of violence to the physical. To make a
distinction between abusive acts that are physical and ones that are not
physical does not seem entirely justified. In fact, such an approach could
possibly serve to make abuses against people in oppressed positions seem less
noteworthy than other abuses. It is frequently the case that minorities are
portrayed in a stereotypical way in the media, while people in privileged
positions can play many different roles. By claiming that media representations
cannot constitute acts of violence, we are thus supporting a definition of
violence that supports already existing hierarchies. It is in this context that
I will examine the violence implicit in US representations of Kyrgyz bride
kidnapping.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I think that it is
appropriate to apply an analysis similar to that of Patricia Hill Collins to
the reports on bride kidnapping studied here. As we have seen, the role of Kyrgyz
people in the reporting done on bride kidnapping is always limited to providing
facts and experiences, but they are never asked for their own analyses of the
culture behind bride kidnapping. This upholds a cultural hierarchy that says
that people from the West tend to be more neutral and disinterested than
non-Westerners. People from other cultures are depicted as too bound by their
culture to think rationally about moral questions, while Western people are
able to look at things from a neutral perspective, either because they somehow
are capable of diassociating themselves from their culture, or because the
culture that is there is a culture of rationality from the beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Furthermore, the portrayal of Kyrgyz women as
victims rather than agents perpetuates certain Western ideas about “other
cultures.” Volpp writes the following about the distinction between agents and
victims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The binary assumption that women in the West have
choice, and that those in immigrant and Third World contexts have none, in part
reflects the limits of our language in describing choice: Either one is an
agent, or one is a victim. This binary also reflects historical representations
of the West as the site of rugged individualism, and the East as the repository
of passivity and culture.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref14"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn14" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[14]</span></sup></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">That is, the portrayal of Kyrgyz women as victims upholds a
long-standing tradition in the West of denying non-Western women agency. This
is certainly an act of violence in the sense of Collins; it is a systematic
abuse of a large group of underprivileged people. It is interesting to note
that the way that women in non-Western cultures are portrayed as victims of
their culture stands in stark contrast to the way that violence against Western
women is portrayed in the United States. A complaint often raised about US news
coverage of rapes in the United States is that they fail to take into account
cultural conditions that are conducive to rape.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref15"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn15" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[15]</span></sup></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In light of this
analysis of violence, I hope that it is clear how the representations studied
here indeed do constitute an act of violence against Kyrgyz people, and Kyrgyz
women in particular. Geopolitically, rural Kyrgyz people are typically not in a
position of power, and the way that they are portrayed here only perpetuates
this. They are portrayed as people to feel sorry for, not as people to identify
with, or as people with their own agency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I now want to discuss
how news reporting can be transformed to depict the situation of women in
Kyrgyzstan without painting them in a way that furthers Western cultural
dominance over the East. Recall that there are two main aspects to the way that
someone is represented in the news: the facts given, and the way that these
facts are framed to give a complete picture of the situation. Of course there
is a large amount of overlap between these two aspects; the choice of facts
presented clearly contributes to the way that reports frame people. That is,
for any given event, there are many facts about the event that can be presented
in the news, and only a small number of these facts can be given. In any case,
what needs to be changed is the framing of the reports. All of the news
articles I have read do report accurate facts (to my knowledge), and I do think
that it is important for people in the United States to be aware of the
situation of women in Kyrgyzstan, but I do not think that the way that the
women are portrayed represents them fairly. One way to ensure that women are
portrayed fairly is to report through a <i>transveral </i>lens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: 36.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Transversal politics is
a form of analysis which “emphasizes coalition building that takes into account
the specific positions of ‘political actors.”’<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref16"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn16" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[16]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>Handrahan
writes about transversalism that it “involves maintaining a starting/standing
point/perspective coupled with the flexibility to recognize, but not
homogenize, other starting/standing point/perspectives.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref17"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn17" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[17]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>We
want an analysis that firmly acknowledges that all people are different in
their backgrounds, their points of view, their identites, and so on, while
simultaneously allowing for empathy between people with different backgrounds.
One way to achieve such an empathy is by emphasizing abstract similarities
between different people’s positions, while still acknowledging the potentially
large differences between them as well. I believe that such an approach would
be well-suited for descriptions of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: 36.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">There are many abstract
similarities between Kyrgyz bride kidnapping and the problems that affect women
in the United States. For example, one pervasive problem in the United States
is sexual assault on university campuses.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref18"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn18" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[18]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>Abstractly,
I think that there are many similarities between bride kidnapping and campus
rape. First of all, they are both acts of violence that affect mostly women.
Furthermore, the victims (and perpetrators) are often young, and there is often
alcohol involved.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" name="_ftnref19"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftn19" title=""><sup><span style="color: black;">[19]</span></sup></a><sup> </sup>Finally,
the perpetrators are often acquaintances of the victims. Note that I do not
mean to equate bride kidnapping with campus rape. What I want to show is that
US media outlets can and should emphasize that there are similarities between
the sexual violence faced by young women in Kyrgyzstan and in the United
States, while still acknowledging the (vast) differences. Such an approach
would serve to humanize Kyrgyz women, instead of victimizing them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: 36.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">We now turn to the
discussion of the ethics of bride kidnapping from earlier. We noted that one of
the questions often brought up in reports on bride kidnapping is how to
approach the phenomenon given that many of the resulting marriages actually end
up happy. It is often portrayed as a cultural curiosity that Kyrgyz women can
choose to be happy with people who have committed acts of violence against
them. However, I would argue that there are certain similarities between this
and the phenomenon of women who choose to remain with their abusive spouses in
the United States. Again, there are many differences between the specific
situation of spousal abuse in the United States and bride kidnapping in
Kyrgyzstan, but perhaps by looking at the similarities we can understand better
the situations of women both in the United States and in Kyrgyzstan, and more
importantly, it would allow for more connection and empathy between the women
in the different situations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: 36.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Of course, there are
certain aspects of bride kidnapping that are not quite analogous with any
phenomena in the United States. For example, we have noted that some reporters
view the increased amount of bride kidnappings since the fall of the Soviet
Union as a way for a Kyrgyz national identity to assert itself. This might be
difficult to relate to a US context. However, we must keep in mind that the
important thing is not necessarily to paint all violence against women as being
similar or even analogous, but just to always remind people that foreign women
cannot (and should not) be viewed entirely as victims without agency, and that
while their situation is different from those of the audience of the news, it
can still be understood and related to the personal lives of the audience. We
must also keep in mind that there is no one “Western” experience; there are many
types of people in the West who face many different kinds of oppression. Still,
by connecting the suffering of Kyrgyz women to suffering that is at least
geographically closer, if nothing else, to the audience of the news, we can
hope to evoke at least some additional understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 30.85pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: 36.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">We have seen that the
way that bride kidnapping is reported on in the US media is flawed in many
ways. It depicts violence against Kyrgyz women in a way that portrays Kyrgyz
women only as victims, and not as agents. This is a common feature of media
portrayals of non-Western women as well as Western minority women both
historically and in the present. The result of these portrayals is a
preservation of a cultural hierarchy that places the West at the top, and
regards other cultures as inferior and oppressive. This stands in contrast to
the way Western media depicts violence against women occurring in the West,
with Western perpetrators. In order to portray the people of Kyrgyzstan in a
more respectful way, we must turn to a transversal reporting of their
situation, and try to connect their lives to the lives of Western people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Works Cited</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 9.85pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Akiner, S. (1997). Between tradition and modernity: the dilemma
facing contemporary Central<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: 29.25pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Asian women. In M. Buckley (Ed.), <i>Post-Soviet Women: From
the Baltic to Central Asia </i>(pp. 261–304). Cambridge University Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 1.45pt; margin-left: 28.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -29.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Armstrong, E. A.,
Hamilton, L., & Sweeney, B. (2006). Sexual assault on campus: A multilevel,
integrative approach to party rape. <i>Social Problems</i>, <i>53</i>(4),
483–499.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 8.55pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Collins, P. H. (1998). The tie that binds: race, gender and US
violence. <i>Ethnic and Racial Studies</i>,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 8.2pt; margin-left: 29.25pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">21</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(5), 917–938.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 8.15pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">FRONTLINE/World: Kyrgyzstan - The Kidnapped Bride. (2004, March).
http://www.pbs.org/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 9.8pt; margin-left: 29.25pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">frontlineworld/stories/kyrgyzstan/thestory.html.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 1.45pt; margin-left: 28.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -29.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Handrahan, L. (2004).
Hunting for women: bride-kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan. <i>International
Feminist Journal of Politics</i>, <i>6</i>(2), 207–233.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Hayashi, N. (2013, November 4). Grab and Run: Kyrgyzstan’s Bride
Kidnappings. <i>Newsweek</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 1.4pt; margin-left: 28.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -29.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Reimers, E. (2007).
Representations of An Honor Killing: Intersections of discourses on culture,
gender, equality, social class, and nationality. <i>Feminist Media Studies</i>, <i>7</i>(3),
239–255.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 8.6pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Smith, C. S. (2005, April 30). Abduction, often violent, a Kyrgyz
wedding rite. <i>The New York</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 10.1pt; margin-left: 29.25pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Times</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 8.55pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Volpp, L. (2001). Feminism versus multiculturalism. <i>Columbia
Law Review</i>, <i>101</i>(5), 1181–1218.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: 28.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -29.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Werner, C. (2009). Bride
abduction in post-Soviet Central Asia: marking a shift towards patriarchy
through local discourses of shame and tradition. <i>Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute</i>, <i>15</i>(2), 314–331.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: -.75pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .2pt; margin-left: 28.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -29.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Worthington, N. (2008).
Progress and persistent problems: Local TV news framing of acquaintance rape on
campus. <i>Feminist Media Studies</i>, <i>8</i>(1), 1–16.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span class="footnotemark"><span class="footnotemark"><u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Footnotes:</span></u></span></span></div>
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<span class="footnotemark"><span class="footnotemark"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .6pt; margin-left: 13.95pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title="">[1]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span>
Volpp, 2001.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-left: 13.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Werner, 2009, p. 316.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .5pt; margin-left: 13.95pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Handrahan, 2004, p. 209.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-left: 13.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Handrahan, 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.95pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Handrahan, 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .65pt; margin-left: 13.95pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Werner, 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="footnotedescription" style="line-height: 105%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 13.95pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Akiner, 1997 says that
after the dissolution of the Soviet union some Kyrgyz women “feel the need to
return to their ‘authentic’ roots; Handrahan, 2004 writes that bride kidnapping
“has come to be understood as a fundamental ‘Kyrgyz tradition’ neither imposed
nor transported but home-grown on the <i>jailoos
</i>(mountain pastures) of the Tien Shen mountain range.” <sup>8</sup>Volpp,
2001, p. 1186-1187.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.95pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> “FRONTLINE/World:
Kyrgyzstan - The Kidnapped Bride,” 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .75pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title="">[9]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Reimers, 2007.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title="">[10]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Reimers, 2007, p. 251.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .75pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title="">[11]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Collins, 1998.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .6pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title="">[12]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Collins, 1998, p. 922.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title="">[13]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Collins, 1998, p. 921.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title="">[14]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Volpp, 2001, p. 1211.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="line-height: 105%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 10.45pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title="">[15]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Worthington, 2008, p. 13
gives an example of even a relatively “progressive” report on a rape which
still “focused so much on the specifics of the scandal without reference to
broader social structures that facilitate violence against women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .65pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title="">[16]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Collins, 1998, p. 930.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn17">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .65pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" title="">[17]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Handrahan, 2004, p. 211.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn18">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" title="">[18]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> See Armstrong, Hamilton,
and Sweeney, 2006 for an in-depth analysis of rape at one university.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn19">
<div class="footnotedescription" style="line-height: 125%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 10.45pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="footnotemark"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="footnotemark"><span style="line-height: 166%;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" title="">[19]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/bfpaper.pdf#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span> Handrahan, 2004 gives an
analysis of the importance of vodka in Kyrgyz bride kidnappings, and Armstrong
et al., 2006 discusses in depth how alcohol shapes sexual assault on US
university campuses.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-59680420097677701112014-02-06T21:47:00.000-05:002014-03-15T16:10:10.975-04:00Gender Roles and Depression<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMyCIJ0xf7jlixBZg6EMq7Z65eo4_3_61i4bZbc2C8qS4kuJ0dFd2qS_w_EjUcXYc1R-E0eelrNh1LQqS3NDOzO16cp3eq5wxdwUIyCvAi4iCS5Fs9Nkc6xwcWVlYyVSEUe1qmtMHTjZqX/s1600/abilified.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMyCIJ0xf7jlixBZg6EMq7Z65eo4_3_61i4bZbc2C8qS4kuJ0dFd2qS_w_EjUcXYc1R-E0eelrNh1LQqS3NDOzO16cp3eq5wxdwUIyCvAi4iCS5Fs9Nkc6xwcWVlYyVSEUe1qmtMHTjZqX/s1600/abilified.png" height="126" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Gender and Depression: How Structural Influences and Gender
Stereotypes Affect Depression Rates</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">by </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Cassidy Clark and Rachael Van Pelt</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> According to <i>The Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s
World</i>, women are twice as likely as men to experience depression sometime
in their lives, at a rate of one in four women (Bueskens 2011). The
reasons behind this significant disparity are debated: popular understandings
of depression in Western society blame hormones and genetics, a view
perpetuated by the medical community. However, feminists have challenged this
view, contending that there are other societal and structural factors that play
into the higher rates of depression in women. We argue that the particular pressure
that communities place on women to fill the stereotypical role of feminine,
‘good’ woman can lead to the observed higher rates. Other stereotypes about
women, especially how women deal with their emotions, what emotions are
acceptable for women to display, and historical understandings of
hysteria further tie women and mental illness together. Due to these
connections, we must critically examine the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (DSM)’s criteria for depression and ask if the symptoms
identified are truly gender neutral. Understanding the interplay between
stereotypes and mental illness leads us to question the objectivity of science:
due to the potential for individual scientists to incorporate their personal
gender biases into their work and the power that science has in defining
normality, we conclude that analyzing depression from a purely biological
perspective means missing other factors that can influence depression and rates
of depression diagnosis. In order to understand the influence of gender upon
depression, we must analyze how science, stereotypes and mental illness are
connected.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> As an illness with ties to other disorders like anxiety
and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, growing rates of depression have worried
mental health professionals and have lead to inclusion of its symptoms in the
DSM (Bueskens 2011). Depressive episodes are characterized by: “a depressed
mood most of the day”; “diminished interest and pleasure in all our most
activities”; “feelings of worthlessness and excessive guilt”; “agitation or
psychomotor retardation”; and other symptoms relating to weight and sleep
pattern changes (“Managing Depressive Symptoms”). Although these symptoms are
not restricted to certain genders, the “experience” of depression may be
different: while women “report higher levels of anxiety, sleep troubles, and
physical problems”, men are more disposed to ‘ignoring depressive symptoms”,
through continual involvement in enjoyed activities or abuse of drugs and
alcohol (Bueskens 2011). The experience and prevalence of depression is also
altered by factors of race, age, and location. Although the average rate
is one in four women, rates vary widely between various groups and depend on
whether or not men are included: for example, three percent of the general
Japanese population feel depressed at some point in their life, compared to
about seventeen percent of Americans (Jacquot & Knack 2009).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Popular perceptions of the causes of depression center
mainly on genetic and biological factors. The National Institute of Mental
Health’s website about depression highlights these elements under the “Causes”
section of their webpage. The NIMH is a government organization that supports
research on and education about mental health issues and their website presents
itself as a resource for people who want to know more about various disorders.
Their page on depression includes the subtopics “What is Depression,” “Causes,”
“Signs and Symptoms,” “Who is at Risk?,” “Diagnosis,” “Treatments,” “Living With,”
and “Clinical Trials” (“Depression”). Under each heading, the organization
adopts an educational and medical stance on the topics. Under the “Causes”
section, the organization states that “depressive illnesses are disorders of
the brain” and goes on to discuss magnetic resonance imaging and genetics
research. It includes two brief sentences at the end of the section about how a
stressful “trigger” such as a traumatic life event may bring on an episode of
depression, though that there is not always a trigger. The main focus of the
NIMH in regards to depression is on how biological factors affect mental
health. They explicitly state that “<span style="background: white;">longstanding
theories about depression suggest that important neurotransmitters—chemicals
that brain cells use to communicate—are out of balance in depression” and offer
that theory as an explanation to the public, along with the theory that women
might experience depression more often than men because of “the cyclical rise
and fall of estrogen and other hormones” (“Depression”). </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> This focus on biological causes is also evident on the
NIMH page entitled “Women and Depression: Discovering Hope.” The organization
dedicates an entire webpage to depression in women, <span style="background: white;">devoting a large portion of the page to the various causes of depression
they consider important specifically for women, which are “Genetics,”
“Chemicals and Hormones,” “Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder,” “Postpartum
Depression,” “Menopause,” and “Stress.” Here again, the institute primarily
discusses biological and hormonal related explanations for depression, focusing
on the possibility that a family history of depression can increase risk for
development and the way that hormones change drastically around life events
exclusive to women, like menopause and pregnancy. These hormone changes may
affect the way that the brain works, which is another area of research (“Women
and…”). Even under the “Stress” heading, the website discloses that it is
unknown why traumatic events trigger depression in some women but not others.
Furthermore, this section mentions that “additional work and home
responsibilities” contribute to stress that women may feel, but fails to
connect these responsibilities to expectations for women: the idea that these
extra stresses and expectations are directly a result of being a woman, rather
than isolated instances, is where we begin our analysis. Overall, the page
focuses on biological factors specific to women that the NIMH claim to be the
most relevant causes of depression.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<!--[endif]--><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The focus on hormones and biology as primary sources for
depression is not constrained only to this government website: an analysis of a
popular advertisement for the antidepressant Cymbalta reveals the same sorts of
claims. In the television commercial a woman’s body is displayed on screen with
a glowing central nervous system while the narrator explains how the drug
“works on serotonin and norepinephrine,” two hormones connected with mood
(“Cymbalta…” 2011). Within the advertisement, no mention is given of other
causes or contributors to depression (unsurprising, given that the goal of
commercials is to sell their particular product). Given the authority of a
government organization and constant exposure to advertisements from
pharmaceutical companies, popular perceptions of depression in women are shaped
by the two sources discussed here:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_jDb9IY0VtZoopBhd9sDuJhGWldGPeqcPHYpudSGEi5iowCQbFqwUZJMuqSex0yxfpXeSzC1alIKH3vDry07bScTn3VWTk8QKEYcT3emG7HJfpkSm99WmHVC-3cqE206HflOQG5H93M9/s1600/cymbalta+ad.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_jDb9IY0VtZoopBhd9sDuJhGWldGPeqcPHYpudSGEi5iowCQbFqwUZJMuqSex0yxfpXeSzC1alIKH3vDry07bScTn3VWTk8QKEYcT3emG7HJfpkSm99WmHVC-3cqE206HflOQG5H93M9/s1600/cymbalta+ad.png" height="221" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(Figure 1: Cymbalta Ad) The visual of a body’s nervous system and brain being changed by these chemicals emphasizes the importance of hormones in causing depression.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Instead of focusing on the biological basis for
depression, feminist scholars often concentrate on structural and societal
factors when exploring the possible reasons for the disparity between rates of
depression in men and women. Beyond factors like poverty and abuse that
disproportionately affect women and can contribute to rates of depression
(Bueskens 2011), a pervasive cause that affects all women is society’s
expectation of women to fill a stereotypical role. As doctors, researchers, and
the public increasingly choose to look at depression on a case-by-case basis
rather than as an overarching, society-plaguing problem with patterns, they
“individualize” depression (Clarke 2007, 366). As a result, Clarke states, the
biological understanding of depression advanced by medical profession overlooks
the power dynamics and gender roles that affect depression and cause women to
suffer from the illness at higher rates. Clarke observed a support group for
women with depression and came to the conclusion, after analyzing what the
women said and how the community atmosphere helped them, that while biological
factors can contribute to experiencing depression, there are many other factors
at play, which are succinctly summarized in the following figure. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZgjpXDix2fGI9XAghXysTVIHlSphscdlnORT3xdLxkDgvcfeU0GzYsfkeg-_RPRd15_vA2Jf2g8TvcBMtbC9BPRatHD-YO24CqNYJkBLFrZfPxJ4uLe9DbABcq1Qr1Ze_vD8qZyOYaFic/s1600/deprzzion+graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZgjpXDix2fGI9XAghXysTVIHlSphscdlnORT3xdLxkDgvcfeU0GzYsfkeg-_RPRd15_vA2Jf2g8TvcBMtbC9BPRatHD-YO24CqNYJkBLFrZfPxJ4uLe9DbABcq1Qr1Ze_vD8qZyOYaFic/s1600/deprzzion+graph.png" height="232" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(Figure 2: Clarke 370)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">While</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Clarke finds that “individual
factors,” including biological elements, play a role in depression, they are
just one part of the whole picture: the largest, unifying category that
connects all women is called “society” and contains the expectations of
femininity that lead to the many destructive stereotypes about women. Clearly,
according to Clarke, there are overarching, structural aspects of society that
cause women to be more likely to experience depression than men. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="background: white;">Two other feminist
scholars, Josephine Tan and Patricia M. Ulbrich explore this idea through two
specific feminine stereotypes. Tan looks specifically at the ideal of women
being non-confrontational and selfless and makes similar arguments to those of
Clarke in her article, “Self-Silencing, Anger, and Depressive Symptoms in
Women”. The central tenet of Tan’s argument is that the higher rates of
depression in women are “because of their greater tendency to self-silence in
intimate relationships in order to preserve harmony and the relationship and to
adhere to the traditional female role” (Tan 2008, 6). “Self-silencing” refers
to the idea that women tend to hide their true feelings from others, leading to
“feelings of anger and self-condemnation that can lead to heightened vulnerability
for depression in some women” (Tan 2008, 6). One stereotype of women is that
they not get upset or angry and “self-silencing” satisfies this societal
expectation, through women not expressing this anger. In the study she
conducted, Tan discovered that the women experiencing the most severe forms of
depression were most likely to report “greater anger expression, anger
suppression and self-silencing” (Tan 2008, 13), indicating that they were more
likely to have hidden their true feelings of anger from others until they
eventually had to express that anger. The study discusses how the women who
experienced more severe depression “ascribed more to the traditional female sex
role” (Tan 2008, 13) by attempting to be the ultimate, caring, selfless wife
and/or mother. These women were deeply affected by the expectations of society
(indicated by Clarke) that they be caring, non confrontational, and passive and
consequently, felt greater distress when they perceived themselves as failing
to fit their prescribed role. Tan stresses that more attention should be paid
to the structural factors that contribute to depression in women specifically
and investigates the influence of such factors on depression by working with
one particular female stereotype. </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> <span style="background: white;">The stereotype that
Ulbrich addresses through her study differs from Tan’s: her examination of two
income marriages connects to the image of women as dependent on men.. In her
article “The Determinants of Depression in Two-Income Marriages”, Ulbrich
investigates how women (and men) in two-income marriages react to the ‘nontraditional’
family structure in which they participate. Although the general attitude of
society towards this issue at this time of this study (1988) was probably less
progressive than it is now, the idea that women’s work is less valuable is
still prevalent in current society and so Ulbrich’s work is still relevant. She
discusses the reality of how men often resent the fact that their wives work
and studied several particular factors in each observed marriage: “husband’s
attitude toward wife’s employment, husband’s perceived attitude, and wife’s
orientation to work” (Ulbrich 1988, 126). This study concluded that, for women
who had low earnings, their husbands tended to oppose their employment and they
also had higher instances of depression, which indicates that the value of
women leaving their traditional place at home is determined by their earnings
and that the husbands opinions on the wife’s employment affected the wife’s
mental health. The most important factor, however, that Ulbrich determined in
predicting depression in women was level of education, a factor closely
correlated with social status: it appears from her study that women of higher
social status had husbands who supported their employment. From this, we can
understand how the topic of depression in women is an intersectional issue and
how feminists choosing to look at it through various lens and taking into
account various social and power structures helps gain a better understanding
of how certain stereotypes are applied to certain women. Ulbrich’s work
illustrates how women are expected to be the passive subjects at the bottom of
the social hierarchy, something that not all women want to be. As seen in these
three studies, depression often stems from women conforming to expectations
unhappily. Society puts massive amounts of pressure on women to be “feminine”
which often means being a caretaker, being subservient to a man, and being able
to gracefully handle all responsibilities without making a fuss. This pressure
is so strong that even if a woman wants to deny these expectations, society has
ways to force them, by humiliation or rejection, to comply. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Stereotypes continue to be important factors not only in cases of
depression, but also within understandings of mental disorders: feminists have
analyzed the history of mental illnesses and the criteria used to evaluate
them, arguing that psychoanalysis has historically focused on women and that
symptoms associated with many disorders are connected with ideals and
stereotypes of femininity. As a result of this conceptualization of mental
disorders, women have been inclined to be diagnosed with such an illness at
much higher rates. In <i>Hystories</i>, Elaine Showalter traces the
history of ‘hysteria’, a term that “throughout most of its medical
history...has been associated with women” (Showalter 1997, 15). Although
the term hysteria would not be found in the DSM today, “many of its traditional
symptoms were reclassified as anxiety neuroses, obsessional disorders, manic
depression, or borderline personality disorders” (Showalter 1997, 17). As
scientists in the eighteenth to twentieth century attempted to discern the
causes of hysteria, these male professionals often blamed female reproductive
organs and identified symptoms of this illness as stereotypical qualities of females
(Showalter 1997, 15-17, 21, 33). For example, Charcot defined hysterics as
those who were “vain and preoccupied with their appearance, deceitful and
self-dramatizing”, all traits associated with women (Showalter 1997, 34). More concerning though are the political
dimensions of this connection of femininity and hysteria: Showalter states that
“doctors viewed hysterical women as closet feminists who had to be reprogrammed
into traditional roles, and politicians attacked feminists activists as closet
hysterics who needed treatment rather than rights” (Showalter 1997, 49). As
women continue to be diagnosed more often with mental illness, accusations of
madness will continue to threaten women’s claims and arguments. Although many
of the pioneers Showalter discusses have passed away and the medical profession
has moved on, their findings and prejudices continue to be powerful; Sigmund
Freud, possibly the most famous psychoanalyst in history, “relied on cultural
myths of masculine and feminine identity in shaping his interpretation of
hysteria” (Showalter 1997, 44). As long as the stereotypes associated with
gender continue to affect those in charge of shaping diagnostic criteria, the
association of women and madness will be perpetuated.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Furthermore, feminists continue to critique the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, arguing that it both ignores external,
societal factors as the causes of illness and that a gender bias is evident in
the symptoms linked to many of the disorders. Feminists have realized
that as the DSM is revised, “the biomedical view has become more firmly
entrenched, reducing the stated influence of social and psychological theories
on the causes of mental illness” (Becker 2001, 336). This trend is problematic:
in the case of depression, we have already observed how an individual’s
experiences and the expectations placed upon them can affect their likelihood
of developing depression. Other mental illnesses have also been connected with
external events or influences that cannot be accounted for through a purely
biological perspective. An understanding of mental illness as purely
internal also risks “[denying] the very real social problems that women face” (Becker
2001, 336), a problem that is connected with the historical practice of
“[ridiculing] and [trivializing] women’s medical and political complaints”
(Showalter 1997, 8). Again, the political and social power of associating women
and mental illness is evident.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Through analyzing current critiques of diagnostic
criteria for several other disorders more commonly seen in women, we can work
to scrutinize the DSM guidelines for depression. As the DSM has been
revised and reshaped, continual appeals for certain disorders to be redefined
or to be taken out entirely have had varying levels of success. Premenstrual
dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is still included within the DSM, despite outcries
from feminist that “the institutionalization of a natural female bodily
function as a mental disorder” contributes to the idea of women as “mad”
(Becker 2001, 335). In other cases, like those of several personality
disorders, feminists push for diagnostic criteria to be changed due to the
gender bias incorporated into the terminology and symptoms used within the DSM.
Masochistic personality disorder (also known as self-defeating personality
disorder) has been a site of controversy, as feminists argue “against labeling
some women disordered when they display the same selfless, self-abnegating
behaviors widely encouraged in the socialization of girls” (Becker 2001, 335).
Women are expected to defer to others’ wishes, be kind and act courteous, while
men are not typically associated with these traits; consequently, women more
often have to suffer the stigmatization of being labeled with this mental
illness. Considering Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD), a similar issue
arises; feminists have observed that “the criteria of DPD exclude the kinds of
stereotyped expressions of male dependency that may be expressed in jealous,
controlling behavior”, and rely upon symptoms of dependency typical of women (Becker
2001, 339). Not only does this bias reflect dependency as “unhealthy” in women,
but the example of DPD also reinforces the consequences of ignoring external
influences and trivializing women’s complaints. Becker states that current
definitions of DPD encourage the idea that “when [dependency] is expressed in
an extreme form in women it primarily reflects dysfunction, as opposed to
reflecting the actual power differences between men and women that may
contribute to dependent behaviors in some women” (Becker 2001, 339). There are
real consequences to this gender bias: being diagnosed with a mental illness
(including ones like Borderline Personality Disorder, that are more often found
in women) can lead to being discredited in judicial settings, being stripped of
the ability to make decisions about your body, and being subject to the stigma
associated with disability (Becker 2001, 341). Gender bias and stereotypes
found in the DSM is connected to historical understandings of women as
‘hysterical’ and continues to shape political and social impressions of women.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Judith Butler, in her work, “Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution,” introduces the idea that gender is constructed through the
repetition of certain acts. She asserts that “gender identity is a performative
accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo” (Butler 520). Feminists
believe that the different genders are not automatically present at birth, but
that society imposes them upon us and punishes us through a variety of means if
we do not comply. There are two points relating to Butler’s work that we would
like to make in our discussion of the higher rate of depression in women than
in men. The first comes in when analyzing the feminist scholars’ arguments
about how societal pressures lead women to become depressed. We believe what
they mean is that they have been sanctioned, as Butler would describe it, and
feel that they cannot act the way they would like. Due to the necessity of
complying with certain gender norms, women feel the need to perform in a
certain way and, in turn, suppress their true desires. This suppression caused
by societal pressures is, the scholars say, a factor in causing depression in
women. Both in simply observing the world around us and in looking at Clarke,
Tan, and Ulbrich’s research, it is not difficult to see the various ways that
women have to perform their gender in certain ways and possibly forego some
desires or behaviors that diverge from the standard. In the case of causing
depression, many women experiencing the illness attribute it to having to live
up to expectations. We think that one woman in Clarke’s study put it best:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">‘Part of being depressed
is obviously how you feel about yourself but that also comes from society . . .
me thinking I have to be thin, I have to have a boyfriend, I have to have a
family. Part of me feeling happy is me realising that I don’t have to do any of
that ... I’m ok as who I am ... having clarity about what makes me happy . . .
skills to be comfortable in my own skin.’ (Clarke 2007, 376)</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The woman who made this
comment is really talking about how society expects her to perform her gender
in a certain way, i.e. by “[having] a boyfriend” or “[having] a family,” which
are considered socially acceptable ways to express femininity. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The second point we would like to highlight pertains to the gender
bias in the DSM criteria for diagnosing depression. If men and women are
socialized to perform their genders in certain and divergent ways, as Butler argues
that they do, then why would their expressions of depression be the same? It
makes sense that men often will not fit into the diagnostic criteria because
they, in most cases, would have been punished for revealing the emotions
necessary for a diagnosis (while women are often socialized to display more
emotionality and, thus, would fit the criteria when facing depression). In
western society, men are expected to be brave and strong and unwavering, not
emotional. The DSM requires certain factors to exist for a diagnosis of
depression, and it might simply not be recognized in men if they do not
outwardly express these factors. However, the reason for the phenomenon of men
not expressing these factors might not be that they are not experiencing
depression, but that their expression of it is different from how it is
outlined in the DSM because they have been socialized not to act certain ways.
It is not that men never feel “worthless” or “guilty,” (“Managing Depressive
Symptoms”) diagnostic criteria set forth by the DSM, but that they might not
express these feelings in the same way as women and thus might not be diagnosed
with depression. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Understanding the potential for bias within DSM criteria for
depression leads us to a better appreciation for the influence of the medical
community and biological sciences upon our daily lives, but also brings up the
uncomfortable reality of the amount of authority society gives them. Despite
the power given to science, it does not objectively capture the whole picture of
how our bodies and minds work: the ‘truths’ of science are affected by
scientist’s individual biases and opinions and shape what is considered normal
within society. The medical community has perpetuated traditional gender roles
and behaviors, not only in the arena of mental disorders, but also in
narratives describing the reproductive process. In “The Egg and the Sperm”,
Emily Martin chronicles the continual association of a female’s egg with
passivity and the male’s sperm with aggression despite new evidence that the
egg plays an active role in reproduction; although research has indicated that
previous understandings of reproduction were flawed, “researchers who made
[this] discovery continued to write papers and abstracts as if the sperm were
the active party who attacks, binds, penetrates, and enters the egg” (Martin
1991, 493). Instead of science operating in an objective space, “the picture of
egg and sperm drawn in popular as well as scientific accounts of reproductive
biology relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and
female” (Martin 1991, 485). How the egg and sperm function reflects back upon
female and males’ own gender performitivity: the stereotypes associated with
gender are transferred to the act of conception and the language describing it
changes as a result. Similarly, in the case of the DSM, the language describing
symptoms of depression (especially the focus emotions and moods) reflects the
influence of gender roles upon science and emphasizes that the biases of the
people who write the books and manuals affects everyone’s understanding: as
women are expected to perform their gender by being emotional and if these symptoms
are the only ones listed, depression and other mental illnesses will only be
identified in women. Future research is also affected as standard manuals like
the DSM “[set] out a template for new knowledge that shapes which scientific
questions will be asked and which will be overlooked” (Becker 2001, 336).
Recognizing and working to end acceptance of gender stereotypes within the
scientific community will have an effect on future scientific investigations,
which is vital if we hope to end the association of women and mental disorders.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Furthermore, the ability of science to rewrite normality
and acceptable behavior has consequences for all. By defining increasing
numbers of behaviors as indicators of a mental illness, we risk viewing
“problems of living and the distress associated with them...as diseases rather
than as behavior that is transactional or socially deviant” (Becker 2001, 334).
Showalter also asks “Can we redefine hysteria in a way that allows more space
for the mysteries of human emotions?” (Showalter 1997, 11). Science is
another part of our culture which assists in characterizing normality which in
turn influences stereotypes. In “The Sex/Gender Perplex”, Anne Fausto-Sterling
provides a history of the classification and understanding of intersex
individuals to argue that both sex and gender are constructed. Since such
individuals display internal and external signs characteristic of both males
and females, doctors did and continue to “base their assessment of sexual
identity on the overall shape of the body and the inclination of the patient” (Fausto-Sterling
200, 640) and if the patient’s body falls outside what is considered normal,
surgery ensues. The decision of assigning a male or female sex is not purely
based upon scientific understandings: when identifying a child as female,
“despite published medical information showing a range of clitoral size at
birth, doctors may use only their personal impressions to decide that a baby’s
clitoris is ‘too big’ to belong to a girl and must be downsized” (Fausto-Sterling
200, 644). Thus, normality for a certain gender can be shaped by individual
doctors with their own biases; this conclusion can be extended to our
understanding of mental disorders as well. Mental illness is a way of marking
behaviors or thoughts as ‘wrong’ and through constituting incorrect behaviors
(or gender performances) as symptoms of a disorder, the medical profession
marks certain behaviors as right. This, in turn, shapes our societal
understanding of stereotypes for each gender and discredits those who fall
outside the ‘right’ parameters. As we investigate mental disorders, we must be
cognizant of the impact of defining these illnesses on everyday conceptions of
normality and the effects on individuals who do not fit into those
representations. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of
depression and its higher prevalence among women, feminists must continue to
investigate and popularize the other societal and structural factors that
contribute to its development and bring to light the severe consequences of
enforcing strict gender stereotypes. Interested individuals must be wary of how
gender stereotypes affect the diagnostic criteria used to evaluate patients and
must consider this bias within their research. By connecting gender stereotypes
to women’s depression experiences, historical and current definitions of mental
illness, and science’s ability to constitute normality, we can begin to
understand the complex ways that gender interacts with society and stereotypes.
Becker states: “When human problems are viewed as illnesses, the values,
beliefs, and politics that influence clinicians when they make diagnoses are
concealed behind the mask of a purportedly neutral and objective science” (Becker
2001, 335). In order to determine some sort of truth about what depression is,
and if it truly affects women at higher rates due to biology, gender
stereotypes, or for structural reasons, we must uncover this mask and
critically analyze the institutions and professions that define it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Works Cited</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Butler, Judith. “Performative
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Theory.” </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Theatre Journal</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> 40(4) (1988): 519-531.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> <i>Australian Social Work</i> 59(4) (2006): 365-377. <i>Taylor and Francis Online.</i> Web. 10 Dec <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Jennifer M. Knack. “Depression.” <i>Encyclopedia of Gender and Society.</i> Ed.
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and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Showalter, Elaine. <i>Hystories</i>. United States of America:
Columbia University Press, 1997. Print.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Brooke Carfagnini. 2008. “Self-Silencing, Anger, and Depressive Symptoms <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> in Women.” <i>Journal of Prevention & Intervention in
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> <i>Taylor and Francis
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ulbrich, Patricia M.
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> <i>Journal of Marriage and Family</i> 50(1) (1988):
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Women and Depression:
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> n.d. Web. 9 Dec 2013.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-4123945965041453512014-02-06T21:11:00.000-05:002014-03-15T14:45:00.866-04:00Reporting on Campus Assault at Cornell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMjLIDCD5ts1qEtS6qjJGteksDAgzs2Mq8v4lnLs0CrIuXU_g1_ta_MXYgR6zi82tzmEHezqSSpZPUFkh84fMzJqFDTvvQeHwFnG9p4aZJPsRMaEwNaYRX5K2xJ8hr4ACk_mGruYetInU/s1600/tumblr_ldc6ffMV2m1qznp8go1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMjLIDCD5ts1qEtS6qjJGteksDAgzs2Mq8v4lnLs0CrIuXU_g1_ta_MXYgR6zi82tzmEHezqSSpZPUFkh84fMzJqFDTvvQeHwFnG9p4aZJPsRMaEwNaYRX5K2xJ8hr4ACk_mGruYetInU/s1600/tumblr_ldc6ffMV2m1qznp8go1_1280.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Sexual Violence, Media and Feminism:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A Local and Industry-Wide Perspective</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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By Anonymous</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Various
local media outlets, including the student publication <i>The Cornell Daily Sun, </i>covered a sexual assault<a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/FGSS%20Final%20Paper%20anonymous.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> that
occurred in spring 2013 and was reported to the police. The details of the
story itself as well as the consequences of insensitive media coverage were
explosive. Beyond the individual harms such stories can cause the victim,
flawed media<a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/FGSS%20Final%20Paper%20anonymous.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
coverage of sexual assault can serve to perpetuate sexist understandings of
rape and oppressive gender norms. A significant portion of this paper will
outline a set of feminist criteria by which The Sun’s sexual assault reporting
should be judged. It will also consider explanations for bias in such reporting
and propose feminist solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Background Information<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b>Media sexual
assault coverage has been problematic even before modern times. Historically,
media only deemed violence against women worth covering in a racially biased context,
or when the rape of a white woman by a black man was named as the reason for lynching
(Benedict, p. 25). The mainstream press did not cover rapes diverging from this
racial stereotype until the 1950s (Benedict, p. 27), with consistent media
coverage of sexual assault only emerging in the 1970s (Kitzinger, p. 15). Even
then, sexual assault coverage was riddled with overtly gendered and racial
bias, with victims depicted as “the wives, daughters, or ‘coeds,’ symbols of
white America, ‘taken from their men by rapists” (Benedict, p. 39). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Feminist activism
has resulted in major improvements in the tone and framing of rape coverage in
recent decades, but biases still linger. Reporting consistently fails to
provide an accurate depiction of the most common types of rape (Simpson and
Cote, p.165) and the rapes media do cover tend to stereotype the victims and
create stories more in line with rape mythology<a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/FGSS%20Final%20Paper%20anonymous.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
than the crime’s reality (Benedict, p.14-18). Even reports that have been
praised for reporting on sexual assault in a proactive, in-depth way — such as
the Pulitzer-prize winning Ziegenmeyer-Schorer report in 1990, which described
a rape survivor’s first year of recovery— have come under attack for embodying
various biases about rape that are uncommon, like stranger rape (Simpson and
Cote, p. 157). The Ziegenmeyer-Schorer report thus shows that attempts to rid
media coverage of myths and stereotypes is a long road indeed, with “even the most
careful reporting … [running] afoul of biases” (Simpson and Cote, p. 159). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Feminist Significance</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> At
its most basic, feminism aims to end “sexism, sexist exploitation and
oppression” (bell hooks). Media coverage of sexual assault is anti-feminist when
it stereotypes female victims, manipulates their stories for mass appeal and as
a result, treats both the victims themselves and all women unjustly, impeding
their autonomy by placing blame for rape on their actions, not those of the
perpetrator. Rape is different from other crimes in that the way it is
perceived and interpreted reflects deep-seated societal beliefs about gender
roles and sexual relations (Benedict, p.4). The way media covers violence
against women both reflects public opinion — as well as public misconceptions —
about sexual assaults and shapes the way people continue to perceive sexual
assaults. This mechanism is primarily at play when media upholds and continues
to spread rape myths, which, through their dichotomous portrayal of rape
victims as either virgins attacked by monstrous perpetrators or as temptresses
who lured their rapists (O’Hara, p. 248), undermine the realities of the
pervasiveness of rape and the nature of the crime — it is a crime, one of opportunity,
not of passion or of sex (Benedict, p. 16). Far from being monsters or
deviants, male rapists are friends or casual acquaintances, known to the victim
than not (Simpson and Cote, p165). Rape myths also place the impetus on women
to constrain their independence to prevent rape — not to go certain places or
do certain things or stay out at certain hours — because male perpetrators are
monsters, not in control of their own urges, strangers in the night that could
be lurking anywhere. When media coverage of rapes emphasizes the victim’s
agency over the agency of the perpetrator, or through language and framing of a
story minimizes the damage the crime has incurred on the victim, it serves to
enforce what Meyers describes as “social structures and values that deny male
violence against women … a serious, systemic problem rooted in misogyny and
patriarchy” (Meyers, p. ix).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Feminist
scholars have concluded that the process by which news stories are selected by
media to be covered is inherently biased. Reporters’ selection criteria of
‘unusualness’ allows reporters to internalize societal gender, race and class
biases and results in coverage that focuses on crimes against whites over
crimes against minorities (Meyers, p.99-100). Black female victims of rape experience
this bias in media coverage in an intersectional<a href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/FGSS%20Final%20Paper%20anonymous.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
way, subject to both sexism and racism. Media is less likely to cover the rape
of a black woman, and when they do reporters are more likely to question the
victim’s claims (Kitzinger, p. 30). In addition, when media does decide that a
black rape victim is “credible and worthy,” they portray her in such a way that
they erase her race, granting her “honorary whiteness” (Kitzinger, p. 31).
Interlocking sexism and racism in media coverage of the rapes of black victims
show us “society’s biases and prejudices. It tells us who is valued and who is
not, whose life has meaning and whose life is insignificant, who has power and
who does not” (Meyers p. 98). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Research Question<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> How
does the media perpetuate rape myths in its sexual assault coverage? “Alleged
Rape Victim Details Attack to IPD” by Kerry Close, an account of the rape of a
Cornell student as told to local police that was published in <i>The Cornell Daily Sun</i> on April 4, 2013,
is proof that when it does occur it is not deliberately done. Just six months
previous to the publishing of this article, the Cornell campus had seen a spate
of sexual assaults occur over Labor Day Weekend 2012. The campus was in crisis
over the issue of rape culture and the University launched several working
groups to combat what was seen as a widespread problem. The April 4 article was
the first sexual assault reported since the three sexual assaults that had been
reported the previous semester.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">“Alleged Rape
Victim Details Attack to IPD” recounted how a Cornell student woke up at 4:45
a.m. to find she was being raped, as well as the sequence of events leading up
to the crime — the victim’s actions that night, the fact that the victim’s
girlfriend fought the rapist off, the way the perpetrator entered the building
(he was in the victim’s girlfriend’s house playing drinking games with some of
her housemates) and the way the victim’s girlfriend took pictures of the rapist
so he could be identified. Adapting <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037">media guidelines for ethical sexual assault
reporting to a feminist perspective on the issue (</a><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Garcia-Rojas; </span>Simpson
and Cote p. 160; Benedict p. 259), <span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" href="file:///C:/Users/cit-labs/Downloads/FGSS%20Final%20Paper%20anonymous.docx#_msocom_1" id="_anchor_1" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_1">[SH1]</a><!--[endif]--> </span></span>“Alleged
Rape Victim Details Attack to IPD” can be evaluated by five criteria. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;">1.<span style="line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Contextualizing:</b> promotes incorporating
broader contextual and statistical information into single-event stories in
order to portray institutionalized structures that allow for sexism and sexist oppression.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;">2.<span style="line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Framing</b>: emphasizes neutrality in the way
the story is told through focusing inquiry and investigations on the
perpetrator rather than the victim. This perspective allows for the correction
of media’s sexist focus on the victim’s actions, which frame the story as if
her actions played a role in her rape. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;">3.<span style="line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Language: </b>encourages using language that is truthful to the crime at hand, without
implying that rape or assault is sex or using words like ‘assault’ in a
way that detracts from the victim’s claims. This focus aims to focus reporter
attention on the gendered bias that has been entrenched even in our system of
language. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;">4.<span style="line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Level of detail included: </b>attempts to portray the extent of the crime
that was committed. Not including graphic details of rape in the same way as other
crimes is sexist, minimizing the suffering of predominantly female victims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;">5.<span style="line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Anticipate the impact of publication:</b> ensures the published product does not harm
who have been rape victims; in particular, protecting the anonymity of the
specific victim in the case. This is crucial to allowing women the possibility
of choice — allowing them to heal and live a life defined beyond the status of
victim. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Feminist Analysis<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Close’s
article could have been further developed to allow for a feminist understanding
of rape, both the specific rape at hand as well as rape as a reflection of
sexist norms. Firstly, the crime at hand — acquaintance rape — could have been
contextualized much better, adding information to demystify the myth that rapes
are perpetrated by a stranger emerging from the bushes in the night. An
important statistic that could have been included is the fact that half of rape
victims in 2010 were raped by an acquaintance (<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Garcia-Rojas, p. 31). Moreover, the article failed to address
the severity of college campus rape culture — the fact that one in four or one
in five women will be the victims of completed or attempted rape while in
college (Armstrong, Hamilton and Sweeney, p. 483). The article could have gone
on to explain the institutionalized sexism that allows for rape to occur, such
as the variety of </span>“individual, organizational and interactional levels”
at college campus, including university policies that push drinking off-campus
and social expectations that college kids will drink and party (Armstrong,
Hamilton and Sweney). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Another
significant issue in media sexual assault coverage that can be seen in a more
minor form here is how the assault is framed. It is seen in <i>The Sun</i>’s coverage through the focus on
the victim’s actions the night of the assault — her going to a bar earlier that
evening, the amount of alcohol she drank (two beers, a shot of tequila, and a
whiskey and coke) and her state of intoxication (“moderately intoxicated”)
(Close, p. 1). These descriptions, while
not particularly important to the rape itself — since rapes are not caused by
women drinking or going to bars but by rapists wanting to rape women (Benedict,
p. 16) — serve to victim-blame by directing excessive focus on the victim’s
actions that night, implying that the places she went or the things she drank
contributed to her being raped. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> For
the most part the article uses clear, simple language that serves to emphasize
the crime being a rape rather than referring to it by any terms implying
consent was involved. Yet there are three areas where language could have been
used more effectively and sensitively. One sentence of the article reads, “At
about 4:45 a.m., the victim woke up and realized she was being raped” (Close,
p.1). This passive formulation of the crime quite literally constructs the
sentence so that it conceals the rapist; it also serves to put the focus on the
victim in relation to the crime rather than the perpetrator (<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Garcia-Rojas, p. 15). Although the author likely
structured the sentence in this manner — in the victim’s voice — because the
reporting was based off of a report given by the victim to police, a better
sentence might have read “A man entered the bedroom and raped the sleeping
victim, which she woke up to at about 4:45 a.m.” In addition, the term ‘victim’
is used about 20 times throughout the article. Those who have undergone sexual
assault prefer the term ‘survivor,’ as it gives them more autonomy over the
trauma they have suffered. </span>Moreover, though ‘alleged’ is used only twice
in the article, it is used in the most visible places in the article, the
headline and the first sentence. Because legal charges had been filed against
the perpetrator, Peter Mesko, at the time of publication, instead the same
concepts could have been attributed as “police say,” so as to not undermine the
victim’s words (<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Garcia-Rojas,
p. 11). </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
article, while providing an extremely detailed account regarding the victim’s
actions that night, fails to provide much information about the rape itself,
other than the victim waking up to the rape and saying,<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> “</span><span style="background: white; color: #252324; font-family: "Times","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t like that, stop!” (Close, p.1). The lack of graphic
detail, while possibly due to the reporter’s squeamishness, the lack of access
to the details and <i>The Sun</i>’s status
as a student-run newspaper, may have served to minimize the severity of the
rape and, as a result, the victim’s suffering (Garcia-Rojas, p. 12). </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
final criterion — considering the impact of publication — is also the most
troubling aspect of <i>The Sun’s</i>
coverage of the April rape. The level of detail included about the victim, her
girlfriend’s living situation and her girlfriend’s housemates’ group of
friends, allowed for the victim to be identified through the media coverage. This
is particularly egregious because privacy for survivors is an “essential
condition for taking steps toward recovery” and allowing them to be given the
choice whether to give or withhold their name is important, “profoundly” so (Simpson
and Cote, p. 163). Simpson and Cote write that the journalist who denies or invades
privacy of rape survivor interferes right to try to recover from assault
(Simpson and Cote, p. 164). Ultimately, while all five criteria are important
considerations in media sexual assault coverage, the issue of the victim’s
identity is the most crucial consideration — and is the area in which
insensitive coverage can lead to the most devastating personal impacts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Issues raised by literature<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b>Feminist media studies
analyses in this area have identified structural problems in the media
industry, arguing that the way news media apply standards of newsworthiness is
inherently biased. Although, when selecting stories to pursue, reporters cite valuing
audience interest, the degree to which the story affects many lives and the
timeliness of the issue, Meyers found that instead, the criteria of
“unusualness” seems to override those factors. This means in practice,
reporters only consider rapes newsworthy if they involve a serial rapist, the
rape of someone very old or very young, or what reporters consider unusual
circumstances (Meyers p. 93). Without a standard approach to evaluate
newsworthiness, unusualness allows reporters to rely on rape myths as well as
gender, class and race biases in selecting stories to pursue. As a result,
media coverage of sexual assault is skewed, with a disconnect between the
stories about rape that are being told and the realities of the pervasiveness of
acquaintance rape, the rarity of interracial rape, and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Individual
cases of media reporting all-too-often fail to live up to the five criteria of feminist-minded
sexual assault reporting mentioned above. In addition, although police
spokespeople are often considered reliable, neutral sources, while advocates
for rape victims are seen as biased because of their close work with those
affected by the crime, such a perspective fails to consider the reality that no
person can ever be truly neutral. Much like the feminist concept of situated
knowledge, police spokespeople’s statements are as affected by their values and
assumptions as advocates for rape victims (Meyers, p. 100). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>My own analysis</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> While
feminist media studies have reached a general consensus on the consequences of
biased media sexual assault coverage, they diverge in their analysis of why it occurs.
Some scholars argue that media reporting is a results of reporters internalizing
rape myths without even knowing it (O’Hara, p.247); other scholars more
explicitly designate it as a form of social control over women — dictating the
actions that are acceptable and the punishments for divergence (Meyers, p. 9). Some
point to the lack of gender and racial diversity in most newsrooms across the
country (Benedict, p. 202-203), in particular the lack of female writers
covering rape stories, which is likely due to the fact that rape is a crime
story and the crime desks are largely male-dominated (Benedict, p. 5). However,
dissenting scholars note that rape stories can still be flawed even when
written and supervised by female editors (Worthington, p.3). Though all of
these factors are play a role, the most compelling reason for rape myth-prone
media coverage is a variant of Meyers’ argument: although reporters go into the
field for a variety of reasons, ultimately they want to tell good stories —
stories that are captivating and universal, that will matter beyond the confines
of their locality. Stories that follow the familiar rise and fall of rape
mythology better fit the idea of a good story and capture the imagination than
the realities of rape, which are far more insidious and frightening. The trope
of the stranger in the bushes is more palatable than the uncle with the
wandering hands at family gatherings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> On
the whole, while media studies summarize the roadblocks preventing more
progressive media coverage of sexual assault, including the way competition,
deadlines and journalistic traditions inhibit divergence from rape myths
(Benedict, p.7), solutions are scarce. Educating reporters about feminist media
criticism (Worthington, p.2) and increasing their awareness about specific
reforms needed (Benedict, p. 259) have been some of the ideas bandied around.
But individual reforms cannot serve to target the structural inequities in
media sexual assault coverage, which hinge upon Meyers’ astute identification
of the “unusualness” criteria of newsworthiness as a methodology — or lack
thereof — exposing the process of story selection to biases. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Critical engagement with the literature<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> There
is no doubt that the media has a tendency to align rape victims into
stereotypes of female behavior, either blameless virgins or alluring
temptresses, “imposing these shared narratives … on the sex crimes they cover
like a cookie-cutter on dough” (Benedict, p. 24). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Yet rapes do occur that fit these
stereotypes, even if just partially, which presents a bind for reporters —
whether to alter reality to avoid a polarizing portrayal, or to report the
facts even if they play into Benedict’s virgin/vamp dichotomy. Although women
who meet a man at a bar and have one too many drinks are not culpable in a
resulting rape, the events of that night are part and parcel of how the crime
occurred. There is a distinction between reporting the truth of a situation and
claiming that women must not go out to bars or drink, and although it is a
tricky line to tread it is one worth treading. Suppressing true stories that
mimic rape myths is as damaging as suppressing true stories that are completely
at odds with rape myths, since both hijack public discourse about gender. Gender
bias can only be eliminated in sexual assault reporting by providing broad,
comprehensive rape coverage, to expand ideas of rape beyond rape myths and portray
the true terrain of such crimes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Gender, race and
class biases and tendencies towards rape myths exist in sexual assault
reporting. One solution, a transformative feminist approach, requires local
media cover every sexual assault, including attempted rapes, reported in their
area. Since sexism is based on unequal valuation of people in society (bell
hooks), and news coverage shows whom society values in selecting stories to
tell, combating systematic institutionalized sexism in media requires such a
move. If combined with proper education about sexual assault coverage grounded
in feminist teachings, such a strategy will result in stories being told that more
adequately represent the true risk of sexual assault in one’s community.
Although such a move will still not truly represent the number of sexual
assaults occurring in that community, as over 80% of rapes aren’t reported to
the police (Simpson and Cote, p. 163-4), it will portray a more expansive,
nuanced picture of sexual assaults and help to combat rape mythology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The second
solution, a reformative feminist approach, is similar to other proposals in
that it requires reporters to be aware of their own biases (Cote and Simpson
p.223-5, Meyers p.124, Benedict p. 251), but does not ask them to suppress
information that backs up virgin/vamp stereotypes or rape myths, since asking
such a thing is sexist — suppressing the validity of women being virgins or
vamps. Feminism does not ask for women to not be either; rather, it asks for
women to have the possibility to choose a wider range of possibilities of
being. This feminist perspective can be applied through reporters drawing out
the contradictions inherent in these stereotypes. This means subverting rape
myths — the victim as both a loyal friend and a flirt — and questioning them —
asking, like one reporter did, why women who consume alcohol are to be blamed
for the rape (O’Hara, p. 254). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Only by expanding
the conception of who gets raped — not the virgin or the vamp, which most women
wouldn’t identify with, but the friend, sister, pet-owner — can we as a society
combat the misconception that rape is about passion, lust, the actions of the
victims or the perpetrator’s mental or drug/alcohol-related incapacities. Once
rape mythology is revealed as farce and rape is understood as an act committed
by friends, family and acquaintances, once victims are understood as having no
culpability, can we move closer towards eliminating sexism, sexist exploitation
and sexist oppression.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Works Cited<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Armstrong,
Elizabeth, Laura Hamilton, and Brian Sweeney. "Sexual Assault on Campus: A
Multilevel, Integrative Approach to Party Rape." <i>Social Problems</i> 53.4
(2006): n. pag. Web. </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Benedict,
Helen.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Virgin or Vamp: How the
Press Covers Sex Crimes</i>. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: large;">Crenshaw,
Kimberle. "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and
Violence Against Women of Color." <i>Stanford Law Review</i> 43.1241
(1993): n. pag. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Close,
Kerry. "Alleged Rape Victim Details Attack to IPD." <i>The
Cornell Daily Sun</i>[Ithaca] 4 Apr. 2013, 129th ed., sec. 120: 1+. Print.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: large;">Hooks,
Bell. <i>Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center</i>. Cambridge, MA: South
End, 2000. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: large;">Meyers,
Marian. <i>News Coverage of Violence against Women: Engendering Blame</i>.
Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997. Print. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Times, serif;">O'Hara, Shannon. "Monsters, Playboys, Virgins and
Whores: Rape Myths in the News Media's Coverage of Sexual Violence."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Language and Literature</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>21.3 (2012): 247-59.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Monsters, Playboys, Virgins and
Whores: Rape Myths in the News Media's Coverage of Sexual Violence</i>. Web. 27
Nov. 2013. </span><b><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">"Reporting
on Rape and Sexual Violence: A Media Toolkit for Local and National Journalists
to Better Media Coverage." Ed. Claudia Garcia-Rojas. Chicago Taskforce on
Violence Against Girls and Young Women, n.d. Web.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Ross,
Karen, and Carolyn M. Byerly. <i>Women and Media: International
Perspectives</i>. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Print. </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Worthington, Nancy. "Progress and Persistent Problems:
Local TV News Framing of Acquaintance Rape on Campus." <i>Feminist
Media Studies</i> 8.1 (2008): n. pag. Web. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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The term sexual assault will be used to refer to any type of sexual contact
occurring without the recipient’s explicit consent, as defined by the
Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women. The term will be used
interchangeably with the term rape, and both will refer to rapes that are
perpetrated against women, the scope of this paper. Although rape occurs within
relationships, such as marital rape, this paper focuses exclusively on
acquaintance rape — rape by a person who is known to the victim — and stranger
rape, rape that is committed by someone unknown to the victim. Rape is
understood in this paper as a forced violation of another person’s body, an act
that is antithetical to sex and, in fact, can best be understood as sexual
humiliation for the victim (Benedict, p. 254).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Media, although it can refer to a wide array of mediums of mass communication,
will in this paper only apply to newspaper coverage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span> Rape
myths are a variety of “prejudicial, stereotyped or false beliefs, prejudices
or stereotypes about rape, rapists and rape victim<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span>s” and
encompass a variety of ideas about how rape occurs, including scenarios in
which — through their actions that night, the drinks they consumed or the
clothes they wore — victims are framed as liable for the violence they
encounter; whereas the perpetrator is framed as being crazy and therefore, less
culpable (O’Hara, p.247).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Intersectional feminist activism studies the way in which systems of oppression
are interlocked and thus how oppression can be suffered through multiple
aspects of identity (Crenshaw, p. 1243). For example, black women experience
oppression uniquely to the way a black man or white woman would. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-9852526605117356392014-02-06T20:49:00.001-05:002014-03-15T14:45:35.198-04:00Lack of Reproductive Rights for Imprisoned Mothers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://feministactivism.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/shackledwomaninlabor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://feministactivism.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/shackledwomaninlabor.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The
Forgotten: Incarcerated Mothers</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">by Molly Morningstar</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;">As the amount of female prisoners continues
to skyrocket, the need to acknowledge their existence increases exponentially.
Not only do these prisoners need recognition from the public sphere, their rights
and treatment must be protected. Prison, as it currently operates, functions as
a modern kind of social death, one where prisoners are devoid of rights and
representation. Confinement tactics that are reminiscent of slavery still
plague the experiences of American female prisoners, whose reproductive rights
are infringed upon and forgotten. As the personhood of prisoners is neglected,
so goes their ability to engage in aspects of life that are protected by the
United States constitution. Ultimately, these abuses lead to the destruction of
prisoner’s roles as mothers and full members of society. The poor treatment of
female prisoners and disregard for their reproductive health, however, remains
largely outside the feminist sphere of intellectual thought, and begs the
question of who remains marginalized despite a growing body of feminist
literature. The destruction of women’s reproductive rights, and human rights,
is influenced by historical tactics of subordination, and continues to damage
the physical and psychological health of women. Furthermore, it permeates into
our larger society, and functions as a leg in the structure of oppression
within the United States. An evaluation of prisoner’s rights is essential in
understanding the human rights abuses that incarcerated women routinely suffer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">
Within the United States prisoners do not hold all of their constitutional
rights; but they are protected by certain amendments. A prisoner’s rights are
decided state by state, with a few pertinent exceptions. The 8<sup>th</sup> Amendment
requires that they not experience any form of cruel or unusual punishment, and
ensures them a certain standard of living. They are also protected by the
Fourteenth Amendment, which grants them the right to raise and bear children,
or choose to have an abortion. Additionally, the United Nations has declared
reproductive rights as a basic human right, and attempts to ensure this through
the <span style="background: white;">UNFPA, the UN Population Fund. One of
their major goals, stated in the organizations website section titled <i>About
UNFPA,</i> is to deliver “a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every
birth is safe, every young person's potential is fulfilled”. is This includes a
birth with “Antenatal, safe delivery, and post-natal care”. The recognition of
a safe birth is a key element in evaluating prisoners reproductive rights, as
the birthing process is often abusive, traumatic, and unsafe. By viewing
reproductive rights through the lens of human rights, it becomes clear that the
mistreatment of women within the prison system is a violation of not only the
Constitution, but also a crime against humanity. Luna expresses this by saying
“</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">A human right implies
that any system of government is unacceptable if it denies the full expression
of the natural, inalienable rights of human beings” (Luna 346). Therefore,
abusive practices should be addressed by the public and political alike.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"> To
further understand the extent of these human rights violations, it is necessary
to comprehend the sheer numbers are incarcerated mothers and girls within the
US prison system.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">
Women are the fastest growing group to be entering into US prisons (Vainik
671). For instance, the level of female prisoners “</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">increased by 500% during
1980 to 1995” (Vainik). Furthermore, the majority of these women are mothers.
Lynn M. Paltrow, in her article titled <i>Roe v Wade and the New Jane
Crow: Reproductive Rights in the Age of Mass Incarceration </i>states that
“Two thirds of the incarcerated women in the United States have at least one
minor child, and approximately five percent of women are pregnant when
they begin their incarceration” (Paltrow 17). These numbers alone should
inspire public discourse on the reproductive rights of women, but their
existence is relatively absent from the academic sphere. It is argued the
numbers of women who are sent to prison is the result of the war on drugs and
its unforgiving policies towards people who are seen as fellow conspirators.
Kimberle Crenshaw points out that these rising numbers of women in prison is
reflective of “gendered relations between men and women” (Crenshaw 1440). She
illuminates the fact that women fill the subordinate role in many
relationships, resulting in their inability to control their breadwinner’s
actions. Whitehead furthers this point, and highlights it’s effects: “</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">In the case of the war
on drugs, women experience a double exploitation: the patriarchal justice
system ignores women’s oppression in dependent relationships where they are
often forced to cover up the illegal activity of their male partners, and it
fails to recognize the ultimate harm that results from dislocating women from
their families” (Whitehead 301). Whiteheads quote is particularly pertinent to
my argument, as it highlights the connection between patriarchy within society
and its effect on families via the judicial system. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">Crenshaw’s work is
focused on the intersectionality on the era of mass incarceration, and points
out that it is not only a result of gender dynamics, but also historical and
consistent dynamics of race and class.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">
Crenshaw, in her essay <i>From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration:
Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control </i>highlights
how structures within society create a set of vulnerabilities that
disproportionally effect black women, who represent the largest cohort of
female prisoners. She remarks, “</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">single Black mothers are disproportionately low income, a
socioeconomic consequence that is itself a product of the interlocking
dimensions of race, class, and gender inequality” (Crenshaw 1441). Crenshaw
argues that these women are at the lowest tier of social hierarchy, and
experience the highest levels of overpolicing and underprotection. She uses the
example of Section 8 housing vouchers that were given to economically distraught
families, which allowed single Black women to move into housing units in
predominantly white, middle class neighborhoods. The local police, who devised
a force to deal with the new “hazard”, saw this as a threat. The police then
failed to protect families during times of distress and abuse, and instead
subjected them to repeated investigation. Crenshaw claims that this is
representative of the complicated “institutional interface </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">between subsidy programs
and policing” (Crenshaw 1442), which puts those who are most vulnerable under
constant scrutiny. Volscho provides a link between reproductive rights and the
State’s power when he points out that state lawmakers repeatedly introduced
bills in the early 1990s to require women of public assistance to use Norplant,
a form of birth control which temporarily sterilizes the woman. These analysis
are important in the understanding of women as not only victims of a
patriarchal society, but also as agents within the interaction of state power.
Roth claims that the proliferation of female prisoners is deeply tied to
ideologies, political structures, and economics (Roth 417). Roth and Crenshaw
illuminate how the rising levels of women in the prison system are a result of
historical and structural aspects of American society. This analysis is
particularly important when attempting to understand why discourses on
prisoner’s rights and experiences are absent from the public sphere. Historical
treatment of women in prison is helpful in illustrating how current prison policies
are intersectional, and why they continue to be abusive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">History shows us how the
imprisonment of women has always been relevant to their reproductive rights,
and the woman’s race was indicative of what kind of penal institution she would
be sent to. Vainik discusses how white women were sent to reformatory
institutions where “</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">The majority of such institutions adopted a matron system wherein
a female oversaw the women prisoners and applied the maternal rehabilitative
approach” (Vainik 672). Women who attained the skills necessary to be proper
housewives were rewarded with nightly activities of conversation, needlework,
and refreshments (Vainik 672). We see that the segregation of white women and
black women in the US prison system was directly tied to the role of the
mother, with a special emphasis on domesticity and “demure sexuality” (Vainik
673). White women were often not separated from their children, “inmates were
allowed to keep their babies or children with them while they lived at the reformatories. Children
not only intensified the domestic atmosphere of the reformatory but also spared
mothers from the physiological and psychological trauma of separation from
their children” (Vainik 673). Comparatively, black women were not offered the
same luxuries.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">
African American women experienced abuses and a severe lack of infrastructure
during their incarceration. Vainik argues, “Prison policies actively penalized
black motherhood” (Vainik 673). They experienced decrepit conditions and a lack
of health or educational services. There were no rehabilitation services, and
no data to show that they were allowed to keep their children with them. Vainik
contends that not only their motherhood was being attacked, but their sexuality
as a whole. Black women often underwent involuntary hysterectomies, or were
required to take different forms of birth control. Volscho argues that
pervasive racist stereotypes “help to constrain, minimize, or completely
eliminate reproductive activities of women of color” (Volscho 676). He
goes on to discuss the stereotypes as they refer to sexuality, such as the
“jezebel” conception of Black female sexuality. These notions then permeate the
medical and judicial systems, which operate with a racist lens and believe,
subconsciously or not, that they are “acting to stop the spread of black
women’s immoral character” (Vainik 674). This understanding of the historical
abuses of African American women sets the stage to better understand how our
modern day prisons continue to operate within a framework that is not only
inherently racist, but also strategically aimed at the controlling reproductive
rights of female inmates. Specifically, the experience of childbirth is a
stunning example of how the historical treatment of women permeates our modern
penitentiary system.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">
Prison’s treatment of mothers and pregnant women is both abusive and unsafe. We
see this through a story told by Jenni Vainik in her paper titled <i>The
Reproductive and Parental Rights of Incarcerated Mothers. </i>The story
regards a women serving time in the McPherson Unit in Newport, Arkensas:</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 200%;">Shawanna went into
labor. Despite her pleas, prison officials did not bring her to the hospital
right away. Instead, Shawanna spent her first twelve hours of labor in her
prison cell. During those twelve hours, the officers only allowed
Shawanna to have Tylenol to relieve the pain of her contractions. By the
time Shawanna arrived at the hospital, her orange prison garb was dripping wet
with amniotic fluid and her legs were shackled together. She—along with
her doctor and two nurses—asked the armed guard who accompanied her into the
delivery room to remove the shackles from her legs. Nevertheless, the
guard refused to unshackle Shawanna. The experience of giving birth while
immobilized left Shawanna with lasting back pain and permanent damage to her
sciatic nerve (Vainik 670). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">Vainik describes the prison guard’s absolute disregard for
Shawanna’s safety and experience. It is apparent that the officials had no sort
of empathy towards her, and their actions are dehumanizing and cruel.
Shawanna’s story is not an anomaly; rather, it represents the multitudes of
experiences endured by female prisoners. Based on the shocking numbers of
pregnant female prisoners, we can only assume that thousands of women undergo
this same abuse. Shackling during birth is reminiscent of slavery tactics, a
way of degrading a woman physically and psychologically. Vainik states: “both
mother and baby are forcefully made aware that they are subjects of social
contempt” (Vainik 678). This observation cannot be negated when reflecting on
the analysis by Crenshaw and Roth, who see the presence of so many
African-American prisoners as a reflection of larger social and structural
aggression. This social contempt seems to be the only explanation for the
absence of protest in defending prisoner’s rights. Furthermore, a safe delivery
it implicit in The Right to Bear Children, and these practices directly
jeopardize this on both a psychological and physical level.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">Not only do women
experience abuse during the birthing process, but their health is also ignored
throughout pregnancy. Judith Merenda Wismont’s article in the “Journal of
Midwifery & Womens Health” reported that women’s health care needs are
routinely neglected, and states: “Deficiencies were identified in the areas of
routine health and obstetric care, as well as emergency care” (Wismont 293). An
explanatory factor in this deficiency could be Roth’s explanation of how
“tensions between security and medicine are ‘resolved’ in favor of security”
(Roth 428). This system of resolution results in the threatened state of
incarcerated women’s health. While there is no doubt that their state of health
of endangered, an understanding of how the prison system impacts the mothering
of women is increasingly important. Wismont outlines how the experience of
being pregnant within prison is incredibly difficult for women, and that the
grief and emotional distress associated with the inability to mother their future
or previously born children caused great psychological distress. Wismont
discusses how the distancing that incarcerated mothers experience from their
fetus might jeopardize the desire to make positive choices, such as
“participation in mothering classes, abstinence from drug and alcohol use, and
educational opportunities and employment counseling” (Wismont 299).
Psychological distress is not to be discounted in the evaluation of how female
prisoners will go on to mother after their release, especially following such
intense levels of systematic abuse. The impact that the prison system has on
the family structure is equally relevant in evaluating the long-term effects of
the relationship between incarceration and motherhood.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">Despite their
constitutional protections, female prisoners “lose full legal and physical
custody rights to their children” (Vainik 676). Unless a family member is
willing to care for a child born to a female inmate, he gets put into the
foster care system. The functioning of the US prison system is detrimental to
the family structure, particularly the African American family. Crenshaw
discusses how the prison and foster care systems are parallel, how an
involvement in one leads to the other. These two institutions work to further
the destruction of motherhood for those who enter the system poor, and will
likely return to poor communities. As Gilmore puts it, “being locked in and
locked out are two sides of the same coin” (Gilmore 230). In effect, we see how
the intersection between family and incarceration furthers systems of
subordination and control, as those who are released from prison experience a
fractioning of their family structure. Gilmore, though primarily focusing on
mothers working to reclaim their incarcerated sons, highlights how the entire
prison industrial complex serves to disjoint the family structure of those who
are already at the bottom of the social and societal tier. There are
groups working to counter these oppressive structures, and calls from many
scholars for more academic focus on the treatment of the prison population.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; line-height: 200%;">The Prison Birth Project
is an organization that works out of Chicopee, MA. It is of particular interest
to me as I worked as a doula in Western MA, and had a strong tie to the
birth-world there. A doula is a support person for women during labor,
pregnancy and the post-partum period. Though strictly non-medical, we undergo
training that allows us to support women through information, physical care,
and emotional assurance. As a witness to birth, it is disturbing to learn of
the atrocious birthing conditions that some women are subjected to. However,
organizations such as the Prison Birth Project describe themselves as “</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">a reproductive justice
organization providing support, education, advocacy, and activism training to
women at the intersection of the criminal justice system and motherhood”
(Prison Birth Project). One of the most important aspects of the PBP is their
commitment to advocacy and participation in the public sphere. Though, they
have other programs focusing on doula support for women, and providing
pre-natal education to incarcerated women who would otherwise have none. Groups
such as the PBP are essential for raising awareness in every public sphere.
Even as a doula working in a very active birth community, the discourse on
women who are deeply marginalized, such as prisoners, remains absent. This same
deficiency can be seen in feminist literature, where incarcerated women remain
undefended. A greater academic outcry is a necessary step in returning the
human rights to prisoners, and recognizing the detrimental effects that this
treatment has on them as individuals, and also as a group. Despite an
increasingly active feminist discussion, the recognition that certain groups
remain marginalized and unrepresented is essential if the most simplistic goals
of feminism are to be achieved.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 200%;"> By
viewing reproductive rights as human rights, it is clear that women and mothers
within the prison system are systematically abused and degraded. Their role in
society leaves them invisible to not only the public, but also to the scholarly
realm. The treatment of women during birth is just one example of how the
reproductive rights of women are being routinely infringed upon, though these
violations permeate all aspects of prisoner’s sexuality, health, and future.
The defilement of women’s reproductive health is influenced by historical
tactics of subordination, and continues to damage the physical and
psychological health of women. Furthermore, it permeates into our larger
society, and functions as a leg in the structure of oppression within the
United States. It is necessary to further evaluate how to change current
practices within US prisons, and to address the system that is sending them
there in the first place. This discussion on reproductive rights opens the door
to questions about socioeconomic status, race, and class, and how all these
combine in the formation of the prison population.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;"><b>Works Cited</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;">Crenshaw,
Kimberle. “From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking
Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control.” Web. 20 November 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;">Gilmore,
Ruth Wilson. 2007. “Mothers Reclaiming our Children.” <i>Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing
California</i>. University of California Press. 181-240.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;">Luna,
Zakiya. “From Rights to Justice: Women of Color Changing the Face of US
Reproductive Rights Organizing” <i>Societies
Without Borders</i>. 4 (2009): 343-365. Print. 20 November 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large;">Paltrow,
Lynn M. “Row V Wade and the New Jane Crow: Reproductive Rights in the age of
Mass Incarceration” <i>American Journal of
Public Health</i>. 103.1 (2013): 17-21. Web. November 21 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Roth,
Rachel. "Searching for the State: Who Governs Prisoners' Reproductive
Rights?" <i>Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State
and Society</i>. 11.3 (2003): 411-438. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;">Vainik,
Jenni. “The Reproductive and Parental Rights of Incarcerated Mothers.” <i>Family Court Review</i>. 46.4 (2008):
670-694. Web. November 21 2013. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Volscho,
Thomas. "Racism and Disparities in Women's Use of the Depo-Provera
Injection in the Contemporary USA." <i>Critical Sociology</i>. 37.673
(2011): 673-688. Print.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Wismont, Merenda Judith RN, PhD. “The Lived
Pregnancy Experience of Women in Prison.” <i>Journal of Midwifery & Women’s
Health</i>. 45.4 (2000): 292-300. Web. 19 November 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Whitehead, Jaye Cee. “Feminist prison activism: An assessment of
empowerment.” <i>Feminist Theory</i>. 8.3
(2007): 299-314. Web. 19 November 201.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;">http://theprisonbirthproject.org</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">. Accessed December 9<sup>th</sup>
2013</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-88445108297483739152014-02-06T20:23:00.001-05:002014-03-15T16:11:33.870-04:00Femme Bashing and the Masculine Ideal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Abjection
of the Feminine</span></i></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">:
Effeminophobia and the Construction of Gay Masculinities</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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by Betrearon Tezera</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Is every kind of man equally extended in society, or are there particular
kinds of men deemed more favorable for social endorsement? Peter Jackson
reminds us that “certain forms of masculinity…achieve a virtual hegemony [in
contemporary society]” (201). Furthermore, the proliferation of hegemonic
masculinity is achieved by explicitly “privileging certain socially-approved
[embodiments of masculinity, most notably]…exclusive heterosexuality” (Jackson
201).</span> <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Indeed, as dominant (hegemonic) masculinity relates to homosexual men, it
insists on the figuration of the gay male body as “deviant and dangerous”
(Jackson 201). For the purposes of brevity, and achieving a truly incisive
analysis, this paper will focus on the differential valuation of masculinities
within post-Stonewall (1969) gay male enclaves in the United States, with the
understanding that, even within the bounds of a generally disprized social
group, certain masculinities are valorized at the expense of others (Emily Kane
54). So, to refine our driving question, is every kind of gay man equally
extended in “gay social spaces?” By utilizing various literatures in sociology,
anthropology, sexuality studies, and cultural studies, this paper aims to
assert that effeminate gay men hold a particularly marginalized position within
US LGBT social and political spaces. Furthermore, in combination with the
rejection of the feminine in the relegation of effeminate homosexual men, I aim
to argue that, within said gay male enclaves, the obsessive need to achieve
hegemonic ideals of masculinity reduces the <i>queer</i>
political potential non-normative gender expressions and sexualities
purportedly promise, a potential that, if fully realized, could have
significant positive implications for the social, political, economic, and
cultural valuation of effeminate gay men in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: large;">In <i>Families We Choose: Lesbians,
Gays, Kinship, </i>Kath Weston reminds us that homosexual subjectivities
“structured [themselves as] possibilities…for self-identified lesbians and gay
men in the United States,” when the Stonewall Riots of June 1969 took place in
New York City, effectively “birthing an [official] gay movement” (44). The
significance of the Stonewall Riots in organizing the thesis of this paper thus
becomes self-evident. Indeed, Weston asserts that, as a consequence of the
Stonewall Riots, publicly declaring a homosexual identity, a process referred
to as <i>coming out</i>, became “a strategy
designed to gain political power and promote self-respect,” an assertion most
profusely valorized by American gay icon Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city
supervisor of San Francisco (47). But while this “moment of inception” of the
modern gay movement in the United States is often cited as one of the greatest
humanist strides of contemporary times, it is not exempt from the intrusive
doctrines of hegemonic masculinity, a critical example of which, as Emily Kane
reminds us, quoting sociologist Michael Kimmel, is “the notion of
anti-femininity, [which] lies at the heart of contemporary…constructions of
manhood, so that masculinity is defined more by what one is not rather than who
one is” (54). Contextualizing this tenet of hegemonic masculinity, Eve Kosofsky
Sedgwick notes that “the official gay movement has never been quick to attend
to issues concerning effeminate boys” (20). Sedgwick provides a workable
definition of <i>effeminophobia</i> here, in
addressing the reality that the modern gay movement often “turns away” from the
needs of gay men in its wake who do not embody ideals of hegemonic masculinity;
she notes that the modern gay movement has as an implicit requisite the
“relative de-emphasis of the links between gay adults and gender non-conforming
children” (Sedgwick 20). While this de-emphasis has been crucial to the
treatment of gender expression and sexual object choice as distinct and
non-collapsible conceptions, the danger, as relating to the effeminate gay
male, is that “the effeminate boy [comes to occupy] the position of the
haunting abject…of gay thought itself;…the eclipse of the effeminate boy from
adult gay discourse [represents] a damaging theoretical gap” (Sedgwick 20). To
ignore the specter of the effeminate gay male, whether child or adult, is to
belie the reality that “[gay men] have a…history of self-perceived [or
externally ascribed] effeminacy, femininity, and non-masculinity,” and the
grave illogicality of utilizing “internalized homophobic hatred” in order to
reify “gay-affirmative analyses” (Sedgwick 21).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Deploying
Sedgwick’s sentiments, I propose here that the modern gay movement is held
hostage by effeminophobia; more specifically, it is constricted in its <i>queer political possibilities</i> by what
can be called the “figure of the sissy.” <i>glbtq</i>,
the Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture,
defines the term “sissy” as “a term for an effeminate male,…used as a
disparaging term for boys who behave like girls;” indeed, the term “serves as a
kind of social control to enforce ‘gender appropriate’ behavior” (Hayes and
Summers). The origins of the term are debated, but American popular culture
figures it as a maligned iteration of the word “sister.” But a more intriguing
etiology of the term is furthered by <i>glbtq</i>,
an origin related to “the American Psychological Association’s (APA) voting to
remove homosexuality’s categorization as a mental illness,” implementing, in
its place, “Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood, also known as ‘Sissy Boy
Syndrome’” (Hayes and Summers). The sissy then mobilizes, as Hayes and Summers
would put it, “yet another attempt to pathologize gender variant behavior.”
Interestingly, the figure of the sissy, as an ideological figuration, is reminiscent
of what Judith Butler calls “the situation of duress under which gender
performance always and variously occurs;” it is important to remember here
that, as a result of Butler’s seminal work in feminist and gender theories, it
is generally accepted within academic and activist discourses that gender is </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“a performative [identity],… an identity instituted
through a <i>stylized repetition of acts</i>”
(519). In this sense, then, the figure of the sissy comes to represent not just
a milieu of “duress” that subtends the performance of gender, but a means of
instituting “punitive consequences” for “those who fail to <i>do</i> their gender right” as well (Butler 522).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In this sense, the figure of the sissy becomes a convenient
means of enforcing hegemonic masculinity, particularly considering gay male
enclaves. As Kane reminds us, hegemonic masculinity has as its features such
tenets as “aggression, limited emotionality, and heterosexuality” (54). This
view is corroborated by Hayes and Summers, as they assert that “many boys [who
are called “sissies” as a result of self-initiated or ascribed feminine
expressions] consciously attempt [as a result of the derisive power of the
figure of the sissy] to redirect their interests…toward stereotypically masculine
interests.” In this manner, what I propose as the figure of the sissy is
intimately related to what C.J. Pascoe calls the “specter of the ‘fag.’” (329).
As does Sedgwick, Pascoe reminds us that “the ‘fag’ position is an ‘abject’
position and…a ‘threatening specter;’” indeed, the “fag” asserts itself as “[a
means of] constituting contemporary American…masculinity, [actualized by] the
repudiation of this abjected identity” (333). Arguably, then, both the specter
of the “fag” and the figure of the “sissy” are “infused with regulatory power,”
such that the consolidation of a “coherent” American masculinity requires the
rejection of any performative repetition of femininity, what can be called “the
subordination of non-hegemonic masculinities” (Pascoe 333; Kane 54).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But, in addition to instilling the notion of the
“sissy” as a means of social (and <i>self-</i>)
policing in my theoretical framework, I would also like to propose that we read
the figure of the “sissy” as an illustration of what Sara Ahmed calls <i>proximity and its resultant disgust</i>,
“the inter-corporeal encounter of incorporation” through which we harbor
“disgust” as a reaction to “objects and subjects” interacting to form
“impressions, or how objects impress upon us,…[the] affect of one surface upon
another” (83, 6). Indeed, further relating this formation to the figure of the
“sissy,” “Ahmedian” disgust is not merely the act of rejecting or repudiating
this figure, for “disgust is deeply ambivalent, involving desire for, or an
attraction towards, the very objects that are felt to be repellent…‘even as the
disgusting repels, it rarely does so without capturing our attention’” (Ahmed
84; William Miller, quoted in Ahmed 84). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It is in the frisson between deep attraction and
acute repulsion that Ahmed locates what she calls <i>queer discomfort</i>: “[this is] a discomfort which is generative…[a
discomfort] not about assimilation (attraction) or resistance (repulsion), <i>but about inhabiting norms differently</i>…the
inhabitance is generative…insofar as it [represents] <i>possibilities</i> of living that do not ‘follow’ these norms through”
(155). Here, we can begin to construct a functional elucidation of the <i>queer</i>, and more precisely, why gay male “assimilationist”
attempts to realize hegemonic masculinity have decidedly de-queering effects.
Supplementing Ahmed’s insistence that we critically question, and eventually
move beyond, an oppositional figuration of societal norms, Lee Edelman reminds
us that “queerness can never define an identity; it can only ever disturb
one…the burden of queerness is to be located less in the assertion of an
oppositional political identity than in opposition to politics as <i>the governing fantasy of realizing</i>”
(17). Combining Ahmedian queer discomfort and an Edelmanian notion of queerness
as a <i>disidentification</i> from the
hegemonic understanding that politics is necessarily driven by the reification
of oppositional norms, I suggest a definition of queerness such that to be
queer is to disidentify with oppositional politics, while anticipating that
such a release from hegemonic organizations of political participation will afford
alleged sexual and gender “dissidents” an inclusive, empowering orientation to
the respective milieus within which they exist. It becomes evident, then, that
the contemporary gay male’s obsession with achieving hegemonic masculinity (at
the expense of effeminacy) is less queer because it insists on interacting with
an oppositional political order within which, as Kane reminds us, “masculinity
[is emphasized by] its relational opposition to femininity,” within a social
order that, as it currently stands, “can neither fully articulate nor
acknowledge [queerness]” (Kane 54; Edelman 26).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Utilizing this framework, how might we read
anthropological and sociological evidence in which hegemonic masculinity
becomes a prized performance? Can we begin to suggest a queer-feminist
alternative to hegemonic masculinity, and more importantly, to the insistence
that hegemonic masculinity occupy its dominance by repudiating the figure of
the “sissy?” I would like to use the remainder of this paper to further my
attempt at answering these and other related questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Kittiwut Taywaditep’s examination of contemporary
American gay subculture offers perhaps one of the most insightful ventures in
elucidating hegemonic masculinity, particularly as it relates to the ways in
which gay men who embody non-hegemonic masculinities experience punitive
consequences; for instance, the reality that “effeminate gay men
[are]…predisposed to…[psychological] problems…such as low self-esteem and poor
psychological adjustment [due to] marginalization [via] constant [social]
rejection” (Taywaditep 11). Indeed, exploring an array of historical materials
evidencing the progression of the gay movement, particularly George Chauncey’s
exploration of (white) gay life in New York, he observes that “hypermasculine
sensibilities announced a new masculine gay identity [through rejecting] the
‘limp-wristed swish’ stereotype of…previous eras” (Taywaditep 7, 9). This
hypermasculine ideal, corresponding comfortably with doctrines of hegemonic
masculinity, “became highly visible in gay men’s aesthetics, fashions,
recreation, and erotica” (Taywaditep 9). We begin to observe, then, that the
valorization of hegemonic masculinity within gay male enclaves (and indeed, in
broader society) is representationally achieved, and supported by capitalist
constructs which are invariably in conversation with doctrines of (hetero)sexualized
masculinity and the accumulation of value and markets, regardless of the ways
in which individual consumers of representations of hegemonic masculinity
identify in terms of sexual object choice; as Ahmed reminds us, “it is
important not to identify [homosexuality] as outside the global economy, which
transforms ‘pleasures’ into ‘profits’ by exploiting the labors of others” (163).
But perhaps the most useful observation Taywaditep makes is his incisive
comparison of the hypermasculine gay figure and the effeminate gay figure as
potential embodiments of what he calls <i>the
rage of oppression</i>: “effeminacy acknowledges the rage of being oppressed in
defiance; [gay men’s] macho denies that there is rage and oppression [at all]”
(11). Indeed, one could even figure the “macho” as “[a set of] values which are
architects of closeted lives…adopting that <i>style</i>
is the opposite of <i>awareness</i>” (Taywaditep
11). In addition to reminding us that gendered self-expressions are achieved
through “stylized repetitions,” as is aforementioned, Taywaditep’s analysis is
also in dialogue with Ahmed’s call to embrace queer discomfort as a source of
enlightenment and emancipation, where his valorization of “awareness” could be
compared to the tenuous yet generative space of neither assimilating to, nor
rejecting, norms, but rather, embodying an awareness of one’s social position <i>in the present</i> <i>moment</i>, which is perhaps the most immediate explanation as to how
and why effeminate gay men come to understand (and wrathfully interrogate) the
fallacy of gender and, more importantly, the fallacy of hegemonic masculinity,
for “gender is…a construction that [is realized through] the tacit agreement to
perform, produce, and sustain <i>discrete
and polar</i> genders as <i>cultural
fictions</i> [where]…the construction compels one’s beliefs in its necessity
and naturalness” (Butler 522).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It is productive here to explore further the potential
manifestations of what Taywaditep figures as “effeminate rage,” where it could
be argued that this rage is also an example of <i>radical queerness</i>, where the varied stings and wounds of perpetually
oppressive social constructs converge to inspire the “sissy” to reject the
social order’s impertinent and often unattainable demands. Just how does one
channel a rage that has the potential to overtake one’s life and livelihood, to
fuel a measured and effectively subversive presence? Perhaps an example of this
is observed in Jamie Coy, Lynsey Goddard, and Jack Kahn’s analysis of the ways
in which drag performances (in this paper, defined as the caricaturing of
stereotypically feminine affectations by male-identified bodies) can provide a
potential arena within which a successful sabotaging of hegemonic masculinity
can take place. In examining the private and professional lives of performers
at the Theatre Offensive, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing
“’activist-based artistic forums’ promoting creative programs in queer culture,”
Coy, Goddard, and Kahn concentrate on drag performers whose subversive
attachment to drag performance can be seen as a template for queer
intellectual, activist, and artistic investments (142). Indeed, these
performers, in addition to displaying the “traditional” and socially
recognizable drag repertoire, also “defy traditional drag norms by portraying
female-bodied characters in less than flattering and/or stereotypically
feminine ways…[often consistently refusing to] hide embodied male
characteristics [like genitals and facial hair]” (Coy, Goddard, and Kahn 142). This
embodiment, an uncanny and often “grotesque” embodiment at that, is apt in
furthering an understanding of gender and sexuality, in which Sedgwick’s “de-emphasis”
of the specter of the childhood “sissy” in articulating contemporary adult gay
male discourses is critically interrogated. The performers of the Theatre
Offensive begin to productively collapse some of the assumptions the
contemporary gay movement has imbued itself with, regarding the apparent mutual
exclusivity of gender expression and sexual object choice. In short, these
performers refuse to “box themselves into a particular aesthetic,” to
consciously choose to not engage with normativizing demands on their gendered
performances of drag (Coy, Goddard, and Kahn 142). Theatre Offensive shows here
the ways in which, as subjects, consumers of these performances can be “acted
upon” by the “grotesque” object that is the “unrefined” drag queen, and as Ahmed
reminds us, can be influenced positively by the “ambivalent disgust” they may
experience in the course of such keenly subversive performances. But while
Theatre Offensive represents potentially queer correctives to hegemonic
masculinity, these correctives nevertheless arise in platforms with significant
cultural and political cache, with an understanding of, <i>and an absorption into</i>, American historical and popular culture,
pervaded by the presence of the white, gay, middle to upper-class male subject.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila reminds us that a
majority of literature on queer theory, particularly involving hegemonic
masculinity, has been produced with the white (particularly, Anglo-Saxon)
middle to upper-class gay male in mind (209). But what might our examination of
hegemonic masculinity reveal if we were to examine non-white American men who
have sex with men (MSM)? This is precisely what Vasquez del Aguila achieves, in
his examination of the lives Peruvian-born MSM lead in New York City, considered
by many scholars to be a gay “epicenter,” a geographical region where gay life
and gay culture proliferate significantly (207). Vasquez del Aguila reminds us
that, in such gay epicenters, “white people [are] the hegemonic and desired
race, while other ethnic and racial groups are relegated to subordinate
positions” (210). But, while “white middle class [men] are more likely to be
associated with…[subversive] gay identities,” Vasquez del Aguila’s
intersectional analysis of Peruvian MSM in New York City suggests that this
particular subset of gay men has its own strategies of navigating the
strictures of hegemonic masculinity (209). In a Latin American immigrant
context, Vasquez del Aguila asserts that “those [Peruvian-American gay men] who
perform as ‘straight gays’ </span>increase
their masculine capital…[and] dilute ‘doubts’ about their homosexuality” (208).
But while these men achieve some semblance of hegemonic masculinity by
performing such tenets as “[manly] walking and speaking, proficiency in ‘male’
sports, [and] display and control of emotions,” they also “bend” the norms of
hegemonic masculinity in important ways (Vasquez del Aguila 210). For instance,
the <i>caleta</i>, in this expatriate gay
community, represents “a man who has homoerotic experiences in total secrecy
and discretion...., a man with a public heterosexual identity… [and] a secret
homosexual life” (Vasquez del Aguila 210). In addition, many Peruvian-American
gay men come out as “bisexual,” with the belief that “a bisexual
identity….keeps alive their families’ ‘hope’ for a future ‘reconversion’ to a
heterosexual life….bisexuals remain ‘masculine’ and their ability to penetrate
other people is still intact” (Vasquez del Aguila 215). While these men
represent a less grandiose challenge to hegemonic masculinity relative to
Theatre Offensive, their embodied masculinities are more related to their need
to navigate their existences than to the denigration and maligning of the
effeminate gay male. In this manner, a certain <i>queerness</i> is realized, in that these men subvert hegemonic
masculinity to the extent of mobilizing what Coy, Goddard, and Kahn call <i>masculinity as strategy</i>, where
“[conventional] masculinity [becomes] a strategy for adaptive strategic action
[in the realm of]…work, academic environments, and relationships” (145).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Eithne Luibheid, relying on Lisa Duggan’s
work, reminds us that “concrete mechanisms” like hegemonic masculinity pervade
our social milieus, mechanisms through which the homosexual male body is
coopted “as a…figure complicit in the abandonment of broad-based social justice
struggles in favor of incorporation [into hegemony] for a select few” (Luibheid
299, 307). Our objective is thus clear: we must continue, using the above and
countless other examples as referential points of origin, to advocate for a
radical queering of hegemonic masculinity, lest we come to serve hegemony as
coopted social machinations working to achieve our own annihilation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large; text-transform: uppercase;">Works Cited<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Ahmed, Sara. <i>The
Cultural Politics of Emotion</i>. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay
in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” <i>Theatre
Journal </i>40.4 (1988): 519-31. Print. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Coy</span>, Jamie M., Lynsey Goddard,
and Jack S. Kahn<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">. “Gay Men
and Drag: Dialogical Resistance to Hegemonic Masculinity.” <i>Culture and
Psychology </i>19.1 (2012): 139-62. Print. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">del Aguila, Ernesto V. “‘God Forgives the Sin But Not the Scandal’:
Coming Out in a Transnational Context—Between Sexual Freedom and Cultural
Isolation.” <i>Sexualities</i> 15.2 (2012):
207-24. Print<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Edelman, Lee. <i>No
Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. </i>Durham: Duke, 2004. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: large;">Hayes, Brandon,
and Claude Summers. “Sissies.” <i>glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. </i>Ed. Claude J. Summers. 2006. Web.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: large;">Jackson, Peter.
“The Cultural Politics of Masculinity: Towards a Social Geography.” <i>Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers</i> 16.2 (1991): 199-213. Print. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Kane, Emily. “‘No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That?’: Parents’
Responses to Children’s Gender Nonconformity.” <i>Men’s Lives</i>. Eds. Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon, 2010. 52-69. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Luibheid, Eithne. “Sexuality, Migration, and the Shifting Line Between
Legal and Illegal Status.” <i>GLQ: A Journal
of Lesbian and Gay Studies </i>14.2-3 (2008): 289-310. Print. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Pascoe, C.J. “‘Dude, You’re a Fag’: Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag
Discourse.” <i>Sexualities </i>8.3 (2005):
329-46. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: large;">Sedgwick, Eve, K.
“How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay.” <i>Social
Text </i>29.1 (1991): 18-27. Print.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Taywaditep</span>, Kittiwut<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">. “Marginalization Among the Marginalized:
Gay Men’s Anti-Effeminacy Attitudes.” <i>Journal of Homosexuality </i>42.1
(2001): 1-28. Print.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Weston, Kath. <i>Families
We Choose: Gays, Lesbians, Kinship</i>. New York: Columbia, 1991. Print</span>.<o:p></o:p></div>
CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-79453873088517541452014-02-06T19:45:00.001-05:002014-03-15T16:13:26.512-04:00Imaging Black Women in Popular Media<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">The Representation of Black Women in the Media</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
by Ashleigh Williams and Michelle Lee</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">Our nation was
founded on the principle “<span style="background: white;">that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are "</span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 200%;">”. However, throughout the course of history, it has become
evident that these unalienable rights are only granted to </span><i style="line-height: 200%;">white men</i><span style="line-height: 200%;">.
Individuals who are not protected by this particular race and gender category
have been historically subjected to legal sanctions that are indicative of
their </span><span style="line-height: 32px;">subordination</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> in society. Thus, a social hierarchy has emerged in which
groups of individuals are ranked based on their race and gender respectively,
placing black women at the bottom of this system. Due to their low rank in this
system, black women have continuously faced various forms of exploitation in
the public sphere. This public exploitation has been and is currently
manifested in media outlets such as films and television shows. The
exploitation of black women in the media is related to Feminist, Gender, and
Sexuality Studies because it analyzes the representations of a specific group
of women in the media as well as the ways in which </span><span style="line-height: 32px;">oppression</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> of gender and
race intersect. While dominant feminist rhetoric critiques the representations
of women in the media, it does little to recognize the importance of the
intersection of race and gender in our society. This paper will focus on the
intersection of race and gender by employing Black Feminist Theory to analyze
the representation of black women in the media.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Before we begin our
analyses of contemporary representations of African American women in media, it
is important to briefly recount the historical experiences of this group in
order to trace the origins of these stereotypical representations. For their
entire existence in the United States, black women have been subjected to
marginalization based on the white-supremacist, male dominant cultural beliefs
inherent in our society. These cultural beliefs, coupled with the colonial
necessity of expansionism and domination, contributed to the development of
slavery in the United States. Slavery is one of the most important social
institutions that has shaped both the experiences and perceptions of black
women in American society. Within their strictly controlled roles in this
system of oppression, dominant stereotypes about African American women
emerged. These stereotypes were used to evaluate and set the standard for black
women’s behaviors. The two prominent stereotypes that came from slavery are the
mammy and jezebel. The most recognizable stereotype of African American women
is of the mammy, who was a slave that was responsible for caring for the
owner’s children (Banks 2008). The mammy archetype represents the black woman
as a content and loyal domestic servant who puts the needs of her owners’ family
before her own. Opposite of the mammy is the jezebel, who is a hypersexualized
image of the black woman. During this period, it was common for white, male
owners to rape their female slaves. Black women came to be viewed as welcoming
this sexual activity, which eventually led to the belief that all black women
had a heightened and animalistic sexual appetite (Banks 2008). These
stereotypes are reflective of the lack of agency that black women faced under
the oppression of a racist and sexist institution. As African American women
gained more agency throughout the 20th century, new stereotypes emerged. In
contrast to the previous stereotypes, the new stereotypes criticized black
women for having too much agency as opposed to none at all. </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">After the abolishment
of slavery, African American women actively confronted the issue of inequality
in American society. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, African American women such
as Rosa Parks, Septima Clark, and Ella Baker were instrumental in movements
that sought to advance the predicament of black women in the US. When compared
to previous stereotypes held about African American women, the actions of these
women appeared to the dominant social group as overly aggressive and hostile.
Thus, the image of the sapphire and the super woman were born. The sapphire
characterized black women as angry, loud, controlling, confrontational, and
emasculating (Sims 2006). In the home, she challenged the traditional role as a
submissive wife and vigorously challenged her husband’s authority, while in
public she challenged the existing social hierarchy that placed her at the
bottom. This newfound strength was also caricatured in the super woman image,
which portrayed black women as “rough and tough, yet sexy and caring” (Banks
79). In contrast to more traditional family dynamics, this image portrayed
black women as being protectors of their families and the black community as a
whole. Ironically, this reinforced the belief that black women were the cause
of black men’s lack of power in society. Regardless of the characteristics
ascribed to black women, they were always portrayed as negative. When black
women were viewed as submissive, this was transformed into negative stereotypes
that justified their degradation. This was not the case for white women during
the same time period. The submissiveness of white women was seen as a positive
attribute and was considered the feminine ideal. As black women gained their
voices to obtain recognition, they were now considered to be aggressive. A new
body of knowledge emerged, collectively referred to as Black Feminist Theory,
to recognize the experiences of black women and to dispel these negative
stereotypes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">During a time when
marginalized groups, such as African Americans and women, were fighting for
equality, black women felt that the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s
Movement did not represent their interests. Thus, the Black Feminist Theory is
a body of knowledge that grew out of, and in response, to both movements.
According to Black Feminist Theory, black women disproportionately experience
oppression because they are the least protected by their social group (that is,
race and gender status). The sentiment among black women at this time was that,
‘“black’ was equated with black men and ‘woman’ was equated with white women”
(Collins 24). Thus, black female thinkers developed theory to adequately
address the way in which race, gender, and class were interconnected in their
lives. This analytical viewpoint employs an intersectional analysis, which is
described as a “multilayered analysis of how multiple oppressions result in
different experiences for different groups of women” (Luna 351). The
experiences of black women are different in that they do not fit within the
boundaries of traditional race and gender oppressions, so in order to fully
understand their experiences, we must look at the intersection of racism and
sexism (Crenshaw 1991). A core tenet of Black Feminist Theory is that the
intersecting oppressions of race, gender, and sexuality could not be justified
without the existence of negative stereotypes such as the mammy, jezebel,
sapphire, and superwoman (Collins 2000). Furthermore, Patricia Hill Collins
states that “these controlling images are designed [by the dominant social
group] to make racism, sexism, poverty, and other forms of social injustice
appear to be natural, normal, and inevitable parts of everyday life” (Collins
69). This is reflective of black women’s status in the social hierarchy and is
created and maintained by images throughout popular culture. Media has the
power to influence and shape of cultural myths about an ethnic group, and in
this way, the representation of African American women in the media can be
viewed as “a valid historical document reflecting predominant attitudes,
conscious or unconscious, in American culture” (Sims 2006). For this analysis,
we are critiquing two contemporary films and a performance from the annual MTV
Video Music Awards show. These examples illustrate 1) the survival of these
negative stereotypes over time, 2) their widespread usage throughout media, and
3) the acceptance of these stereotypes as valid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Scary Movie </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">is a horror-comedy
spoof film that parodies several late 1990’s films such as <i>I Know What You
Did Last Summer </i>and <i>The Sixth Sense. </i>I chose to analyze this film
for two reasons. First, Scary Movie was one of the highest grossing films in
2000. In fact, Dimension Films heavily stressed to the public that they would
not produce a sequel to the film, but due to the film’s immense popularity,
they released four<i> </i>sequels. Additionally, the cast is primarily white,
featuring only one African American actress. This is important for my analysis
because the film discretely sends a message about how African American women
interact with white people.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The scene I will
analyze takes place in a crowded movie theater. Brenda (the African American
actress) is on a date with her boyfriend to see a Shakespeare film, and they are
the only African Americans in attendance. Brenda’s boyfriend goes to the
restroom, leaving Brenda alone for a few minutes. As soon as she is alone, she
whips out some fried chicken that is wrapped in aluminum foil and a bottle of
hot sauce. She begins eating her snack, all the while loudly commenting on the
film. Around her, the moviegoers are growing angry because of her rowdy and
obnoxious behavior. Eventually, one of the moviegoers grows tired of her
loudness and tells her to shut up. Brenda begins to scream at the man even more
loudly and even extends her insults to those who did not confront her.
Throughout this scene, she is rolling her eyes and her neck, putting her hands
in people’s faces, and displays an extremely bitter and negative attitude. The
confrontation ends when Brenda believes her boyfriend has returned from the
bathroom. In actuality, it is the serial killer that has been haunting the town
for weeks. As the serial killer is taking his knife out to kill Brenda, a
moviegoer takes the knife from him and stabs Brenda himself. Everyone in the
theater gets in on the action, taking turns stabbing, beating, or kicking her.
Brenda staggers to the platform directly in front of the screen and collapses.
The theater erupts in applause in celebration of her death, and the moviegoers
continue to watch the film as if nothing happened.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">When I first saw the
film, I thought it was hilarious! But after taking this course, I have
developed a feminist perspective that is hard to overcome. Now, watching this
film is deeply troubling for me. The first thing that is problematic in this
scene is the fact that she is eating fried chicken and hot sauce. One of the
most static stereotypes about black people in general is that they enjoy this
particular food, and this scene is playing on this belief in a comedic way.
Also, Brenda’s character is the epitome of the sapphire image. The sapphire has
been historically portrayed as a woman who is “tart-tongued”, one who
often “violently and rhythmically rocks her head” when speaking, and who flies
through “irrational states of anger” (Sims 32). This description of the
sapphire recounts Brenda’s character in this scene almost flawlessly. Brenda
irrationally gets upset with the other patrons in the theater due to her tart
tongue and dramatically rolls her neck and eyes throughout the argument. She
has an extremely bitter attitude for no logical reason. Additionally, Brenda’s
demeanor is in direct opposition to the European ideal of a docile, submissive
woman. This masculinizes Brenda, and in a sense, black women as a whole and
portrays them as extremely volatile and confrontational. As a result of these
depictions, black women are then viewed as masculine, and therefore,
undeserving of affection from men. Furthermore, Brenda’s abrasive character
makes the consumer feel sympathetic to her boyfriend because he is charged with
the difficult task of putting up with Brenda’s confrontational attitude. This
further suggests that black women are viewed as undesirable to both white <i>and</i>
black men. This masculinization of black women can also serve to justify
their subjugation in society.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 200%;">Sapphires, and
specifically Brenda in this scene, are notoriously hard to get along with, and
this is illustrated by the fact that she engages in a heated argument with an
entire </span><span style="line-height: 32px;">theater</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> of patrons. This sends the subliminal message to consumers that
African American women are confrontational, bitchy, and hard to deal with. This
message is further ingrained when the moviegoers murder Brenda because they are
only able to achieve peace when the obnoxious black woman is killed. The murder
itself suggests that the only viable solution to the problem of bitchy black
women is to permanently silence them. All other methods will only result in an
increase in her rage.</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Additionally, it is
important to note that in this scene, Brenda is considered to <i>deserve </i>the
violence that ends in her death due to her confrontational nature. The viewers
grow to genuinely dislike her, so no one minds that she is brutally murdered in
the theater. In fact, her murder calls for celebration! This sort of
justification has been and is currently widely used in society in general.
Because of black women’s particular characteristics, the dominant social group
has a perfectly sound justification for subjecting this group to violence and
oppression.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The second film I
will analyze is Tyler Perry’s <i>Diary of a Mad Black Woman.</i> I chose this
film because it, like the previous film I discussed, was immensely popular and
was one of the top grossing films of 2005. The main character, Madea, was so
popular that she is the star of seven<i> </i>sequels that collectively make up
the “Madea” film franchise. For the purposes of this analysis, we will focus on
the representation of the mammy archetype through Madea’s character in <i>Diary
of a Mad Black Woman.</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The film centers on
the struggles of a woman, Helen, who is going through a particularly ugly
divorce. After her husband violently throws her out of their home, she goes to
Madea’s house for safety. When Helen arrives, it is very late in the night, and
she catches Madea by surprise. Madea kicks the door open, yielding a loaded
pistol. Once everything is straightened out, Madea welcomes Helen into her home
and invites her to stay overnight. When Helen enters the home, Madea’s brother
calls out “Who that is knockin’ on the door this late?”. Madea tells him not to
worry about it and to go back to sleep. However, her brother presses further,
telling her “I’m serious! I’m putting my foot down!”, to which she replies
“Kunta Kinte put his foot down and it got chopped off. Now take yo ass to
bed!”. The next morning, Helen enters the kitchen and runs into Deborah,
a methamphetamine addict whom Madea looks after. Madea is busily bustling around
the kitchen to prepare breakfast, all the while her breasts and butt are
exaggeratedly swinging around. After Deborah leaves, Helen asks Madea why she
is taking care of her. Madea tells Helen that she feels an obligation to look
after people and that it’s a part of her nature.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are several
problematic issues with Madea’s character in this film. First and perhaps most
problematic, her character is played by Tyler Perry dressed in drag. Therefore,
Madea has subtle, masculine qualities that arise from the fact that it is a man
dressed in drag. For example, she hovers over all the women (and some men) in
the film, has rough hands, broad shoulders, and a deep voice. Additionally,
Madea is a heavy-set woman with extremely large breasts and a large backside.
Combined, these characteristics form what bell hooks refers to a “masculinized
sub-human characteristics” (hooks 1996). The mammy’s voluptuous body was in
stark contrast to the thin, often corseted frame of white women at the time of
the inception of this archetype. This masculinization of the mammy image was
used to maintain the white supremacist and patriarchal idea that white women
represented the femininity in its purest form (Collins 2000). Thus, the mammy’s
large frame represents the antithesis of the American conception of beauty,
femininity, and womanhood.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Additionally, Madea’s
speech pattern reveals a “bossy, domineering, and uneducated character”, which
is consistent with the historical mammy archetype (Sims 2006). Throughout the
previous scene I described, Madea says “chillins” instead of “children” , “yo”
instead of “your”, and generally does not speak proper English. This serves to
show that African American women are uneducated and provides justification for
keeping them on the periphery of society and denying them certain privileges.
Furthermore, Madea demonstrates a domineering and abrasive nature when she
answers the door and almost shoots her granddaughter. Immediately following
that, she emasculates her brother when he attempts to exert power over her. Her
attitude demonstrates that black women are in stark opposition to the docile
and submissive feminine ideal that is perpetuated in society. The mammy’s
placement at the periphery of society indicates that she is deemed to be of a
lesser status that the dominant social group.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Lastly, Madea is the
caretaker of the community and does this by feeding people and giving them a
place to stay. The scene I previously described is pretty typical of her
actions throughout the film; her life seems to revolve around domestic work.
One of the most salient characteristics of the mammy archetype is that she is
content and happy carrying out the domestic needs of the family that she works
for (Collins 2000). In this way, African American women were viewed as only
suitable for domestic work and have been historically shutout from other career
paths. As Evelyn Nakano Glenn stresses in her essay, "Women and Labor
Migration", women of European descent did not have to work outside the home
because their husbands earned enough that this was not necessary. Ethnic
families did not enjoy the same luxuries, and thus, ethnic women needed to
secure work outside of the home. The only positions that were available to them
were domestic work, and their concentration in this field “reinforced their
degraded status in society” (Glenn). Domestic work became “more or less
synonymous badges of inferiority” (Glenn). In conclusion, Madea’s statement
that it is “in her nature” to care for people perpetuates the idea that black
women are only suitable for careers in the domestic sphere. Thus, the
stereotype that African American women are unworthy of employment outside of
the household is perpetuated by Madea’s uneducated speech pattern and by the
fact that she is content with doing housework.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">What is to be said
about the fact that both films are comedies? Would these comedies have been so
successful if the black actresses were white? I believe that part of the
success of both the films stems from the fact that an African American woman is
the source of the comedy. African American womanhood has been the source of
public ridicule and humiliation for decades. Both of these films propagate
ideas about the inferiority of black womanhood to traditional femininity.
Additionally, both Brenda and (especially) Madea exhibit speech patterns that
suggest that the women are uneducated. Due to this publicly accepted mockery of
black womanhood and intelligence, therein lies the justification for the
oppression and subjugation of this group.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Aside from films,
television is another source of media that is used to reflect the public
exploitation and negative portrayal of black women in society. From her backup
dancers to her sexual gestures and attire, Miley Cyrus’ recent performance in
the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards (VMA’s) is a prime example of how popular
culture on television shows can create and maintain black women’s social status
and oppression. At the start of her performance, Miley appears dressed in a
skimpy teddy bear one-piece, which she later takes off to reveal a tight nude
bikini. Two pigtail buns and continuous dramatic exposures of her tongue finish
off her childish yet scanty look. As she starts dancing and “twerking out” to
the introduction music, the stage is set with a big robotic teddy bear and she
is accompanied by backup dancers dressed also as teddy bears who,
interestingly, all happen to be black voluptuous women. Throughout the
performance, she is seen making sexual gestures to not only her body, but the
bodies of others. In one shot of her performance, the camera captures her
shaking her face in and slapping the exposed fleshy butt of one of her backup
dancers whose face is covered with a teddy bear mask. As her performance
transitions into a collaboration with Robin Thicke, she is seen wearing a foam
hand which she uses as a sexual prop to fondle his body and her own. Despite
him being twenty years her senior, she continues to grind on him and makes
sexual facial expressions and bodily gestures. </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Following this highly
publicized event, many critics accused Miley Cyrus of “slut-shaming”, a term
used to admonish women whose behaviors seem more sexual than what is socially
acceptable. Because everything about her VMA performance was so drastically
different from her former innocent <i>Hannah Montana</i> days, people were
quick to point out her newfound promiscuity and sexuality, which was evident in
her costume and dance. Few, however, pointed out the racial implications from
her performance. Interestingly enough, it was rumored that in the making of her
new album, Miley Cyrus had actually requested music that sounded “black”. If
this was the case, then it seems like her VMA performance was a reflection of
what she narrowly thought best represented the epitome of black music and
culture. Thus, it may not be her own sexuality, but rather, the hypersexuality
and objectification of black women that is being exposed through her
performance. </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Throughout history,
hypersexuality and objectification have been negatively attributed to and used
against black women. According to Black Feminist Theorists, the emergence and
prevalence of the jezebel image has been used to justify both of these concepts
in which black women are seen as animalistic in their increased sexual appetites
and thus seen as objects to satiate white man’s sexual desires (Banks 2008). In
this specific example regarding Miley Cyrus’s VMA performance, from a Black
Feminist Theoretical lens, it can be said that the hypersexuality of black
women is presented in the dramatization of Miley’s dancing. “Twerking”, a dance
that involves a shaking of the hips and butt, was first introduced to American
popular culture through songs and music videos by black artists. In fact, the
act of “twerking” has also been compared to the dance of traditional Africans.
By showing off her “twerking” skills on stage while surrounded by black women
backup dancers, Miley demonstrates that she too can be black and sexual and
ultimately be like a black woman. Her dance is an imitation of what she thinks
all black women are supposed to be like and do. This reinforces Black Feminist
Theory because as a part of the dominant social group (white), she is helping
to construct and reinscribe not only a constricted view of black culture, but
also the hypersexual image of black women and their bodies as the embodiment of
sex and as sexually deviant (Collins 2000). </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The objectification
of her black backup dancers serves to further hypersexualize black women and
negatively portrays them as jezebels. In choosing all black women backup
dancers with noticeably voluptuous butts, it seems that Miley views their
curves as a part of their black womanhood and their bodies as sexual objects.
This supports the Black Feminist view that recognizes the commodification and
exploitation of black women’s bodies as “markers of status” that place them low
in the social hierarchy that relies on race and gender (Collins 2000). In
addition, the sexually suggestive slaps and gestures towards one specific
backup dancer, who is seen with her face covered in a teddy bear mask,
demonstrates the devaluation black women’s bodies. The faceless body of that
one backup dancer is not seen or respected as the body of a woman but instead
is used as a prop for entertainment purposes. The way in which the backup
dancer exposes her butt and lets Miley publicly slap and play with it, also
promotes the idea that black women are hypersexual and that they “want” it.
This view of all black women as jezebels who “want it” due to their supposed animalistic
sexual appetite is the same view and justification that was held by white men
who raped black women throughout slavery (Banks 2008). Thus, this very
hypersexual and racist nature of this performance contributes to the oppression
of black women by maintaining negative images. </span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Though there are
numerous genres of television shows, I specifically chose to critique this
example, a performance from the MTV Video Music Awards, for set reasons. First
and foremost, MTV is a television channel that is geared towards the youth and
teens. The annual Video Music Awards gives artists a chance to perform their
music while also showcasing their contribution to the popular culture of that
year. What is displayed on this show, like any other show, reinforces society’s
ideals. Nevertheless, Miley Cyrus’s performance this year was especially
representative of the survival of these negative stereotypes of black women
over time. From the content and nature of her performance, it is evident that
the jezebel image of black women is still ingrained in our popular culture and
media and thought of as a form of entertainment. The widespread usage of these
stereotypes throughout media is also very visible. Miley Cyrus’s performance
was not the only one that contained negative stereotypes of black women. The performance
that followed Miley’s, which included rappers 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar, also
included primarily black women in skin tight clothing who were either dancing
provocatively or holding up props. However, Miley’s performance was the one to
be criticized and spread throughout other media outlets because it was the
epitome of public exploitation of black women. As a white woman, she not only
hypersexualized but racialized these black women, thus contributing to the
negative oppressive connotation of her performance. Lastly, MTV’s most recent
announcement selecting Miley Cyrus as the Best Artist of 2013 supports the
acceptance of these stereotypes as valid. The fact is, despite what her
performance entailed, her music is still widely popular and loved by many.
Therefore, this mirrors the leniency and overall acceptance that many feel
towards the oppression of black women.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In order to fully
understand the power of these images, we must first unravel the definition of
violence. The Oxford Dictionary defines violence as “the exercise of physical
force as to inflict injury on, or cause damage to, persons or property”
(Collins 921). However, this definition glosses over the effect that power
hierarchies have on what is defined as violence. According to Patricia Hill
Collins, violence is not only committed on an individual-to-individual basis,
but it is committed through social hierarchies on a group-to-group basis. Some
forms of speech are designed to belittle and humiliate the victim, to
communicate to them that they are worthless, and to demonstrate their
subjugated “place” in the social hierarchy. Collins argues that physical
violence needs a climate of fear and terror to operate, and this climate is
created and maintained by verbal assaults. Thus, the definition of violence
needs to be broadened to include speech and forms of institutional violence.
For example, African American women fall victim to sexual assault, but due to
the stereotype that black women are hypersexual, they are often not considered
victims of violence (Collins 1998). In this case, the dominant group’s speech
has contributed to the incidence of violence against African American women by
creating the idea that they welcome acts of sexual aggression, yet, speech
remains outside of traditional definitions of violence (Collins 1998). Once we
adopt Collins’ redefined concept of violence, we are able to begin to unravel
the effects of these images on the perception of black women in society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> For some individuals,
the only exposure they have to black women are those on the screen, so the
images constructed by the media serve to demonstrate what “real” black women
are. However, the “real” representation of black women has effectively been
erased from history. In order for one group to dominate another, the
subordinate group must be objectified to justify their domination. As bell
hooks asserts, “as objects, one’s reality is defined by others, one’s identity
is created by others, one’s history is constructed [by those in power]”. The
historical representation of African American women as jezebels, mammies,
sapphires, and superwomen were created “not to reflect or represent a reality,
but to function… [as an] objective of social relations” (Collins 70). These
repeated, fictitious representations of black womanhood came to be and still is
considered a valid history of black women in broader society. The intricate and
complex history of African American women has been completely erased by the
dominant group and replaced with images that further their agenda of
domination. In order for us to prevent this pattern from spreading onto our
future generations, more must be done. The emergence of Black Feminist Theory
has addressed this interconnection between race and gender; yet, films,
television shows, and other media outlets continue to display these negative
portrayals. The immense popularity of these images is reflective of the fact
that these stereotypes are deeply ingrained into and accepted by our culture.
Though we do not know the exact measures it will take to rid society of these
stereotypes, what we do know is that it’s going to include a complete
transformation of our existing social structures to undo the effects of
generations of oppression.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Works Cited</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Banks, Ingrid.
"Women In FIlm." <i>African Americans and Popular Culture</i>.
Westport, CT: ABC CLIO, 2008. Print.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Collins, Patricia
Hill. <i>Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment</i>.
New York: Routledge, 2000. Print. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">--1998. The Tie that
Binds: Race, Gender and US Violence. <i>Ethnic and Racial Studies</i> 21(5):
917-938. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 4.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Crenshaw, Kimberle.
"Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Violence Against
Women of Color." <i>Stanford Law Review</i> 43.6 (1991): 1241-229. Print.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Glenn, Evelyn
Nakanno. Women and Labor Migration. <i>An Introduction to Women’s Studies:
Gender in a Transnational World</i>. I. Grewal and C. Kaplan, Eds. McGraw Hill.
478-482.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">hooks, bell. <i>Reel
to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies</i>. New York, NY: Routledge, 1996.
Print.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Luna, Zakiya. 2009.
From Rights to Justice: Women of Color Changing the Face of US Reproductive
Rights Organizing. <i>Societies without Borders</i>. 4: 343-365<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.0pt; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sims, Yvonne D. <i>Women
of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular
Culture</i>. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006. Print.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-40906402567516040972014-02-06T19:04:00.001-05:002014-03-15T16:09:04.736-04:00Influence of the Riot Grrrl Movement on Punk<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Riot
Grrrl’s Impacts on the Content of 90s Punk Songs</span><u><o:p></o:p></u><br />
by Aubree Keurajian<br />
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Punk rock is
strongly associated with criticizing the government and the dominant social
structure. For this reason one may anticipate that criticism of the patriarchal
tendencies of society would be a theme present in punk culture, however this
assumption does not necessarily hold. While the punk rock scene is based in
large part on ideas of social justice and equality, by the 1990s, many aspects
mainstream society had wept in and the gender hierarchies found in mainstream
culture had mirrored themselves within the subculture. Thus despite being a
place where women could rebel against the traditional feminine roles that
society dictated they fill, the punk scene still placed them in a subordinate
position. This gender inequality within a structure purporting equality,
combined with critiques of society as a whole helped create the Riot Grrrl
movement as a strong feminist force to speak out against these inequalities. The
Riot Grrrl movement arose out of a combination of feminist ideas and punk rock
aesthetics, but also provided a point of comradeship for women and girls in the
punk rock movement itself. I will
examine the impacts of Riot Grrrl as a strong feminist voice within the punk
community on the lyrical content of male bands in the concurrent punk revival.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Punk rock arose as
a reaction to mainstream, commercialized rock and sought to rebel against all
of the traditional expectations of rock music, one of these being the almost
universal male dominance. At its inception, punk’s “do it yourself” quality
allowed, and even encouraged, people who did not fit the typical white, male
rocker mold to take part in the music, creating a space for female musicians to
partake (Dunn and Farnsworth, 2012). This can be seen in the popularity of mixed
gender groups like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Blondie, and X-Ray Spex (<em><span style="background: white;">Oxford Music Online</span></em><em><span style="background: white; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, “Punk”,
2013</span></em>). In addition to the presence of women, the early punk scene also was mixed in
terms of race, as can be easily seen in the Los Angeles area through groups
like The Bags, which were neither all male nor all white (Bag, 2012). The early British punk scene provided a platform for women to speak out on
issues of sexism and gender inequality, and through this helped to create much
of the punk aesthetic, as can be seen through figures like designer Vivienne
Westwood (Downes, 2012). Unfortunately, this gender and racial equality in the punk rock scene was
relatively short lived, and as entirely male, white bands became more dominant
the scene it became more aggressive and masculine, causing an exclusion of
women and minorities. Women involved in punk rock at this time found that it
quickly changed from a relatively open community to one that posed a threat of
violence to them and in which they no longer were an accepted part (Dunn and
Farnsworth, 2012). Part of this
masculinization was due to the strong ties with the working class that put
issues of class and political struggles against gender inequality (Cranny-Francis
and Waring, 2003).<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span>While punk did not become necessarily
anti-women, it did become a rough and sometimes aggressive scene in which
femininity was discouraged and masculinity celebrated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Just
as in society as a whole, gender roles in punk rock are constructed through
performative acts and informed by visual representations especially through the
media. For this reason, an understanding of how people create and maintain
their genders through their actions as well as how the media and society
influences the gendered acts that people perform is necessary for an
understanding of how these processes operate within the punk subcultures and
how they created the need for the Riot Grrrl movement. As early as the start of
the western first wave of feminism, theorists such as Mary Wollstonecraft
recognized that society creates nonessential gender constructions that girls
and boys are expected to uphold through physical objects and actions dictated
to be more suited to one gender or the other (Wollstonecraft, 2002). This
goes along with Judith Butler’s phenomenological theories on gender
construction in which she defines gender as a social construction created by
repetition of gendered acts in accordance to a sociocultural setting that
varies greatly over time (Butler, 1988). She also argues that culture is reliant on gender in order to function in the
way that people have been conditioned to expect. While each act that a person
performs is an individual choice, they are dictated by the larger structures of
society and help to reinforce this society (<em><span style="background: white;">Oxford
Music Online, </span></em><em><span style="background: white; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Punk”</span></em>), creating a positive feedback loop. This
lens of critique of gender is most often focused on mainstream society, but the
same processes are at work in subcultures as well and very clearly in punk
rock. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> As
Cranny-Francis and Waring describe in their paper on gender and fashion, gender
is defined in large part by fashion and styles, and society relies on these
cues to separate people out along a binary division of gender (Cranny-Francis
& Waring, 2003).<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span>This construction
of gender through clothing, hair, and makeup is clearly a defining
characteristic of gender constructions in mainstream society, but it also holds
very true in the punk culture as well. While the punk culture can be seen as,
in part, a rejection of the consumerist, capitalist society that beauty culture
is a part of, manners of dress and hairstyle are very important parts of punk
culture. In Lauraine LeBlanc’s book on girls and women in the punk community
she describes a contradiction that punk culture simultaneously creates a way
for females to rebel against the mainstream constructions of femininity while
replacing them with other constructions of femininity. Women within the punk
rock scene face the challenge of adhering to the masculine aesthetic of punk
rock, by using elements such as combat boots, shaved heads, and leather
jackets, while still portraying that they are female, either through the
inclusion of traditionally feminine elements like makeup, skirts, or fishnets,
or by acting in a gentle, “girly” way. As one of the interviewees in LeBlanc’s
research, Carina, put it, “I’ll do little things, just to make sure they know
I’m a girl.” (Leblanc, 1999) This quotation shows that, despite the punk scene’s rejection of typical modes
of femininity, there are still defined female roles that women are expected to
fill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
Riot Grrrl movement arose in the early 1990s in response to both the strongly
masculine tone that the punk rock scene had taken on as well as the issues of sexism
that women and girls faced in the world at large (Cranny-Francis & Waring,
2003). Reclaiming the word “girl” from its negative
connotations, Riot Grrrl encouraged women and girls to take part in feminist
activism using the same techniques as the punk movement, that is, through independent
music and zines (Garrison, 2000). By
creating an accessible place for women to aggressively organize for equal
treatment and rights, the Riot Grrrl movement helped bring women’s issues to
the attention of society as a whole. While the Riot Grrrl movement was predominately
white, it strived to combat issues that dealt with race in addition to gender,
consumerism, and heteronormativity (Leblanc, 1999). The movement grew in scope and popularity,
becoming a major social force in the mid-1990s, gaining publicity in many
national news outlets in addition to increasing the distribution of materials
on how to make zines to a larger demographic in order to foster the growth of a
feminist underground press (Cranny-Francis & Waring, 2003). Riot Grrrl bands and Riot Grrrl inspired
songs also came onto the national scene in the music charts, with songs like No
Doubt’s “Just a Girl” reaching number 23 on the Billboard charts and an album
by Sleater-Kinney peaking at number 15 on the indie charts (Academic Charts
Online).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> In
order to analyze the effects of the Riot Grrrl movement on the treatment of
women in the lyrics of male punk rock bands I examined three bands that were
influential in the punk rock revival scene of the 1990s and are comprised
entirely of male musicians, Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, and Rancid. I analyzed the
lyrics beginning with bands’ first albums and stopping with albums that were
published prior to 2005. In my analysis of the lyrics I looked for three
things. 1.) Any mention of issues typically considered “women’s issues” such as
feminism in general, reproductive rights, and sexual assault, 2.) any mention
of an individual women as a character in the song, or 3.) the use of female
pronouns or generic female terms such as “daughter”, “mother”, or “girl”. I used the lyrics as
published on <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">www.azlyrics.com</span></a> because
this website has a complete listing of all of the songs released by all of
these bands and thus a level of consistency is ensured. While the lyrics on
this site are written and edited by contributors in a similar way to Wikipedia,
the level of accuracy is usually quite high. I chose 2005 as an end date
because the Riot Grrrl movement peaked in the mid-1990s thus by 2005 its
ideology was well known and most of its effects had been felt. Additionally,
this date is a logical breaking point for all three of the bands discussed for
various reasons that will be discussed below.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Anti-Flag
is a very political punk band formed in Pittsburg, PA in 1993. While the band
had a small prelude in 1988 with female vocalist Lucy Fester, this iteration of
the band failed almost instantly. When it reformed in 1993, the band was
entirely male, and while the membership changed slightly over the next six
years, this trend continued. From their creation in 1993 up until 2005 they
were signed on various independent record labels, including one of their own
creation, A-F Records. In 2005 they signed to RCA, signaling a change from the
DIY punk aesthetic that they were known for, and this change can be easily
heard in their music, supporting the use of 2005 as an end date (<i>Encyclopedia of Popular Music</i>, “Anti-Flag”). Of the three bands I examined, Anti-Flag is by far the most political. Most of
their songs focus on the United States government, especially war and military
action as well as personal freedom. Their musical style is very characteristic
of punk revival bands; loud, fast, and simple both in lyrics and melody. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> In
addition to Anti-Flag, I looked at one of the biggest bands of the 90s
post-punk revival, Bad Religion. By far the most well-known of the three, Bad
Religion was formed in 1980 in Los Angeles, CA, prior to both the Riot Grrrl
movement and the punk revival. While the band faced many lineup changes, all of
its members have been male. Much like Anti-Flag, they released albums on their
own label, Epitaph, which, unlike A-F Records, grew beyond them. Bad Religion also
signed to a major label, but this does not appear to have changed their music
in any substantial way (<i>EPM</i>, “Bad
Religion”). Unlike Anti-Flag, Bad Religion focused more on politics and social issues, such
as consumerism and religion. Bad Religion did not release any albums between
2004 and 2007, and as such the year 2005 is a logical break point for analysis
of their music. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Rancid
is the least political of the three bands I analyzed, but they still have
strong themes of social commentary. Formed in 1989 in Oakland, CA and signed to
Bad Religion’s Epitaph Records, Rancid focused primarily on social issues,
leaving behind much of the political focus of other punk revival bands. Unlike
the other two bands discussed, Rancid had strong ties with the third-wave ska
scene that ran concurrent to the punk revival, which may be responsible for the
less political nature of their music (<i>EPM</i>,
“Rancid”). Similar to Bad Religion, Rancid took a break in producing albums, although
slightly longer, lasting from 2003-2009. This break, however, leaves 2005 again
as a logical upper limit for analysis. <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Through
my reading of these bands’ lyrics, I have found four distinct categories of
references about women. The first of these are women portrayed as vague family
members in such a way as to symbolize larger sections of society; I have termed
this category “symbolic kin” and have found that examples tend to fall into two
categories, the first being “mothers” in which maternal imagery is used as a
stand in for authority figures, and the second being relatively un-gendered
uses of terms like “brothers and sisters” in a way that implies comradeship. The
songs in this category primarily came from Bad Religion, so this may have more
to do with that individual band than punk rock revival bands in general. The second
category of songs is those that use female characters alongside male characters
in an anecdotal lyrical format. Representations of women in this way tend to
portray them in ways that are not gender specific. The next category is the use
of women in stereotypical roles as descriptors of the type of society or
setting that is being created in the song. While these representations of women
tend to cast women in traditional, subordinate ways, they are more a commentary
on the place of women within those societies than the way the band itself
actually views women. The fourth category is songs that deal directly with
women’s issues. Due to space constraints I can only give a few examples of each
type, but in the appendix is a list of songs by these groups that mention women
and the way in which women are mentioned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Not
all of the songs released by these bands portray women in a non-sexist light,
but the songs that lyrically treat women poorly are not connected by any sort
of overriding category and thus seem somewhat individual. There is a minor
theme of jilted lovers speaking poorly of their former loves, as can be seen in
<i>Dope Sick, Girl </i>by Rancid, which
portrays a woman’s insecurity as attractive, and Anti-Flag’s <i>Drink, Drank, Punk</i> which talks about the
regret of a one night stand with a woman who turned out to be unattractive. All
of the songs that treat women with varying degrees of sexism have to do with
relationships and as such are speaking about individual women and not women as
a group or portraying them as characters in a society. One variation from this
trend is the Bad Religion song <i>Evangeline</i>,
a love song about a punk rock girl that shows her as a strong individual.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Punk
rock is the music of the rebellious teen, fighting against the controlling
forces of society, an image easily represented through parents. While a parent
of either gender could be used to represent society equally well, the mother is
overwhelmingly the preferred choice. As a symbol of society, the mother is
treated as a personification of society’s attempts to homogenize and control
individuals in one of two ways, either through an actual controlling force or as
person who has been completely controlled by society. The first of these can be
seen in Rancid’s song <i>The Wars End </i>which
contains the line: “Little Sammy was a punk rocker//you know his mother never
understood him” and the second in the Bad Religion song <i>21<sup>st</sup> Century Digital Boy</i> which attacks both parents as
complacent products of modern society in the lyrics “Daddy’s a lazy middle
class intellectual//Mommy’s on valium, so ineffectual”. Parents are also used
as a stand in for society as something to be impressed, which the punk rock
children inevitably fail at doing because of their failure to adhere to
expected societal norms. This is exemplified in the Bad Religion song <i>Incomplete</i>, which begins with “Mother,
Father, look at your little monster, //I’m a hero, I’m a zero, // I’m the butt
of the worst joke in history”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Another form of
symbolic kinship is seen in the use of phrases like “brothers and sisters” and
“sons and daughters” to highlight a universal comradeship between people facing
the same struggles, regardless of gender. This lyrical structure tends to treat
both genders in the same way, as is seen in the Anti-Flag songs <i>No Borders, No Nations </i>which contains
the lyrics “A government run by the corporations of the world//Enslaving
mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters” and <i>A
New Kind of Army</i>, which says “We’re looking for a few good men//We’re
looking for a few good womyn”.<i> </i>This
quotation from <i>A New Kind of Army </i>shows
Anti-Flag’s consciousness of feminism through their adoption of the alternate
spelling of “woman” as “womyn”; this is seen any time they use that word from
1998 onward. Gender equal comradeship is by far one of the dominant ways in
which women are referred to in the songs that I examined, and it shows an
underlying belief in equality between genders in the collective psyche of punk
rock. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
next category is of women as characters in a lyrical form common to many
genres, including punk rock, that I will call the “anecdote”. In the anecdote
format, short vignettes are told about multiple characters in order to tell a
story, often of the effects of something or to create an image of a part of
society. This is exemplified in the Bad Religion song <i>You Don’t Belong</i>, which uses this technique to describe the misfit
youths to whom the song is dedicated. This song is also interesting in its
causal mention of gender-deviant ways of performing gender. “Jack wore a skirt
but he knew how to scrap//Billy went to county on a class one possession//Wendy
went to school while her daddy shot smack//Eugene kept a list//Mugger was
security//Mary she kept her purity//We were all in it together”. In one stanza
of Rancid’s song <i>Rats in the Hallway</i>
a heroin addict named Mya accosts the narrator, but in the next stanza it is
the junkie Johnny whose addiction adds to the derelict setting of the apartment
complex. These songs use descriptions of characters in an anecdotal way to
describe a setting, but do so in such a way that does not rely on traditional
gender roles. A third category of representations of women does exactly the
opposite and is for that reason the most potentially problematic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Punk
rock songs often create exaggerated settings to illuminate social ills or
ironies, and one way in which they manage this is through the use of
stereotypical female characters. At first listen these songs appear to be
reinforcing stereotyped gender roles and treating women in sexist ways, but
upon further examination it becomes clear that these images of women are not
intended to be a comment on how women ought to be treated but rather on the
roles that various types of society force them into. This is clear in Rancid’s
song <i>Hoover Street</i>, which opens with
a description of an immigrant prostitute to set the scene of the ghetto
described by the song. The use of female characters in this way shows an
acknowledgement of the unique ways in which other struggles, such as class,
race, and consumerism, affect women and how the women shaped by these struggles
then affect their communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The
final category of songs dealing with women are those dealing directly with
“women’s issues”, especially abortion and women in the media. It is interesting
to note that in my analysis I came across no songs that spoke negatively of
feminist activism. Bad Religion and Anti-Flag both have released songs against
restrictions on abortions, <i>Don’t Pray on
Me </i>and <i>No Apology</i> respectively. From
<i>No Apology</i>, “<span style="background: white;">Making it illegal won't make it go away//the rich will fly to far off
lands, the poor will stay and pray//that their back alley abortion is clean and
safe//you can't make it go away,<span class="apple-converted-space">//</span>so
why endanger womyn's lives?<span class="apple-converted-space">” Additionally, all
three bands have songs that attack the media’s unrealistic and damaging
portrayals of women. Rancid’s <i>Antennas</i>
begins with the blunt line “You’re selling sexism, you’re selling racism”,
while Anti-Flag’s <i>You’ll Scream Tonight</i>
describes how advertising utilizes over-sexualized women to sell products.
While these songs are a definite minority, the fact that all male groups chose
to tackle these issues when they could have just as easily dismissed them show
that the feminist agenda of the Riot Grrrl movement may have had an impact on
the subject matter that these bands chose to focus on. </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> In
conclusion, the Riot Grrrl movement’s combination of punk rock culture with
feminist beliefs created a powerful subculture that impacted the lyrical
content of popular male bands of the 1990s. While there is no evidence of
direct influence or collaboration between women involved in the Riot Grrrl
movement and the male bands of the punk revival that I examined, that these two
movements occurred simultaneously within the same genre of music indicates that
they were influenced by each other. The relatively equal treatment of women in
the lyrics of these bands, as well as the fact that even the least political of
the three examined has a song about women’s issues, shows that these bands were
cognizant of feminism and operated in such a way as not to aggressively uphold
masculine dominance.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Works Cited<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;">Bag, Alice. “Work that
Hoe: Tilling the Soil of Punk Feminism.” <i>Women
& Performance: a <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background: white;">Journal of Feminist Theory</span></i><span style="background: white;">. 22.2-3 (2012):233-238. <i>ProQuest. </i>Web. 21 Nov. 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Butler, Judith. 1988. Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. <i>Theatre Journal</i> 40(4): 519-531. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Cranny-Francis, Anne and Wendy E. Waring. 2003. Femininity,
Masculinity, and Fashion. <i>Gender Studies:
Terms and Debates.</i> Palgrave MacMillan. 197-205.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;">Downes, Julia. “The Expansion
of Punk Rock: Riot Grrrl Challenges to Gender Power Relations in British Indie
Music Subcultures.” <i>Women’s Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal </i>41.2 (2012):204-237. <i>Literary Reference Center. </i>Web. 21 Nov, 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;">Dunn, Kevin, and May Summer
Farnsworth. “‘We ARE the Revolution’: Riot Grrrl Press, Girl Empowerment, and
DIY Self-Publishing.” <i>Women’s Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal</i> 41.2 (2012): 136-157. <i>Literary Reference Center</i>. Web. 22 Nov. 2013. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-size: large;">Garrison, Ednie Kaeh.
"U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth (Sub)Cultures and the Technologics of
the Third Wave."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Feminist
Studies</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>26.1 (2000): 141-70.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>ProQuest.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>Web. 25 Nov. 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Leblanc, Lauraine. <i>Pretty
in Punk: Girls’ Gender Resistance In A Boys’ Subculture. </i>New Brunswick,
N.J.: Rutgers, University Press, 1999. eBook Collection <i>(EBSCOhost)</i>. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Wollstonecraft, Mary. 2002. Excerpt from “A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman.” <i>An Introduction to
Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World.</i> I. Grewal and C. Kaplan,
Eds. McGraw Hill. 170-172.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><u><span style="font-size: large;">Other Sources:<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="article-name"><span style="background: white;">"Anti-Flag."</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><em><span style="background: white;">Encyclopedia of Popular Music</span></em><span class="editionprefix"><span style="background: white;">,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><span class="edition"><span style="background: white;">4th ed.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><span style="background: white;">Ed.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="editor">Colin Larkin</span>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>Oxford
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<span class="article-name"><span style="background: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="article-name"><span style="background: white;">"Bad
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<span class="article-name"><span style="background: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="article-name"><span style="background: white;">"Punk."</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><em><span style="background: white;">Encyclopedia of Popular Music</span></em><span class="editionprefix"><span style="background: white;">,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><span class="edition"><span style="background: white;">4th ed.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><span style="background: white;">Ed.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="editor">Colin Larkin</span>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>Oxford
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<span class="article-name"><span style="background: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="article-name"><span style="background: white;">"Rancid."</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><em><span style="background: white;">Encyclopedia of Popular Music</span></em><span class="editionprefix"><span style="background: white;">,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><span class="edition"><span style="background: white;">4th ed.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><span style="background: white;">Ed.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="editor">Colin Larkin</span>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em>Oxford
Music Online</em>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="site-name-affix">Oxford University Press</span>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="access-type">Web</span>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Date1">11 Dec. 2013.</span><<span class="uri">http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/epm/62752</span>>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Songs Referenced:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white;">Anti-Flag. "Angry,
Young, and Poor."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Underground
Network</i>. By Justin Sane. Fat Wreck Chords, San Francisco, 2001.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Anti-Flag.
"Anti-Violent."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>North
America Sucks!!</i>. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Anti-Flag. "Betty Sue
is Dead."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Their System
Doesn't Work For You</i>. By Justin Sane. A-F Records, Pittsburg, 1998.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag. "Born to
Die."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>North America
Sucks!!</i>. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag. "Confused
Youth."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Die for the
Government</i>. By Justin Sane. New Red Archives, San Francisco, 1996.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Anti-Flag. "Drink
Drank Punk."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Die for the
Government</i>. By Justin Sane. New Red Archives, San Francisco, 1996.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Anti-Flag. "Gifts
from America; With Love, The U.S.A."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>BYO
Split Series Volume IV</i>. By Justin Sane. BYO Records, Los Angeles, 2002.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag.
"I'm Having a Good Day."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>North
America Sucks!!</i>. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Anti-Flag.
"Mind the G.A.T.T."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Terror State</i>. By Justin Sane. Fat Wreck Chords, San Francisco, 2003.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag. "No
Apology."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A New Kind of
Army</i>. By Justin Sane. Go-Kart Records, New York, 1999.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag. "No
Borders, No Nations."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>BYO
Split Series Volume IV</i>. By Justin Sane. BYO Records, Los Angeles, 2002.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Anti-Flag. "Power to
the Peaceful."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Terror
State</i>. By Justin Sane. Fat Wreck Chords, San Francisco, 2003.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Anti-Flag. "Right to
Choose."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Mobilize</i>. By
Justin Sane. A-F Records, Pittsburg, 2002.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag. "Spaz's
House Destruction Party [Live]."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Mobilize</i>.
By Justin Sane. A-F Records, Pittsburg, 2002.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag. "Summer
Squatter Go Home."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Die
for the Government</i>. By Justin Sane. New Red Archives, San Francisco, 1996.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Anti-Flag. "You'll
Scream Tonight."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>North
America Sucks!!</i>. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion.
"American Jesus."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Recipe
for Hate</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion.
"Anesthesia."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Against
the Grain</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1990.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "Boot
Stamping on a Human Face Forever."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Empire Strikes First</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion.
"Broken."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Process of Belief</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion.
"Cease."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Gray
Race</i>. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "Chasing
the Wild Goose."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Into the
Unknown</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1983.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion. "The
Defense."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Process of
Belief</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "Doin'
Time."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>How Could Hell Be
Any Worse?</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1982. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "Don't
Pray on Me."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Recipe for
Hate</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion.
"Drastic Actions."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Bad
Religion</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1981.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion. "Drunk
Sincerity."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Gray Race</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion.
"Epiphany."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Process of Belief</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion.
"Evangeline."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Process of Belief</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "Heaven
is Falling."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Generator</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion. "Hooray
For Me."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Stranger than
Fiction</i>. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1994.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion. "The
Hopeless Housewife."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
New America</i>. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 2000.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion.
"Incomplete."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Stranger
than Fiction</i>. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1994.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "Land
of Competition."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Suffer</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1988. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "No
Direction."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Generator</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "Pity
the Dead."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Gray Race</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion. "The
Streets of America."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Gray Race</i>. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion. "Struck
a Nerve."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Recipe for Hate</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion.
"Television."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Stranger
than Fiction</i>. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1994.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Bad Religion. "Two
Babies in the Dark."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Generator</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1992.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "White
Trash (2nd Generation)."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>How
Could Hell Be Any Worse?</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1982. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion.
"You."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>No Control</i>.
By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1989.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "You
Don't Belong."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Process of Belief</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Bad Religion. "21st
Century (Digital Boy)."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Against
the Grain</i>. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1990. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Adina."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Rancid</i>. By Tim Armstrong.
Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Another
Night."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Rancid</i>. By
Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid.
"Antennas."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Rancid</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2000. CD.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "As
Wicked."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come
the Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Back Up
Against The Wall."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Indestructible</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "The Ballad
of Jimmy and Johnny."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Let's
Go</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Cash,
Culture, and Violence."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Life
Won't Wait</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Cocktails."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Life Won't Wait</i>. By Tim
Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Corazon de
Oro."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Life Won't Wait</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid.
"Detroit."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Rancid</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Dope Sick,
Girl."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Let's Go</i>. By
Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Fall Back
Down."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Indestructible</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Hoover
Street."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Life Won't Wait</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Let's
Go."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Let's Go</i>. By Tim
Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid.
"Memphis."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Indestructible</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "New
Dress."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Life Won't Wait</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Not to
Regret."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Rancid</i>. By
Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2000.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Olympia
WA."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come the
Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Rats in the
Hallway."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Rancid</i>. By
Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Red Hot
Moon."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Indestructible</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Roots
Radicals."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come
the Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Ruby
Soho."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come the
Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "She's
Automatic."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come
the Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "St.
Mary."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Let's Go</i>. By
Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Stand Your
Ground."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Indestructible</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid.
"Tenderloin."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Let's
Go</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "Time
Bomb."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come the
Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "Tropical
London."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Indestructible</i>.
By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white;">Rancid. "The Wars
End."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come the
Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "You Don't
Care Nothin'."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out
Come the Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;">Rancid. "The 11th
Hour."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>.And Out Come the
Wolves</i>. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div>
<div id="ftn13">
</div>
</div>
CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-27352289187368274982013-12-30T12:21:00.001-05:002014-03-15T16:13:55.768-04:00Black Womanhood in the Media<!--[if !mso]>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">The Black Media Market: The Fine Line between
Empowering and Stereotyping Black Womanhood </span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">(Case Study of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Diary
of a Mad Black Woman </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Think Like a
Man</i>)</span><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>by K. Ablorh and M. Fraling</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">In the mass media, the black female
perspective is often neglected, misinterpreted, or completely ignored. The
black media market, an industry comprised of predominantly black actors, constitutes
one of the main mediums for black female portrayal (Gooding 36). Despite its
connection to the black community, the black media market depicts a false image
of black womanhood. In films like the <i>Diary of A Mad Black Woman, </i>black media incorporates the “crazed”
stereotype of Madea or black “mammies.” By doing so, the images depict black
womanhood as aggressive, unattractive and masculine. Moreover, in <i>Think Like
A Man</i>, the sexy Jezebel character perpetuates the false notion of black
women as overly sexual. By using these gendered roles, black media constructs a
version of femininity/masculinity that adheres to the false stereotypes.
Additionally, black media depicts black female beauty through an Anglo-Saxon
lens<i>. </i>As a result, black media
constructs a false “notion of normality” that hinders the agency of black women
(McDougall 1). Nevertheless, as the black female audience consumes media
images, the false portrayals affect the perception of self. Through the
character analysis of black female roles and results from survey data, we
explore the ways in which the U.S. black media market perpetuates black female
stereotypes, how the images cripple the understanding of black womanhood, and
the potential effects on the black female identity. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In
media, there are certain perceived realities of black women. The ongoing
portrayal of these stereotypes further stigmatizes the false ideologies,
thereby allowing these ideologies to become the reality that people expect. One
of these false personalities is called “Madea” who is a “male mammy” portrayed
by Tyler Perry in his series of films and plays. In <i>Ain’t I a Woman</i>,
feminist scholar bell hooks explores the historical construction of the Madea
character. She explains that during reconstruction, white society depicted the
black female as “the opposite image” of white womanhood (bell hooks, <i>Ain't I
a Woman</i> 84). By doing so, white elites hoped to maintain patriarchy and
ensure their own hierarchical position. During this process, white women used
the image of the mammy to subvert black beauty. For example, the mammy wears
unflattering clothing, is preferably obese and has a “bestial cow-like quality”
(bell hooks,<i> Ain't I a Woman</i> 84). She is defined by her “grossly
overweight, large-breasted [personhood,] who is desexualized, maternal, and
nonthreatening to white people but who may be aggressive toward [black] men”
(Chen 116). Moreover, by fiercely protecting the children, the mammy becomes a
“nurturer” who poses no threat to the white patriarchy. Interestingly, black
media has adopted this “white vision” of the black female and incorporated the
mammy stereotype in current films (bell hooks, <i>Ain't I a Woman 84</i>). </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: -17.95pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> With this in mind,
as we examine the character of Madea in the film <i>Diary of A Mad Black Woman,
</i>we see that she is portrayed as a humorous matriarchal figure that is both strong
and independent. Despite her portrayal, the character of Madea only further
appropriates the offensive notion that black women are vengeful, violent, and
abrasive. For instance, during a particular scene in <i>Diary of A Mad Black
Woman,</i> Madea accompanies her granddaughter Helen to her former estate. Just
days ago, Helen’s husband forcefully moved her out of the mansion and demanded
that she accept his divorce request. While dragging her, the husband told Helen
that he planned to marry another woman who was the mother of his children. When
Madea and Helen arrive at the estate, the two decide to raid the mistress’
wardrobe. After destroying the mistress’ clothes, Helen searches the house for
money. Helen’s estranged husband then finds her searching for money in his
study and promptly threatens her. As the scene progresses, Madea is still in
the closet, laughing to herself about the destruction she and her granddaughter
have caused. The self-righteous mistress then walks into the closet and
confronts Madea about the clothing. Madea, not remorseful but confrontational,
threatens to “beat the hell out of” the mistress who previously threatened to
call the police. As both confrontations simultaneously escalate, Madea hears
Helen’s husband abusing Helen and swiftly makes her way to come to her
granddaughter’s defense. Madea bursts into the study space and wielding
her gun yells, “PLEASE do it, PLEASE hit her, I want to SEE you do it!”—Insinuating
that if she sees him hit Helen she will shoot him. Positively, Madea is
portrayed as the heroine of this scene by rescuing her granddaughter from harm.
After Helen instructs Madea to refrain from killing her husband, Madea leaves
the study only to find a chainsaw. Then, she proceeds to manically saw a coach
in half, seeing as how half of everything in the house legally belongs to
Helen.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">By
including images of Madea swinging a gun recklessly and manically sawing a
couch in half, the media portrays Madea as unpredictable, crazy, and pugnacious.
The impact of stereotyping black women as “aggressive Madeas” translates into
the fear, caution, and hostility black men and other races approach black
women. We see this in the film through the frightened reactions of Helen’s
husband and the mistress. Black women are perceived as “frighten[ing] to
people” because society has a certain expectation that they are “kind of
bitter” (Reid 34). This jaded portrayal in current black media potentially damages
the perceived identity of black women because it “create[s] the feared Other”
(Reid 67). The “feared Other” is the unpredictable, barbaric nature that blacks
and other ethnicities have been perceived as by whites. This “feared Other”
provides justification for members of society to dissociate black women and
place them in aggressive roles like Madea (Reid 67). Characters similar to
Madea provide unenlightened individuals the conviction that black women and blacks
in general are animalistic, which then serves to detract the minimal femininity
and reputation that black women have in media and reality. For instance, the
subsequent ending of this scene is Madea laughing angrily to herself as she
furiously attempts to saw away at the couch, only to have herself and her
granddaughter, Helen, jailed for her misconduct. Scene depictions similar to
this justify thoughts that black women are dangerously animalistic, and that
the best way to subvert them is imprisonment. The current U.S. black media
market enhances the perceived “crazy” of black women, which in turn affects how
black women are perceived in society.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In
addition to the mammy stereotype, society created a second image of black
womanhood. During slavery, white society described the black woman as “sexually
permissive” and deserving of exploitation (bell hooks, <i>Ain't I a Woman</i>
52). To legitimize their own actions, bell hooks argues that white slave-owners
constructed the Jezebel stereotype. The slave-owners would insist that black
females were “sexual savages” and as a result, the “animals” could not be raped
(bell hooks, <i>Ain't I a Woman</i> 52). Ironically, white women would also
blame their female counterparts and insist “they [black enslaved women] were
the initiators of sexual relationships with men” (bell hooks, <i>Ain't I a
Woman</i> 52). From such thinking, society adopted a Jezebel stereotype that
portrayed black women as “sex objects and prostitutes” (bell hooks, <i>Ain't I
a Woman</i> 58). </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Accordingly, the media adopted this
image and further stigmatized the black female. For example, in the film <i>Think
Like A Man, </i>there is a scene where Maya, played by Meagan Good, awakens
from having a one-night-stand with a young man named Alex. After offering him
coffee, Maya proceeds to the bedroom to “freshen up.” Before she exits, Maya
runs back to kiss Alex one more time and warns him “don’t leave” to which he
responds, “don’t worry, I won’t.” Once she closes the bathroom door, Alex
rushes to escape. While posing for Alex, Maya comes out of the bathroom and
discovers a note stating, “Michelle It was fun.” Once again, the sexy Jezebel
character is used and abused. Although they had slept together, Alex not only
forgot Maya’s name, but also made no attempt to call her by her actual name in
later scenes. As a result, this fortifies the argument that although black
women are sexy and attractive, they are neither given respect, nor do they have
respect for themselves. In spite of this falsity, the lack of agency stereotype
is only reinforced in films and the sexy Jezebel character hinders the
progression of black women in media. This is an issue creating a double
standard in the current U.S. black media market where black women are
constantly pigeonholed into certain stigmatized identities, which then affect
the perception of black women in real life.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Black
women’s identities are constructed in two ways, by others and by themselves.
Oftentimes, the identities that black women are confined to are the aggressor,
as we see in the character Madea and the sexy Jezebel character that Meagan
Good portrays. As a result, the conflicting identifications further these
cultural stereotypes and cause people to construct their own identity with
regard to what they view in the media. These perceptions of identity are firmly
rooted in the idea that people become what they consume, meaning that these
perceived identities are constructed. According to T.W. Volscho, racism is
defined as highly
organized system of race-based group privilege that operates at every level of
society and is held together by the sophisticated ideology of color/race supremacy (675-676). Thus, we argue
that cultural stereotypes are a form of systemic racism. These exaggerations
sustain white supremacy/privilege and ultimately legitimize “the feared Other” (Reid
67). Altogether, these portrayals reinforce the notion that black women are not
only objects, in the case of the Jezebel stereotype, but also adhere to the
“male mammy” persona of a crazed and aggressive identity. Our main concern is
that these portrayals then influence how society and the black female audience
interpret black womanhood.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Increasingly,
black films portray beauty through an Anglo-Saxon lens. As a result, there is a
disconnect between the representation of beauty and the black female audience.
For example, black women with Anglo-Saxon features, such as long flowing hair
and a lighter skin tone, typically portray the “beautiful” woman. In <i>Think
Like a Man</i>, for instance, the actresses who portray the “beautiful woman”
have relaxed hair and are fairly light-skinned for black women. Using their
Anglo-Saxon beauty, the women command the attention of their male counterparts.
In one particular scene, Lauren exits her penthouse apartment building and
walks towards Michael Ealy’s character Dominique. While doing so, Dominique’s
eyes widen with hungry lust as he watches Lauren’s beautiful hair blow in the
imaginary wind. Although this version of beauty empowers the Lauren character,
it potentially harms the black female audience. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">According
to Lindy McDougall, the media creates a “notion of normality” that contradicts
the reality (McDougall 1). She argues that because media images are
consistently consumed, individuals perceive these portrayals as the “norm.” As
people interpret these images, they begin to understand their natural selves
through the portrayals. As a result, this potentially challenges those who do
not fit the “norm.” For instance, in McDougall’s “Towards a clean slit“ she
references the field of genital construction. She argues that the media creates
an unrealistic “norm” of vaginal aesthetics by consistently portraying the
female genitalia as “minimalist” and “symmetric” (McDougall 7). As women consume
these images, they come to believe that their vaginas <i>should </i>look this way
(McDougall 7). Accordingly, if their vaginas do not match these portrayals,
women then alter themselves through reconstructive surgeries. As a result,
McDougall contends that the media normalizes body modification and encourages
people to alter themselves. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Drawing
upon this theory, we argue that the black media market poses a similar threat
to identity. By using a specific type of woman, black films portray a
particular version of beauty. In <i>Think Like a Man</i>, this beauty includes
the long flowing hair ideal of Anglo-Saxon women and an overall light-skin
complexion. For black women who do not fit this mold, the dissonance forces
them to realize that society considers their natural beauty as “abnormal”
(McDougall 7). If these women try to obtain the “norm,” they essentially
subvert their identities and subscribe to the unrealistic portrayals. As a
result, media harms the black female’s perception of self and ultimately
persuades her to comply with Anglo-Saxon standards. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Likewise,
due to media portrayals of beauty, black women forfeit their agency by
“embracing, taking pleasure in, and even feeling empowered by the cultural
objectification” of the black female body (Baehr and Gray 46). Because actresses
are representing an ideal that does not fully encompass the range of beauty in
the black community, they ultimately portray these prejudiced conceptions of Anglo-Saxon
perfection (Baehr and Gray 46). As a result, the black media market produces a
mimicry of Anglo-Saxon features. Praising the Anglo-Saxon identity through the
embodiment of Anglo-Saxon features gives black women their own perceived “beauty”
agency. In reality, the embodiment of Anglo-Saxon features yields a false sense
of agency. For example, because black women are confined to certain “beauty”
stereotypes and appearances, they forfeit the opportunity to play roles outside
of these constructed characters. This conformity to the overwhelming
patriarchal and racist view of beauty only furthers the stereotyping of black
women in U.S. media, despite black women feeling empowered by these stereotypes
and their overall Anglo-Saxon appearance. A possible reason why black women
feel empowered is that there is positive feedback in the midst of the
negativity. The positive feedback demonstrates to what extent black women are recognized
as beautiful which ultimately is attributed to how much they resemble white
feminine ideals. The U.S. black media market provides an outlet of expression
and an avenue of recognition for black women and that in of itself is a form of
power. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Oftentimes,
when the media portrays black womanhood, the black female character embodies
masculinity. In the <i>Diary of a Mad Black Woman</i>, Tyler Perry portrays the
character of Madea. As a black man, Perry incorporates his own masculinity when
representing Madea. According to the feminist scholarly source, <i>Turning It
On</i> there is an “effacement of postmodern culture” where these stereotypes
of black women are not “merely embodied” but “explicitly thematized and
celebrated” (Baehr and Gray 45). Because society celebrates these stereotypes, black
male actors are encouraged to be exceedingly outrageous and offensive to black
women (Baehr and Gray 45). This dramatization of black womanhood in roles like
Madea deface the credibility of black women as actors, primarily because black
men play these characters, and “[inaugurate] new constructions of the self”
that are not an accurate or favorable depiction of the majority of black women
(Baehr and Gray 45). The portrayal of black female characters by men
demonstrates the extent to which being a black woman is perceived to be
constructed and an act of men. The fact that men play these “mammy” roles
accentuates the false notion that black women lack femininity. For instance, it
is difficult to look at Madea and think “woman.” Though the character is
herself a woman, the common knowledge that she is a man discredits any
credibility that Madea has feminine-like qualities. She has a form of
womanliness, but her bad make-up, sagging breasts, and oversized fashion make
her a laughable character. As a result, this engenders the perception that
black women have a form of womanliness but are also laughable and are pretending
to be feminine when they are actually not. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> By
portraying black women as men, black media enforces the notion that the black
female lacks agency. For instance, according to David Valentine, society creates
a form of representational violence. In “The Calculus of Pain” he argues that politicians,
activists and feminist scholars use the term “transgender” to categorize an
identity. To this point however, Valentine insists that the actors misinterpret
the layers of “transgender” by trying to represent an identity in an
encompassing category. For instance, he argues that groups like Genderpac, use
narratives of transgender individuals to mobilize legislative reform. Because
these stories cannot define the meaning of transgender, they present a false
identity. As a result, Valentine contends that these actors limit the agency of
“transgender” individuals and grossly misinterpret their stories (Valentine 48).
Drawing upon this framework, we argue that the black media market creates a
similar crisis of identity. In roles like Madea, black men portray black women
from an “outside” perspective. By assuming the roles of black womanhood, black
men limit the agency of their female counterparts and adopt a feigned identity.
As a result, black media misconstrues the black female identity, takes away her
choice of representation and ultimately limits her agency. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Moreover,
when black women are given the opportunity to portray black womanhood, their
characters still embody masculinity. For example, in <i>Think Like A Man</i>,
Taraji P. Henson’s character Lauren represents the strong and independent black
woman stereotype. As a C.O.O. of a Fortune 500 company, Lauren asserts her
power and maintains an aggressive persona. Because of her accomplishments,
Lauren challenges her male counterparts and finds it difficult to maintain a
relationship. Candace, played by Regina Hall, insists that Lauren adopt a more
docile approach. For instance, Candace explains to Lauren that she should
submit to the wishes of her male companion and stop “being a man.” During one
particular scene, Lauren and Candace discuss their current relationships. When
Candace advises Lauren to read the new book <i>Act
Like a Lady, Think Like a Man</i>, Lauren refuses to adopt “that sexist crap.”
Instead, she asserts “there is no such thing as too strong” and insists that
she continue to challenge men both intellectually and professionally. Disturbed
by this idea, Candace then recalls Lauren’s previous relationship. She insists
that Lauren’s previous boyfriend ended the date when “you trumped his wine
choice.” She finally reminds Lauren of her boyfriend’s last words: “you don’t
need a man Lauren, you <i>are</i> a man.” Using this experience to warn her
best friend, Candace implores Lauren to be less masculine. Following her
friend’s advice, Lauren adopts the traditional feminine ideals of empathy and
sensitivity (Wollstonecraft 171). For instance, when speaking about her new
boyfriend Dominique, Lauren insists that she “believes in his dreams.”
Moreover, Lauren tells Candace that she will continue to help Dominique achieve
his goals and provide him the support necessary to become a five-star chef.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Nevertheless,
during this transformation, the film continues to portray Lauren as masculine.
For instance, after the two break-up, Lauren discovers that Dominique has
started his own business. Impressed by Dominique’s decision, Lauren tries to
rekindle their relationship by going to the grand opening. Through a romantic
gesture, Lauren describes her true feelings about Dominique and implores him
“to take me back.” Despite her vulnerability, the film still portrays Lauren as
masculine. For instance, while begging for the attention of Dominique, Lauren
storms up the stairs and verbally assaults the neighboring customers. During
the commotion, Lauren’s overly aggressive nature disturbs Dominique and
ultimately forces him to listen to her demands. When the media portrays black women,
there is always a masculine undercoat. As a result, this creates a false image
of black womanhood in society. As the images “dominate the consciousness of
Americans” people begin conform to notions of the black female as “tough
domineering, and strong” (bell hooks, <i>Ain’t
I A Woman</i> 83). Although these images empower the black female and
strengthen her image in society, it also detracts from her feminine qualities.
Thus, black women are described as “powerful” rather than “weak” and are
considered masculine rather than feminine.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Figure 1</b> </span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Results
from Questions 5-10: How would you describe the actress?</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4gz9WfJQPr6m1sVuEW_cfVdCmr-buy2llbhnAU8kpAMay68VIwiFSQfjkrE-95YS-Q44GDYcmTp5ZtIk1L48FUITvrkZbEXl3EcM27nuz2B_4DPZj-7KMG5gTkCGFhcxn90mGu76yX57-/s1600/Data.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4gz9WfJQPr6m1sVuEW_cfVdCmr-buy2llbhnAU8kpAMay68VIwiFSQfjkrE-95YS-Q44GDYcmTp5ZtIk1L48FUITvrkZbEXl3EcM27nuz2B_4DPZj-7KMG5gTkCGFhcxn90mGu76yX57-/s1600/Data.JPG" height="252" width="400" /></span></a></div>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Although
there are many studies that explore the connection between media and identity,
few analyze the black female perspective. To explore the effects of the black
media market, we conducted a survey about the movie <i>Think Like a Man</i>. Through
our survey, we tried to determine how the images of black womanhood affect the
black female’s perception of self. We began our research by first targeting
African American females. Using the Cornell community, we sent out an email to
various African American organizations. We framed the survey as a “Personality
Test” that would examine the effects of media and representation. Ultimately,
we were able to include 41 participants in our survey sample. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Our
survey included nine questions about the effects of movie identification. We
asked our respondents to first choose the actress that they most identified
with in the movie. Their options included: La La Anthony, Meagan Good, Regina
Hall, Taraji P. Henson, Gabrielle Union and Jenifer Lewis. Next, the respondents
described the actresses as either powerful, strong, confident, sexy/seductive
or weak. We used the adjective “powerful” to reflect the masculine stereotyping
of black women. To determine whether the media could destroy or possibly limit this
particular stereotype, we included the adjective “weak.” We also used the
adjective “angry” to reflect the cultural stereotype of a crazed Madea.
Moreover, the term “sexy/seductive” refers to the Jezebel stereotype of black
women as overly promiscuous. Finally, we included the adjective “confident” to
explore the ways in which the black media could foster a sense of pride in the
black female. After describing the actresses, respondents then used the same
adjectives to describe themselves. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Based on our results, there was a
link between the adjectives that respondents used to describe the actresses and
the type of stereotypes the actresses embodied. For instance, respondents
described Taraji P. Henson as either “powerful” or “confident” but never
“weak.” Recognizing the masculine-like qualities of the character Lauren,
respondents described Henson with non-feminine adjectives. Thus, <i>Think Like
a Man</i> reinforced the image of a masculine black woman. Moreover, when
describing Meagan Good, respondents either used the terms “weak” or
“sexy/seductive” to label Good’s performance. Based on the construction of
Jezebel, Good’s character fit the portrayal of a sexy seductress that men used
for entertainment. Her ability to attract Alex’s attention demonstrated to the
black female audience her overall “seductive” nature. Nevertheless, because
Alex used Maya, Good’s character, for his own sexual pleasure, the audience
perceived Good’s portrayal as “weak.” Altogether, the respondents used
adjectives that adhered to the cultural stereotypes described by scholars and
ultimately portrayed by the actresses. As a result, we conclude that the black
female audience not only acknowledges cultural stereotypes but also identifies
with them. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Based
on our results, we determined that there <i>is</i> a connection between
identification and media images. For example, of those who identified with a
particular actress, 70% of respondents used the same adjective to describe
themselves and their favored actress. By consuming the media images, respondents
identified themselves through the portrayals of various female actors. Our main
concern is that the black media images not only encourage black females to
adopt media portrayals but also adhere to cultural stereotypes. Although our
survey does not explore this particular outcome, we acknowledge bell hooks
concern that mass media images “impress a negative image of black womanhood”
that is then acted “upon all our psyches,” including the black female (bell
hooks, <i>Ain’t I A Woman </i>84).
Accordingly, when black women interpret these negative images, they begin to
understand themselves through these portrayals and adopt them in society. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Since
the “second wave,” feminist scholars have made an effort to understand the
complexity of minority identification. Adding to their work, we have analyzed
the <i>particular</i> construction of black female
identity in the U.S. black media market. Based on our role analysis, we have
determined that black films, specifically <i>Diary
of a Mad Black Woman </i>and <i>Think Like a
Man</i>, adhere to the cultural stereotypes of sexy Jezebel and black mammy. Moreover,
their depiction of Anglo-Saxon beauty yields an unrealistic “norm” for black
women that result in the portrayal of black womanhood as overly masculine and a
“feared Other.” Based on our survey results, we have also determined that black
females recognize media stereotypes, view themselves through these portrayals
and in some cases act upon them. Thus, our main concern is that the black media
market enables the devaluation of black womanhood. As a medium geared towards
black people, we believe that the black media market should aim to destroy these
stereotypes and instead use images that reflect the reality rather than the construction
of black womanhood (bell hooks, <i>Reel to Real</i> 131). </span></div>
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<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Works
Cited</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Baehr, Helen, and Ann Gray. <i>Turning
It On: A Reader in Women and Media</i>. London: Arnold,
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> 1996.
Print.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Chen, Gina M, Sherri Williams,
Nicole Hendrickson, and Li Chen. "Male Mammies: a Social</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>Comparison
Perspective on How Exaggeratedly Overweight Media Portrayals of
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Madea,
Rasputia, and Big Momma Affect How Black Women Feel About <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>Themselves." <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Mass Communication and Society. 15.1 (2012):
115-135. Print.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7813876230675269037" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-size: large;">Cranny-Francis, Anne and Wendy E.
Waring. 2003. Femininity, Masculinity, and</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Fashion. <i>Gender
Studies: Terms and Debates. </i>Palgrave Macmillan. 197-205.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Gooding, F. W., and Khalid J.
Patterson. <i>You Mean, There's Race in My Movie?: The Complete <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Guide to Understanding Race in Mainstream Hollywood</i>. Silver Spring, MD.:
On the Reelz,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> 2007. Print.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">hooks, bell. <i>Ain't I a Woman: Black
Women and Feminism</i>. Boston,
MA: South End, 1981.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Print.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">hooks, bell. <i>Reel to Real: Race,
Sex, and Class at the Movies</i>. New
York, NY: Routledge,
1996.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Print.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">McDougall, Lindy J. “Towards a
clean slit: how medicine and notions of normality are</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>shaping
genital aesthetics.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Culture, Health
& Sexuality: An International Journal for</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Research, Intervention and Care</i>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Reid, Mark. Black Lenses, Black
Voices: African American Film Now. Lanham,
MD: Rowman</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>&
Littlefield, 2005. Print.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Valentine, David. ‘The Calculus of Pain’: Violence,
Anthropological Ethics, and the Category </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Transgender.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethnos</i>. 68(1): 27-48. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Volpp, Leti. 2001. Feminism versus Multiculturalism. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Columbia</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Law Review</i> 101(5): 1181</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1218.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Volscho, Thomas W. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Racism and Disparities in Women’s Use of
Depo-Provera</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Injection
in the Contemporary USA.
Critical Sociology 37:673-688.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Wollstonecraft, Mary. “A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An
Introduction to Women’s</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Studies: Gender in a Transnational
World</i>. I. Grewal and C. Kaplan, Eds. McGraw Hill. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>170-172.</span></div>
<br />
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<![endif]-->CornellFeministStudieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12580143675222477986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7813876230675269037.post-39215995930761575992013-12-29T14:29:00.003-05:002014-03-15T16:12:00.458-04:00Porn for a Feminist World?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxsQJ3QmTGbqhXppDCdnG0aX_n_nV5ZE5aDMO_Oug8V0hDM5jUaGEDtPaYbsIq4btTRCJJL7R4mjw40O2F9ANVI9JWmx5G1qGcBm3Pqpedu6qZJhQRixvhN23qagsm3QybrJH2XjBEY2a/s1600/hands-laptop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxsQJ3QmTGbqhXppDCdnG0aX_n_nV5ZE5aDMO_Oug8V0hDM5jUaGEDtPaYbsIq4btTRCJJL7R4mjw40O2F9ANVI9JWmx5G1qGcBm3Pqpedu6qZJhQRixvhN23qagsm3QybrJH2XjBEY2a/s320/hands-laptop.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-386054fd-3fc8-dc32-92ab-842bf91b6ead"><span style="font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Queer Porn: Savior of Pornography for a Feminist World</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by A.W.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Porn has a problem. In the same way that minority individuals feel invisible when there are no representatives of their race, class, or gender expression in mainstream television or film, minority viewers feel ignored, misrepresented, and obscured in the production process of mainstream pornography. Specifically in regards to gender trends, popular porn has done little to stray from the age-old script of masculine superiority and pleasure gained from conquering even the slightly feminine. These trends have been instrumental in polarizing my feminist thought and my developing ideas of sexuality, which are in part inspired by porn consumption. I have heard the arguments of many feminist voices who have ultimately condemned pornography as a hopelessly sexist medium. Even so, the goal of my research is to find American porn's salvation; determine what ways, if any, porn can be reappropriated--assuming that porn has a strict definition and singular function--and beneficial to a post-modern society. I aim to pull the voices of theorists who argue for or against pornography from a distance, the voices of scholars who directly examine pornographic works, and the voices of active-in-the-biz directors and performers into discussion here. While I am probing the medium with feminist tools, I believe that there are distinctions to be made within visual pornography, and (in spare terms) the primary distinction that I will examine is between mainstream pornography made solely for profit and independent porn made for sexuality's sake. Based on a cocktail of my own experience and the findings of interested scholars, the subgenre that I propose as an anti-sexist and anti-homogeneous solution is independent feminist queer porn. Before I delve into this possible solution to porn's complex problem let me first present the problem and the arguments surrounding it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here and now, in an era that some scholars call the digital age, video porn is accessible on any device with an internet connection. Porn sites are being optimized for visits on mobile phones, and even with restrictions, people of any age can be exposed to explicit images. What has often come under scrutiny is the power of these images to forcefully gender viewers, particularly within the context of heterosexuality, and support historical inequities through the repetition of practices and reproduction of symbols. Judith Butler describes gender as "performative" and only real as long as it is indeed performed (Butler, 1988, 527). Since gender is dependent upon a set of repeatedly performed acts, it is easy to see how it can be constructed by the sexual acts in porn. For example, in mainstream heterosexual porn the woman is passive and penetrated while the man is active and does the penetrating; this dichotomy of acting/acted upon serves to gender the performers as well as the audience, and limit their expression to discourage action outside of the boundaries set for their performance. As for how this affects our sexual expression within the two-gendered hetero framework, each viewer is assigned one traditional gender role based heavily on their sex, and are subsequently taught to find sexy the traits of the complementary role in the binary system. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mainstream porn transfers not only an expectation of behaviors to its wide audience but of presentation as well. Feona Attwood says that, in the case of women, porn pushes "conventional forms of representation (the safe, the thin, and the asexual)" as ideal, and they must live up to this in order to be desirable (Attwood, 2004, 13). What we get are most often images of the augmented, shaved, and petite white female, and this representation of the body has been instrumental in leading women to go as far as to undergo surgery. In her report, "Towards a clean slit: how medicine and notions of normality are shaping female genital aesthetics", Lindy McDougall investigates the growing popularity of genital cosmetic surgeries like labiaplasty, which is the surgical reduction of the labia minora in order to produce a simple and contained genital appearance. She argues that the "altered images" of porn have left the realm of fantasy and infiltrated our views of how a real and normal woman should look (McDougall, 2013, 5). Organic parts are too complex and variable and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">masculine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, while the "clean slit is a marker of appropriate and acceptable femininity." (McDougall, 2013, 4) The efforts to simplify and make interchangeable the bodies of women are aligned with the ideal that females should be asexual, which accounts for the lack of a display of feminine desire and sexuality in porn, an issue that many of the scholars we will look at dissect.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have been a consumer of internet video pornography for over a decade now and most of my surfing was done as a teenager. My experience can be described as this: at first it was exciting, I was finally learning about sex and seeing things that my parents would never explain to me. Then I noticed the ideals that I couldn't measure up to or ignore, as they were consistently on every page, in every image. Soon after I felt an attack on my femininity unfold; the existence of my desire was contradictory to the singular and rigid femaleness each image dictated to me, and this fact, coupled with the unmistakably male point of view of every video I saw, constructed a masculine site of enjoyment inside my head. I consumed porn from this "male" perspective, deriving my pleasure from the ever-central locus of male orgasm, participating in its fetishization but not able to completely relate. This worked internally uncontested for a while, until I found myself searching for authenticity and a desire that I could fully relate to, as what I now see as my implanted masculine proxy began to fail. I was now an adult very interested in sexuality studies; combing through mainstream content available for female perspectives, but I found every attempt to showcase feminine sexuality to collide with industry constraint, and unfortunately fall short. To me, major studios seemed to keep a cap on the options for women performers in order to hold male desire as the focus and driving force of every scene. I was going to have to give up on heterosexual porn if I wanted a fresh script or to really learn about variant bodies and expression.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pornography as a form has plenty of critics, and these critics speak of pornography as if it is a monolithic genre, which it for the most part is. While some of the opposition to porn has come from conservative forces rallying against obscenity, much of the battle against porn has been fought by a group of feminists identified as anti-porn feminists. These women held a position "organized around the claim that sexually explicit representation is a form of sexual violence that depends on the objectification of women for its charge." (Attwood,2004 , 7) Clearly these feminists were concerned with the rampant sexism of pornography and the possibility for it to actively combat the social progress made by women up through the 1980s (Schorn, 2012). Major voices of the early anti-pornography movement connected pornography to America's rape culture, saying that "pornography is the theory, and rape the practice." (qtd. in Atwood, 2004, 8). These activists confronted all pornography similarly, leaving no room for the medium to be considered beneficial. This issue was picked up by feminists arguing for pornography, sometimes called anti-antiporn feminists (Kohlehmeinen, 2010) but mostly referred to as sex-positive feminists. Sex positive thinkers examine and accuse the cultural contexts that influence porn rather than the medium itself (Schorn 2012), and discourage the restriction of practices in favor of reforming them to be safe and totally consensual (Schorn 2012). Out of sex positivity has come feminist porn, porn claiming to be made for a feminist world by feminist producers and performers. If porn as a whole is a tainted medium, used to gain profits from the demeaned and subjugated bodies of women, does the idea of feminist pornography become oxymoronic?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feona Attwood takes steps in her work "Pornography and Objectification" that can help answer this question. She confronts the claims of anti-porn thought by examining the writings of famous anti-porn activist Andrea Dworkin, historian Walter Kendrick, and theorist Laura Kipnis. Attwood boils each writers' work down to one over-reaching claim about pornography. According to her, Dworkin believed that "all pornography objectifies women and everything that objectifies women is pornography." (Attwood, 2004, 10) This is part of what distances me from the movement. While pornography situated in the cultural context of the American industry has been decidedly stubborn about what it showcases and for whom, this definition shows a failure to consider porn that features other genders and porn made to empower women. Dworkin fought for strict federal regulation of all pornography, bringing us to Kendrick who looked specifically at the causes and effects of such regulation. Attwood summarizes Kendrick's findings as "all sexual representations which are subject to regulation become pornography, and all attempts to regulate pornography are an exercise of power over powerless groups, including women." (Attwood 10) Kendrick seems to support sex positivity here, pointing out that it is possible that the censorship of pornographic works can further oppress silenced groups. Whereas Dworkin held to generalizations of groups and media, Kendrick enlightens us that women may not be single-mindedly against pornography, and that regulation will deny pro-porn women exposure to positive porn while aiding in the control of what women can consume. The final view that Attwood discusses is that of Kipnis, whose argument can be summarized as "pornography always transgresses dominant norms of sexuality and gender, and whatever is sexual and transgressive is pornography." (Attwood 10) I would say that this view is correct within the context of an early period in the U.S. as progress in porn has created and informed these "dominant norms", removing mainstream porn as a transgressive medium and exposing it as essentialist and didactic. Attwood recognizes this didactic quality in some sense when she engages Lynne Segal and writes that porn "has become “overburdened with significance” as a culturally established way for speaking about sex, power, and regulation...as an emblem of misogyny and as a symbol of the power of the image." (3) Trends in pornography have permeated our understanding of sexuality and the medium is recognized for its ability to be an agent of culture and instill ideals in a mass audience. In the end, Attwood leaves us with an attractive idea that sexual display might just be a source of power for the under-represented, supporting the reappropriation of the sexual image as potentially powerful (14-15).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has been said that "today sexual pleasure is far too important a commodity for women not to seek their own desire and agency in it." (Williams, 1993, 130) Johanna Schorn has examined well this idea of reappropriation, or margin-dwellers making </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>a porn of their own</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Schorn examines feminist women in major production positions as they display power by taking the established system, flipping the script or flat-out destroying it to create a better one. She intently argues for the use of pornography to change damaging cultural systems:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"While it is undeniably true that we live in a heteronormative patriarchal society that mandates certain ways of sexual expressions and does not generally place much of a focus on consent or equality, it should also be possible for individuals to experience their sexuality and pleasure in the way that feels most intuitive to them...in the specific example of pornography [one of the ways to ensure a safe and healthy context] is through breaking apart the hegemonically phallocentric structure of the porn industry and through producing and distributing material that gives a “realistic” and more inclusive view of human sexuality in general and female sexual agency in particular." (Schorn, 2012, 1-2)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schorn looks at the work of feminist porn director Tristan Taormino and feminist genderqueer performer Jiz Lee for examples of the realistic and female empowerment. Taormino is seen as one of the most prolific directors of feminist porn, with an emphasis on educating viewers and giving performers a stage to express themselves and experiment on (Schorn 4). While Schorn describes one of Taormino's erotic sex education titles in her article, I'd like to describe one of her films that I saw a few years ago, which was revolutionary to me. The 2009 film </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rough Sex </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">starts off with interviews of two pretty successful performers in the mainstream industry. These interviews are not the usual set of leading questions ending with descriptions of how the woman will end up pleasing the man, but actual inquiries into the real interests and dislikes of both the female and male performer. The interviews were filmed individually and edited together, switching between the performers' answers to the same questions. What struck me the most about this film was, after the interview segment ended and the scene was beginning, there was an on-camera negotiation between the performers of what they wanted and what would not take place. It was a very real construction of a safe and consensual context, with the individuals' idea of proper boundaries set up. To me this was extremely educational and encouraging, showing that women, just as much as men, should be aware of their bodies and boundaries and should clearly express those boundaries to their partners before physical intimacy. I had not seen that before in any of the porn videos I'd come across online. Schorn explains the vast majority of porn that I had been exposed to as "the kind of mainstream pornography that is overwhelmingly heterosexist, that is focused on phallocentric power and pleasure, that perpetuates “unhealthy” ideas about women and sexuality and that supports the image of the ideal woman as surgically altered and sexually subservient." (6)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other feminist that Schorn features in her article is Jiz Lee, a genderqueer pornographer with a "sex-positive activist agenda." (Schorn 5) Lee is a part of the independent and queer porn production company Pink and White Productions, which produces both the online </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crash Pad</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> series that Schorn examines, and Queerporn.tv that I will examine later. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Crash Pad</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Schorn explains, is set up as a single and secret location where couples or groups of queer-identified people go to have sex that "breaks with the heteronormative and often sexist traditions of [pornography]." (5) The series is a prime example of a more inclusive and powerful brand of porn that, not always featuring cisgendered women, does not deny the existence nor expression of female sexuality in favor of another. What, though, is queer porn exactly, and what power of image does it hold compared to that of mainstream porn? </span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-386054fd-3fcb-221d-9964-a34ee1b0698e" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before we explore queer porn, let's first examine what </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">queer</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> means. Queer has a long history in the U.S. of being used as a pejorative term against gay or lesbian individuals, targeting them for being different or against the norm. Reclaimed and re-signified by a gender variant and sexually variant group, queer has come to mean something more than sexual identity--it denotes having a political stance against heteronormativity and what Butler calls the compulsory heterosexuality that is dominant in a binary system such as ours (Butler 1988). Queer theory has inspired a global movement against social hegemonies and norms, and Scott Gunther looks at queerness and its history through American and French contexts. According to Gunther, though queer has taken a variety of situational meanings within other cultures, "it refers to a flexible identity that's constantly in motion, constantly becoming, constantly transgressing...First, to be "queer" is to be against assimilationism." (Gunther, 2005, 1) Jiz Lee may be one of the contemporary American queers that Gunther describes as opening a new theoretical space (Gunther 2). This space is a space in which "desire is not only considered primary, but autonomous. As an autonomous force," he explains, "desire cannot be understood as socially or historically determined." (Gunther 2) Desire is therefore individual to every person and cannot be constructed. However, forces like patriarchy and heteronormativity can function to alter or suppress desires. Queerness is then set up as a political contender to the dominant script of porn, and activists live very aware of this potential. Regarding the power of queer imagery to invoke change, Jiz Lee has expressed that they "think explicit queer sexuality on film will permeate the adult industry by opening dialogues about gender, sexuality, and sexual acts." (qtd. in Schorn, 2012, 4)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Queer porn is small and independent--not nearly the billion-dollar industry that the mainstream porn of California's San Fernando Valley boasts (Whisnant 2009)--and seems to thoroughly be its antithesis based on who makes it and for whom. "The sexual subject in porn can be seen as representative of the national subject of the United States; the position and power of the white male subject is reinforced through performances of domination over people of marginalized gender, sexual and race identities." (Seise, 2010, 22) Queer production companies, like Queerporn.tv, strive to focus on a more inclusive idea of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subject</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> through the performers involved. According to the website's Manifesto, QPTV vows to "showcase sex that people want to perform as opposed to the sex that we expect audiences [sic] want to see." (queerporn.tv) Their definition of queer porn is "porn that is directed and produced by queer people, depicting queer performers engaged in queer sex acts. Associated with, political consciousness, authenticity and artful independent production." (queerporn.tv) Upon entering the website one can see performers from a wide range of race groups, with an even wider range of gender identities. Each performer has a bio page, listing their preffered pronouns, gender identities (showing that an individual can possess more than one!), and what makes them queer. This lends to each performer being presented as a real person whose sexual journies they've shared for us to follow. One aspect of the company that encouraged me the most is the equal presence of trans identified men and women, who are unfortunately marginalized even within the already marginalized LGBTQ community in America. Allowing all these queer individuals a space and stage to express their sexualities is empowering for them, as they are underrepresented in commercial porn, but also for viewers who are like me and were at any point "fed up with mainstream pornography and the way it has hijacked sexuality." (Schorn, 2012, 6) QPTV is a pay to view and download porn site, which isn't accessible to everyone, depending on economic status or even their access to the internet. However, for those with internet access, the clips, bios, and video blogs are enough to inspire and encourage those downtrodden and made invisible by the dominant porn narratives.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, how can we apply this queer subgenre to the concerns of contemporary anti-porn feminists? An article came out recently by an anti-porn feminist by the name of Maya Shlayen bringing up the economic privilege of those who can produce porn, and the general privilege of voyeurs who consume what I would call unethical porn. She relays the story of a retired performer named Vanessa Belmond who was abused within the industry and has become a strong anti-porn activist. Shlayen sees feminist porn as a problematic conundrum because, due to stories like Belmond's, the industry is seen as uniformly and dangerously misogynist. We must note with Shlayen that many women begin sex work because they have limited options due to their race or class (Shlayen 2013). Thus the feminist and queer performers that can afford to use pornography as an outlet for expression and a political tool cannot be compared to the performers who get on camera to make a living and may not have the opportunity to avoid strictly exploitative and harmful sets. This being said, there are two major flaws in Shlayen's views that I found. First is her rejection of all pornography while simultaneously acknowledging the potential of queer independent porn to be positive porn. She posits that, "If “feminist porn” only meant small, independent studios making queer pornography, it still wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of mitigating the harms of a $100 billion a year misogynist industry." (Shlayen 2013) I seriously disagree with her here in a way that relates to my problem with the second flaw in her work: she describes the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feminist Porn Book</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, written by previously discussed director Tristan Taormino, as a text that "makes clear that: 'Feminist porn is also produced within the mainstream adult industry by feminists whose work is funded and distributed by large companies such as Vivid Entertainment, Adam and Eve, and Evil Angel Productions'," adding, "so-called “feminist pornographers” partnering with the mainstream industry shows what this is all about: money. " First off, commercial pornography is in fact all about money. I am not inclined to believe that Taormino and others work through larger companies to gain profit, as it is most likely the other way around. The market for feminist porn is growing and large companies will no doubt want a hand in the financial gains. Consumers can therefor exercise power in purse/wallet by buying and viewing feminist porn over sexist titles. The permeation of feminist interests and ideals into mainstream pornography is a wonderful thing; partnered with activism that aims to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reform</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and not demolish the industry (keeping in mind performers who enjoy and need sex work), it can do away with abusive male control of the sets and achieve safer work environments for performers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shlayen asks, "why do we need pornography in the first place?" Pornography is a human-made form of art, a body genre that can excite, inspire, and teach. With the right messages of inclusion, health, and consensuality, porn can have a progressive effect on culture. As a developing teen with little honest education available to me in school or at home, pornography was a vehicle for knowledge, which ended up teaching me that what I wanted for my body, as a woman, wasn't wrong. It also helped me discover that I am attracted to trans men as well as cisgender men, aiding me in building my personal definition of heterosexuality. Mainstream media, whether pornographic or not, incessantly dictates to viewers what is appropriate gender and sexual expression, under "certain sanctions and proscriptions". (Butler 525) This regulated gendering is a long-standing tradition in western civilization: early voices like 18th century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft wrote that women are taught being an "alluring object of desire" for men is central to their worth. (Wollstonecraft 170) Women today are still encouraged to follow trends to alter and tame their bodies--as we've seen with McDougall's piece on cosmetic labiaplasty--and their desires are unrepresented and suppressed. Women are hidden from their own physical truths in order to "preserve their innocence". (Wollstonecraft 170) Commercial porn created and maintains a feedback loop between its trends and fantasies and normal society: trends are born of age-old power dynamics feeding on feminine vulnerability, porn then distributes expansions on those hierarchies, and finally receives affirmation via viewer response affected by the power of reproduced images. All feminists, sex-positive or not, can appreciate independent porn made by consenting adults, and that's what companies like Pink and White Productions and Tristan Taormino's Pucker Up productions exist to offer us. Voyeurs can easily change the industry by supporting (and importantly enjoying) positive porn that hold to the strong political tenets of queer and feminist theory. Feminist filmmaker Marielle Nitoslawska once said, in an interview regarding her 2001 documentary </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bad Girl</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about autonomous women active in pornography: "women must begin to vocalize, to assert who they are or think they are, and to reinvent themselves in their own image. This is not something that will happen in a span of ten or twenty years." (qtd. in West & West, 2002, 13) Well, it's been over 10 years since that interview and feminist porn has already started helping queer and female-identified individuals create powerful images for themselves.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Works Cited</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Attwood, Feona. (2004). PORNOGRAPHY AND </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"> OBJECTIFICATION: Re-reading </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“the picture that divided Britain”. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feminist Media Studies</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. 4:1, 7-19. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680770410001674617#.</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">UqnrHvRDvm8</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Butler, Judith. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Constitution: An Essay in </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Phenomenology and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Feminist Theory. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Theatre Journal</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 40(4): 519-531.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kolehmainen, Marjo. (2010). Normalizing and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Gendering Affects. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feminist Media Studies</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10:2, 179-194. Published online.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gunther, Scott. (2005). Alors, Are We 'Queer' Yet? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Gay & Lesbian </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Review/Worldwide</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. 12: 3. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Retrieved </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">from </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://search.proquest.com/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"> docview/198673615?</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">accountid=10267</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">McDougall, Lindy Joan. (2013). Towards a clean slit: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"> how medicine and notions of </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">normality are </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> shaping female genital aesthetics. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Culture, Health </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> & Sexuality: An International Journal for </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Research, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intervention and Care</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Published online. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Queerporn.tv. Glossary. http://queerporn.tv/wp/glossary. Accessed 12/10/13.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Queerporn.tv. Manifesto. http://queerporn.tv/wp/manifesto. Accessed 12/10/13.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schorn, Johanna. (2012). Subverting Pornormativity: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Feminist and Queer Interventions. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gender Forum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. 37. Retrieved from http://www.genderforum.org/issues/sexposed/subverting/</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seise, Cherie. (2010) Fucking Utopia: Queer Porn and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Queer Liberation. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sprinkle: A </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Journal of Sexual Diversity Studies</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. 3, 19-29. Published online.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shlayen, Maya. (2013). Whose Porn, Whose Feminism? </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">Retrieved from </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.fairobserver.com/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"> article/whose-porn-whose-femnism</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">West, D., West, J.M., & Nitoslawska, Marielle. (2002) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Women Making Porno: Feminism's </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Final Frontier? An Interview with Marielle Nitoslawska. Cinéaste. 27:3, 9-13. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41690153</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whisnant, Rebecca. (2009) Pornography, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Contemporary-Mainstream. Encyclopedia of </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gender and Society. Ed. Jodi O'Brien. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.. 647-51. Published online.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Williams, Linda. (1993). A Provoking Agent: The </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Pornography and Performance Art of </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Annie Sprinkle. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Text</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. 37, 117-133. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/466263.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wollstonecraft, Mary. (2002). Excerpt from “A </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Introduction to Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I. Grewal and C. Kaplan, Eds. McGraw Hill. 170-172</span></span></div>
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