VIDEO: Katelynn’s Real World ‘Secret’ Shocks Absolutely No One
In one of the first seasons of MTV’s show The Real World, Pedro—a gay man—was casted. At the time it was a big deal that his sexual orientation was being broadcasted—and recognized. Katelynn, one of the cast members on the current season of the show is Trans. This a great stride for the Trans community, and in turn for LGBT rights and even feminism.
In one scene, Ryan (another cast member) talks candidly with Katelynn about her identity. Their conversation is a little humorous but also really important. So, kudos to MTV for airing it and in turn for helping to open some minds that otherwise never would have thought about the subject of Trans issues. Oh, and snaps to Katelynn for being brave enough to be comfortable in her own skin—that’s more than most of us can say for ourselves
VIDEO: Katelynn’s Real World ‘Secret’ Shocks Absolutely No One
When Davey and Chase (two transgendered people) spoke to our class, this is what they had to say:
Feminism is about resisting patriarchy and because Trans people are--like women--oppressed by male hierarchy the two movements have a lot in common.
Economic Marginalization: unemployment rates for Trans people are overwhelming. In San Francisco 25% Trans people are employed full time, 15% part time and 10% are reported as unemployed. The rest are unofficially employed by the street economy prostituting themselves and/or selling drugs. This staggering unemployment--the result of discrimination--has the same effect on Trans people as it has historically had on women. When any individual is forced to be economically dependent on others--be it their partner, family or friends--a basic right of self-sufficiency has been denied.
Most of the time sexism/trans oppression happens simultaneously. "Normal" has to be measured against something and often because women are the victims of sexism, they (or maybe just the system that oppresses them) in turn oppresses trans people. Normal is defined in relation to abnormal--trans people as "other" helps women define themselves as the subject instead of their traditional role as other to the Male subject.
For instance, science and nature are used to justify sexism against women and Trans people. Women are perceived as the weaker sex and Trans people are also considered weak--whether because they are seen as being confused about their gender, psychologically unstable or weakness is associated with just not fitting neatly into one category of gender.
And, “my body, my choice” is not just a feminist statement. Just as the medical community has long dictated women's bodies, it also controls Transgendered people's bodies, too. For instance, being Trans is considered a psychological disorder that must be declared for treatment or change. This essentially proves that people are valued based on their reproductive abilities. So, by advocating for Trans rights, feminist can also make the statement that woman is not just a womb...hitting two patriarchal birds with one stone.
Davey's website
2/7/09
Part IV: 1963-1975
Some critical questions:
“The first women’s studies programs were created in these years [1963-1963], as were rape crisis centers and hotlines, battered women’s shelters, women’s centers, and women’s bookstores” (197).
As the introduction to Part IV says, the establishment of crisis centers, shelters and women’s centers was revolutionary. Why do we seemingly take them for granted then? For instance, why isn’t the Women’s Center at Allegheny used more? I’ve never seen it advertised around campus and I've walked past it numerous times—it never seems to be open much less offer discussion groups or counseling, etc.
Clearly this isn't because women no longer need crisis centers, women's centers or shelters.
Rape and domestic abuse are still pressing issues. While my generation has at least grown up knowing these words as commonly used terms (because they didn't even used to exist) they are still major problems within society. For instance, according to RAINN, 1 in every 6 women will be raped in her lifetime. That means that of the 19 women in this class, 3 or 4 of us have already been raped, or will be at some point in our lifetime.
I'm not naive enought to think that I won't be a statistic; I understand that the chance of rape threatens every woman. Clearly violence against women based on the gendered power structure of our society still exists, even after three waves of feminism. The fight against this violence is not over, but how can we best combat it, and erase sexism and the violence against women it breeds?
There are numerous ways to answer this question, but I think my answer is somewhere between the theories of Kate Millet and Shulasmith Firestone.
Millet writes in “Theory of Sexual Politics:” “sex IS a status category with political implications” (219).
And in The Dialectic of Sex Shulasmith Firestone writes: “…the end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings [should] no longer matter culturally” (227).
But how can both of these things be achieved? If sex is a status category with political implications and women need to embrace their difference to become empowered, how can sex distinction be erased entirely? How can embracing difference and erasing privilege be balanced? And how can this balance work towards erradicating violent acts against women--whether they happen at home or elsewhere and whether the assailant is an aquaintance or stranger?
“The first women’s studies programs were created in these years [1963-1963], as were rape crisis centers and hotlines, battered women’s shelters, women’s centers, and women’s bookstores” (197).
As the introduction to Part IV says, the establishment of crisis centers, shelters and women’s centers was revolutionary. Why do we seemingly take them for granted then? For instance, why isn’t the Women’s Center at Allegheny used more? I’ve never seen it advertised around campus and I've walked past it numerous times—it never seems to be open much less offer discussion groups or counseling, etc.
Clearly this isn't because women no longer need crisis centers, women's centers or shelters.
Rape and domestic abuse are still pressing issues. While my generation has at least grown up knowing these words as commonly used terms (because they didn't even used to exist) they are still major problems within society. For instance, according to RAINN, 1 in every 6 women will be raped in her lifetime. That means that of the 19 women in this class, 3 or 4 of us have already been raped, or will be at some point in our lifetime.
I'm not naive enought to think that I won't be a statistic; I understand that the chance of rape threatens every woman. Clearly violence against women based on the gendered power structure of our society still exists, even after three waves of feminism. The fight against this violence is not over, but how can we best combat it, and erase sexism and the violence against women it breeds?
There are numerous ways to answer this question, but I think my answer is somewhere between the theories of Kate Millet and Shulasmith Firestone.Millet writes in “Theory of Sexual Politics:” “sex IS a status category with political implications” (219).
And in The Dialectic of Sex Shulasmith Firestone writes: “…the end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings [should] no longer matter culturally” (227).
But how can both of these things be achieved? If sex is a status category with political implications and women need to embrace their difference to become empowered, how can sex distinction be erased entirely? How can embracing difference and erasing privilege be balanced? And how can this balance work towards erradicating violent acts against women--whether they happen at home or elsewhere and whether the assailant is an aquaintance or stranger?
Part III: 1920-1963
So, I can’t help but take literally the meaning of the title "A Room of One's Own," written by Virginia Woolf. I've tried to read the entire book and just can’t seem to push through it, despite the fact that it's a short read. But after reading an excerpt that really resonated with my own life, I think I'm going to try reading it again.
Last year my father decided to leave. He also decided to stop paying the mortgage on my family’s home (so now we’re in the process of moving out). My little brother started having stomach aches from all of the stress and my Momma went berserk, quiting the stable job she’s had for twenty years. All of this happened within a year’s time, and I’m still not over it. I probably won’t ever be over it.
But, things have started to look up. In August (amidst an awful economic crisis…we never do things the easy way) my Mom bought a small house. We call it the cottage, but that’s really just nice terminology. Think cabin.
The cottage was built in 1932--just three years after Woolf published A Room of One's Own.
This is where I’m going: I think Woolf, by writing A Room of One's Own, was asserting that each woman deserves to have her own space, on her own accord. She deserves the solitude of knowing she is in a woman centered space of her own construct. She deserves to be free from the sexual advances of man, and have a private space that can be used for intellectual development, emotional fulfillment, finding inner-peace. She deserves the economic and political freedom associated with having your one's own space.
Growing up, I never had my own space, and neither did my Mother. We were constantly living around my dad. For instance, if he wanted to be in the living room watching ESPN, we were in my parents' room compromising on what we'd like to watch together. And, I can't tell you how many times I sat on our back porch to paint my toenails, because he didn't like the smell of nail polish and didn't want it in the house.
Emotional abuse issues aside, I haven't known what it's like to have a "room" of my own until recently. Over winter break I worked a lot of my anger towards patriarchy out while I was teaching myself to cut and hang drywall. Knocking out and re-building the walls of my Mother’s own house, I reclaimed something for myself, too. And, little did I know I was preparing myself to better understand where Virginia Woolf was coming from when she wrote a fundamental piece of feminist theory.
Last year my father decided to leave. He also decided to stop paying the mortgage on my family’s home (so now we’re in the process of moving out). My little brother started having stomach aches from all of the stress and my Momma went berserk, quiting the stable job she’s had for twenty years. All of this happened within a year’s time, and I’m still not over it. I probably won’t ever be over it.
But, things have started to look up. In August (amidst an awful economic crisis…we never do things the easy way) my Mom bought a small house. We call it the cottage, but that’s really just nice terminology. Think cabin.
The cottage was built in 1932--just three years after Woolf published A Room of One's Own.
This is where I’m going: I think Woolf, by writing A Room of One's Own, was asserting that each woman deserves to have her own space, on her own accord. She deserves the solitude of knowing she is in a woman centered space of her own construct. She deserves to be free from the sexual advances of man, and have a private space that can be used for intellectual development, emotional fulfillment, finding inner-peace. She deserves the economic and political freedom associated with having your one's own space.
Growing up, I never had my own space, and neither did my Mother. We were constantly living around my dad. For instance, if he wanted to be in the living room watching ESPN, we were in my parents' room compromising on what we'd like to watch together. And, I can't tell you how many times I sat on our back porch to paint my toenails, because he didn't like the smell of nail polish and didn't want it in the house.
Emotional abuse issues aside, I haven't known what it's like to have a "room" of my own until recently. Over winter break I worked a lot of my anger towards patriarchy out while I was teaching myself to cut and hang drywall. Knocking out and re-building the walls of my Mother’s own house, I reclaimed something for myself, too. And, little did I know I was preparing myself to better understand where Virginia Woolf was coming from when she wrote a fundamental piece of feminist theory.
2/6/09
Part II: 1792-1920
Harriet Taylor’s “Enfranchisement of Women,” John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women and Susan B. Anthony’s Speech after Arrest for Illegal Voting all appeal to reason, or as the introduction to this section says: “The principles of enlightenment and liberal humanism” to advance women’s rights during the 19th century (62).
I found the following statements from each reading particularly thought provoking and think in conjunction with one another they paint a picture of what women’s live must have been like during this time:
Susan B. Anthony asks: “Are women persons?” which might seem like an odd question, but given the social and political schema of the late 18th/early 19th centuries, the answer was a resounding NO.
John Stuart Mill lends insight to this question when he writes:
“By the old laws of England, the husband was called the lord of the wife; he was literally regarded as her sovereign, inasmuch that the murder of a man by his wife was called treason (petty and distinguished from high treason), and was more cruelly avenged than was usually the case with high treason, for the penalty was burning to death” (81).
So, just as nations aren’t recognized as nations unless they’re sovereign, women weren’t recognized as people because they did not command their own sovereignty. And, while control over women was given to either their fathers or husbands, this responsibility required no qualifications. The most repulsive, ignorant man was seen as possessing a divine right to rule over at least his woman: “In every grade of [the] descending scale are men to whom are committed all the legal powers of a husband. The vilest malefactor has some wretched woman tied to him, against whom he can commit any atrocity except killing her, and, if tolerably cautious, can do that without much danger of the legal penalty…” (83)
Harriet Taylor writes:
“For with what truth or rationality could the suffrage be termed universal, while half the human species remained excluded from it?” (75) Taylor also addresses the fact that it is “an axiom of English freedom that taxation and representation should be coextensive” (75). Yet, women were not only denied the vote even though their property and belongings were taxed, they weren’t even considered persons! She asks: [is it] right and expedient that one-half of the human race should pass through life in a state of forced subordination to the other half?” (77)
Not only are parallels drawn during this time period between the condition of women and slavery, but many liberal thinking compared the oppression of women to an aristocracy based on sex (Taylor, 75). Anthony says: “For [women] this government is not a democracy; it is not a republic. It is the most odious aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe. An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor; an oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant…[an] oligarchy of sex…which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects—carries discord and rebellion into every home of the nation” (92).
She concludes with a statement that seems timeless: “there is but one safe principle of government—equal rights to all” (93).
I found the following statements from each reading particularly thought provoking and think in conjunction with one another they paint a picture of what women’s live must have been like during this time:
Susan B. Anthony asks: “Are women persons?” which might seem like an odd question, but given the social and political schema of the late 18th/early 19th centuries, the answer was a resounding NO.
John Stuart Mill lends insight to this question when he writes:“By the old laws of England, the husband was called the lord of the wife; he was literally regarded as her sovereign, inasmuch that the murder of a man by his wife was called treason (petty and distinguished from high treason), and was more cruelly avenged than was usually the case with high treason, for the penalty was burning to death” (81).
So, just as nations aren’t recognized as nations unless they’re sovereign, women weren’t recognized as people because they did not command their own sovereignty. And, while control over women was given to either their fathers or husbands, this responsibility required no qualifications. The most repulsive, ignorant man was seen as possessing a divine right to rule over at least his woman: “In every grade of [the] descending scale are men to whom are committed all the legal powers of a husband. The vilest malefactor has some wretched woman tied to him, against whom he can commit any atrocity except killing her, and, if tolerably cautious, can do that without much danger of the legal penalty…” (83)
Harriet Taylor writes:
“For with what truth or rationality could the suffrage be termed universal, while half the human species remained excluded from it?” (75) Taylor also addresses the fact that it is “an axiom of English freedom that taxation and representation should be coextensive” (75). Yet, women were not only denied the vote even though their property and belongings were taxed, they weren’t even considered persons! She asks: [is it] right and expedient that one-half of the human race should pass through life in a state of forced subordination to the other half?” (77)
Not only are parallels drawn during this time period between the condition of women and slavery, but many liberal thinking compared the oppression of women to an aristocracy based on sex (Taylor, 75). Anthony says: “For [women] this government is not a democracy; it is not a republic. It is the most odious aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe. An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor; an oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant…[an] oligarchy of sex…which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects—carries discord and rebellion into every home of the nation” (92).
She concludes with a statement that seems timeless: “there is but one safe principle of government—equal rights to all” (93).
Part I: What is Feminist Theory, What is Feminism?
Connecting Bunch, Lord and Walker:
In Not By Degrees: Feminist Theory and Education, Charlotte Bunch says: “Theory is not something set apart from our lives.” (13) And, it seems to me Audre Lord and Alice Walker—both poets—exemplify this statement by writing feminist pieces with beautiful, poetic voice. They connect two of their own self-defining characteristics--the fact that they are women and writers--and in doing so exmplify the power each woman can harness by just being herself.
For instance, in Womanist Walker writes: “[a womanist] Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the folk. Loves herself. Regardless.” (11) Of the four definitions of “womanist” she gives, this is the most abstract and I like it best—it sounds like slam poetry; even though the words don’t make total sense, together they infuse one another with complete meaning and paint a full, soft picture of "womanist."
Furthermore, Audre Lord writes in Poetry Is Not a Luxury: “For women…poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.” (15) In saying this, Lord attaches value to the poetic expression of feminist issues, and provides the theoretical context for Walker (a decade later) to articulate in an artistic way what "womanist" is.
Feminist Theory is not set apart from either Lorde or Walker's life, as it's not set apart from any woman's life. One of the many answers to the title of this post is: theory is the textual, factual manifestion of experience and feminism is realizing that the personal is political and theory and practice go hand in hand.
I understand womanist is a term that differs from feminist and is claimed by black women in particular. But...I still feel particularly connected to the meaning of womanist and all it infers...Aren't I a womanist, too?
In Not By Degrees: Feminist Theory and Education, Charlotte Bunch says: “Theory is not something set apart from our lives.” (13) And, it seems to me Audre Lord and Alice Walker—both poets—exemplify this statement by writing feminist pieces with beautiful, poetic voice. They connect two of their own self-defining characteristics--the fact that they are women and writers--and in doing so exmplify the power each woman can harness by just being herself.
For instance, in Womanist Walker writes: “[a womanist] Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the folk. Loves herself. Regardless.” (11) Of the four definitions of “womanist” she gives, this is the most abstract and I like it best—it sounds like slam poetry; even though the words don’t make total sense, together they infuse one another with complete meaning and paint a full, soft picture of "womanist."
Furthermore, Audre Lord writes in Poetry Is Not a Luxury: “For women…poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.” (15) In saying this, Lord attaches value to the poetic expression of feminist issues, and provides the theoretical context for Walker (a decade later) to articulate in an artistic way what "womanist" is.
Feminist Theory is not set apart from either Lorde or Walker's life, as it's not set apart from any woman's life. One of the many answers to the title of this post is: theory is the textual, factual manifestion of experience and feminism is realizing that the personal is political and theory and practice go hand in hand.
I understand womanist is a term that differs from feminist and is claimed by black women in particular. But...I still feel particularly connected to the meaning of womanist and all it infers...Aren't I a womanist, too?
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