Wst Blog 10

So it is the end of blogging. I wanted to write something clever to make people think or laugh or something, but to be honest my brain power is just about zapped. Therefore, i'll say that I will treasure my zines from my classmates, because I think we really did exactly what Kipnis asked us to do. All the zines take interpretations of theory and apply them to an action in our zines. I think that we all recognized pieces of ourselves in each other's zines, or at least had an appreciation for where each other was coming from. As for blogging... even if it is something I decide to keep up on a regular basis, it too will not quite have the same meaning for me. This blogging experience has been interesting because I know that there are people reading these posts every week, the community of our class has come to know the way each other writes and to some extent thinks, and have 'cyber' gotten to know each other better. Therefore, this is radically different than other blogging experiences because those generally tend to be a more personal experience, and not a subversive practice as Rhodes would encourage. Anyways, it's time for me to finish, and to bid this little blogging space a farewell....

Wst Blog 9

Due to zine-mania, this week I have been thinking a lot about Kipnis and what she means by disarticulating and rearticulating. What I have discovered is this.... once you start thinking about how to refunction things, especially with pop culture items, it kind of takes over your existence. Now it seems like every magazine I read and every billboard that catches my eye are being refunctioned in my head. However, to actually go out and physically refunction these items so that they are in the public eye takes time and money - neither of which I seem to have a lot of these days. If we are being affected by forces of acceleration and decceleration and have no time to reflect upon things as Baudriallrd claims, then it seems difficult to fit the rearticulation of pop culture into the mix. While I want to spend my time undertaking projects like zines and spraypainting on STOP signs to send a message, I wonder how likely it is that I can fit these activities into my already packed schedule. This is something that I think we all run into in our lives, the question of which causes to support, which activities to participate in, or what products of pop culture we can refunction while still doing all the things we need to do. While I can juggle school, work, volunteering, and the occasional act of vandalization in the name of a good cause, I wonder if this is enough. Kipnis seems to be asking for a major call to action, not merely the analysis of theory but the reappropriation of pop culture as we know it in order to achieve feminist goals. How do we decide what action to take, and how do we know if it is enough? Does anyone else ever feel like this, like there is just too much to do, and you're not quite sure if the things that you manage to fit into your schedule are the 'right' ones?

Wst Blog 8

This week my life seems to be more chaotic than usual. I don't know if it's the winter blahs, the realization that there is only one month left of school, or the fact that I've had the same cold for the past three weeks, but I'm definitely starting to lose it a little bit. I was talking with a friend the other day and we both realized we were feeling major anxiety over some of these things, yet at the same time this feeling of total apathy that made us just want to tune out of everything and stay on the couch watching television. As we both expressed this feeling, I realized this sounded awfully familiar, that I was in fact having a Baudriallrd moment.
Baudriallrd claims that we are facing a loss of history due to the forces of acceleration and deceleration which have resulted in us living in a hyper reality where we accept images (simulackra) as reality. This concept of a loss of history is disturbing to me, especially when I realise that I have not taken the time to reflect on my personal history very often.
I can only hope that it is not as Baudriallrd claims, and that this is not entirely out of my control. I want to investigate further Baudriallrds claim that deceleration results in our apathy and indifference so that we live in a hyper reality and accept television as our history. Does Baudriallrd include all forms of media in this hyper reality? Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Baudriallrd say that television is hyper reality because it is a copy of so many tiny little pieces of images coming across the screen? Therefore, would he view newspapers and radio in the same way? Can I avoid the hyper reality if I try to take the time to reflect and avoid the evil television? Can we take news from the television and still maintain our history if we recognize that what we are viewing is simulackra?
Signed, a girl on the edge of losing it all, possibly already soaring through hyper reality who needs a little shake back down to earth. Please.

Ranty Pants

OK. So i've never really used this blog thing as a place to vent out my frustrations. But today seems like a perfect time because of something that happened in one of my classes this morning. First of all, it's in the morning and i'm not a morning person so i'm already a little grumpy and not really at the top of my intellectual game. This class, which was meant to be a historical overview of feminist movements in the 1960s quickly spiralled into a discussion of 'what feminism is now' with my professor insisting that certain things could be neatly and historically categorized into the three waves of feminism. I talked for awhile, trying to explain that feminism today is about way way way more than what he thought it was (binary between the sexes where women are fighting for equality against men) but he was having a hard time understanding it. Fine fine, whatever. I'm tierd, nobody in the whole damn class knew what the hell I was talking about, fine. BUT THEN, he proceeded to use the argument that the Harper government is doing good things for women by (and I'm not sure what he was talking about here) introducing the concept of 'equal pay for similar work'. I thought this battle had already been fought and won to some extent with the whole Air Canada flight attendants being paid the same as pilots thing but whatever. So I said, 'well, what about the major cuts he has made to funding for child care? doesn't that basically serve to shove women back into the home because they will not be able to afford to put their kids in day care? etc...' Another member of my class turned to me and actually said, "this is why i hate feminism. that's so not true. i think that if parents want to put their kids in day care that's up to them and this cut actually will serve to get women in rural areas out into the work force because they will not have the money to stay at home.' Anyways, I told her that I completely disagreed with her point of view and that I was pretty sure she had no idea what she was talking about. Though I tried not to let it bother me, the whole situation really did. I guess because i'm in a lot of gender studies type classes, live in a house full of feminists, and honestly try to believe that not all people are ignorant assholes I forgot the sad truth that some of them are. OK. Feeling better. Just needed to get that out.

Wst Blog 7

Ok, so this week I think I may have broken my brain (is this possible?) over the midterm plus illness is resulting in a very fuzzy head. Anyways, I have been trying to think about how the articles pertaining to pop culture we have been reading relate to feminism, and for some reason i've been thinking about Mr. Louis Althusser. Althusser says that the state apparatus reproduces the conditions of production through the repressive state apparatus and the ideological state apparatus which includes includes religion, culture, education, etc. For feminists, the ideological state apparatus is something which can be interrogated, because it is encompasses so many aspects of society. Education particularly can be examined because it is a major influence on individuals in our society, and this portion of the ideological state apparatus can be said to reproduce conditions of production in several ways.
I guess what got me thinking about all of this was the ways that sexual education is taught in our schools. In elementary school, I was taught that sexual education meant that a man and a woman who "really loved each other" got together and made a baby. This form of education reinforced heterosexual norms in society, and in my school there was never any mention of family structures that were different. Also, 'sex ed' surrounding sexual abuse or assult often centered around telling children that if they were touched innapropriately, this constituted an offence and they should report it. However, there was little mention of other forms of sexual assult, such as verbal abuse or controlling behaviour, and the perpetrator was most often male. This served to propagate the male as 'dominant,' and sexual abuse as something which occurred in the private realm. As I got older, sex education focused on abstinence, and I witnessed several presentations which painted a picture of youth who had sex too early as being abnormal or 'bad.' This seems to reinforce some kind of a hierarchy where the kids who are having sex are the 'bad kids' or those from the 'wrong side of the tracks' and the kids who aren't are 'good' and have been properly educated by their upper class parents. This also generally applies to girls, because girls who have sex early are labelled 'sluts' whereas if menI am of course, basing a lot of this on personal experience and what I witnessed in school.
Anyway, in this example the methods of sex education serve to reinforce the conditions of production (where what children are taught to normalize certain relationships while abnormalizing or 'othering' others, as well as normalizing social hierarchies of class).

WST Blog 6

This week I have been thinking about Mimi White and the television viewer as both consumer and commodity. Maybe it is just because I watched television for the first time in awhile last night, but I found myself wondering why I was subjecting myself to an experience which essentially abstracted me into an object of exchange value, as Mimi claims. In order to watch a program I might be interested in, or something to just numb my brain a little, I am also subject to a barrage of information on products that is necessary in order to support the station. This thought made me kind of bitter, as foolish commercials for things like lawn mowers flashed across the screen. Of course I have to admit that every once in awhile there would be something I really wanted, like that new lipstick I just HAD to try. But this made me even more bitter because all of a sudden, Adorno and Horkheimer crept into my head, saying "Heather, it's true, you are just a pawn of capitalism. You are being manipulated by the culture industry as you lay there on your couch, passively accepting these commercials and thinking about fulfilling all of your false needs." Then I thought to myself "Oh A & H, why did you have to march in and ruin my lovely evening of nothing? Now I am supposed to be searching for my true needs? Who NEEDS things like genuine happiness when I can have nice shiny lipstick? Auuggghhh!!!"
Clearly I am in a pissy little mood today which could be a result of a number of things. My hangover, the fact that the weather is absolute crap, or maybe my broken feet from stompin far too hard during our feministeppin'. Anyways, hopefully these grey skies will clear up ASAP.

WST Blog 5 (Baudrillard and Kipnis)

This week's class was good, because it really started to tie together all of the theorists we have been looking at thus far, and at the same time completely spun my head around. There were some interesting points, such as Baudrillard's claim that significance requires reflection, and that our society does not reflect enough to have a history. This got me thinking about my own history, and whether or not I spend enough time reflecting on things that have happened in my lifetime. However I would like to focus my thoughts for this week on the Kipnis article, specifically her rejection of modernism, and her argument that in order to be effective, we need to take all of the interpretations and analysis of high culture and transform them into a plan of action. Her claim that by continuing to re-interpret popular culture, the left involvement has limited it's ability to effect change is a strong argument, and I like that she chooses to call feminists into action in this way. It therefore poses the challenge to us, the reader.
This "call to action" got me thinking about method of action that I have observed, such as the radical feminist cheerleading. This is something that Kipnis could certainly have considered in her article (if she had known about it at the time) because radical cheerleading seems to me a very effective way to transform the goals of feminism into an action plan. Another method of action which came to my mind is the work of playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, who's now well known "The Vagina Monologues" has become the face of the V-day movement, which aims to stop violence against women. And to be sure, another form of action will take place next week, when groups of feminists step and chant their political messages to........ well.... the entire Tory Atrium.

WST Blog 4 (Benjamin and Fiske)

This week's class got me thinking about the difference between "high art" or the original work and reproduced art, as discussed by Benjamin. I can agree with and understand the argument that high art offers a distant and a-social viewing experience while reproduced art is more of an absorbing, social experience. However, I am struggling with the concept of the loss of the aura of art during reproduction. I think that it is important to consider the context in which the reproduction piece is being viewed, and to consider the life experience of the person viewing that reproduction. While viewing the original Mona Lisa may be a "wow" moment for most people, we must also consider that viewing a reproduction in certain contexts may also be a "wow" experience for others.
For example, my grama is old now and she hasn't really travelled much in her life. My parents and I have had the opportunity to see "authentic and original" pieces of art in the world (such as the Taj Mahal). Whenever we view one of these things, we always send her a post card or bring back a souvenir replica of what we saw. For her, she can view that postcard or that replica with the same kind of awe, and it will have the same kind of aura as the original. For her, there is no loss of awe between the two, and the reproduction has not been liquidated of it's original value. Therefore, I think that Benjamin's piece needs to account for the context in which different people will be viewing these original and reproduced pieces.

WST 320 Blog 3 (Althussar and Hooks)

OK. So I have to admit that last nights class threw me for a bit of a loop. I keep thinking about rap, (ah rap) and whether or not Fifty Cent IS in fact stepping outside of his repressed African American male ideology and re-appropriating power. While I don't buy the essentialist claim that we can understand invidivuals simply based on the characteristics of their "group", it is also a challenge to LIVE the idea of constantly questioning identity politics and refusing to shut myself off from any ideological group. While I don't want to limit my experiences or close my mind to new ideas or possibilities, it is also difficult to understant how to identify myself without falling into certain ideological groups.
Hook's concept of "shared sensibilities" through being empathetic toward one and other and trying to understand each other's lived experience is something that I would like to believe we could all live by. In the article she notes that it is not just a frame of mind, but also a way of life, that you need to "give critical attention to nurturing and cultivating our ties" in order to share knowledge. This can be done through engaging with popular culture and sharing various forms of art, literature, and cultural practices. Does this mean that I should open my ears and my heart to Fifty Cent as a way of living these "shared sensibilities?" I don't think it will be pleasant, but I guess I could try.

WST 320 Blog 2 (White, Horkheimer, Adorno)

This week I will focus on the concept of mass production in the culture industry as presented in the readings. As far as I understand, for Adorno and Horkheimer this means that everything produced by the culture industry is the same, and it serves to lull society into a false mindset so we will not question or resist them. Personally I do not support their claim that we participate in our own oppression through accepting what the culture industry tells us, or that we are all effected by it in the same way. Adorno and Horkheimer do not present the possibility of uneven development affected by changes in social patterns over time as presented by White. They seem to give no credit to the consumer of pop culture, and how their mindset or ability to question the industry as a result of their own personal experience within society. Though I participate in pop culture all the time, I do not consider my experiences to be constant repetitions of themselves over which I have no control.

However, I would agree that pop culture, as it is presented in North America is often repetitious in what it presents, and similar themes, plot lines, and celebrity faces appear again and again. It can be frustrating that these themes (such as ridiculously good looking doctors that all work at a hospital but secretly spend their time finding various ways to "get" with each other) are frequently presented in various packaging. This does not mean that I do not partake in any of these things from time to time, and I'm certain that we all have our pop culture guilty pleasures. Some of mine I think, may be too guilty to share.

Women's Studies 320 Blog 1

This blog will be a space for me to review and comment on discussions, readings, and activities in Women's Studies 320. It will also be a space to connect with my classmates in another dimension outside of the classroom, and to read their reactions and thoughts in a different environment. Reading their comments and reflecting on their blogs will also help to shape my blog, because learning other perspectives will help me to more fully appreciate what is discussed the the class. The use of the internet and the blog will help our class to work together, and to establish a kind of activism and a collective sense of feminism in a space outside of the classroom.
Learning about my classmates will also allow me to explore new perspectives on feminism, and will hopefully provide new avenues of learning by using parts of the blog like link lists.
Because the public will have access to these blogs, it may change the way that I write about feminism or my thoughts on the course. The internet is an unstable space because it allows me to write more freely because there is no immediate reaction or judgement from other people, but the ability of the public to see into that more private world also acts as a restriction. However, this public access may also contribute to any established activism regarding feminism, because it will allow me (and my classmates) to communicate our thoughts and ideas to feminists all over the world and from many different backgrounds in an open space.
The format of posting blogs (that each entry is dated) will contribute to my self understanding of feminism and what I gain from this class. It will allow me, and others, to view my own thought progression and growth regarding feminism and issues discussed in the class, and provides a record for our class and community.
I think that this blog will be a good learning experience for me as I think it provides an opportunity for me to grow as a feminist and as a computer user.... It took me a ridiculous amount of time to login (username issues...) and then to remember how to navigate to the post blogs section of the webpage. Hopefully if nothing else I emerge from this class a little more computer savvy.....