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Asian/American (Cara)

The two big themes left in my brain after the readings this week are colonialism, and sex positivity. Shimizu talks about, “a theory of race-positive sexuality that takes seriously the challenge of engaging issues of power in defining race, sexuality, and representation in terms of Asian/American feminist women’s practices, politics, and priorities” (Shimizu, 5). I am left wondering, at what point does the colonial legacy that tells white people, particularly white men, that they can have whatever and whoever they want get unlearned enough that kids are no longer internalizing it?

The moment in the Daily Show clip that Aaron posted, where Jessica Williams (who I love and adore) says to the founder of OK Cupid, “Oh! You’re like Edward Snowden of sticking peens in vageens” struck me. Not only did it make me giggle a lot, but it left me wondering what does it mean that people’s sexual preferences can be turned into numerical data? How do we combat racism so embedded -- particularly when people feel a sense of invincibility and anonymity behind the protection of their phone or computer? Is there a way to acknowledge the histories of colonialism / structures that have created sexual archetypes, of say, Asian women, and still empower people, particularly marginalized folks, to embody those roles if they so choose?

“By claiming ownership of U.S. national identity, Asian Americanists must also then claim responsibility for the cultural and material imperialism of this nation. To maintain some critical distance between posession of the nation and recognition of complicity in its deeply entrenched imperialist machinations, simultaneous to the work of realizing justice for Asian Americans must be confrontation of U.S imperialism” (Chuh, 278).

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Working Women (Cara)

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Blackness & Biopolitics (Cara)

~My brain is full of “ahhhh” feelings about the election~

“Exceptionalism paradoxically signals distinction from (to be unlike, dissimilar) as well as excellence (imminence, superiority), suggesting a departure from yet mastery of linear teleologies of progress” (Puar, 3). 

I have been super interested in the idea of the exception as the norm -- and the ways in which ideology allows for the ideal of exceptionalism to prevail. When Puar talks (on page 4-5) about American exceptionalism and its relationship to Muslim women, I am left thinking about this concept that have learned about in a number of my classes in the context of American imperialism: “white women saving brown women from brown men.” Aside from feeling scared that the next four years will look something like this, I am fascinated that American exceptionalism allows its citizens to firmly believe in the U.S’s ability to intervene other places while simultaneously supporting and promoting oppression domestically. 

[I hear myself going a million directions, I am feeling a huge range of emotions today, from feeling excitement about feminism to feeling hugely critical of Hillary’s feminism, to absolute terror about Trump, to deep sadness about the cyclical nature of oppression].

And to some extent, Puar talks about this when she talks about “homononationalism -- is in no way intended to deny, diminish, or disavow the daily violences of discrimination, physical and sexual assault, familial ostracism, economic disadvantage, and lack of social and legal intimacy that sexual others must regularly endure; in short, most queers, whether as subjects or populations, still hover amid regims of deferred or outright death” (Puar, 10). 

I think this logic can be extended beyond queer bodies to think about the daily terrors that marginalized people’s face, in the name of American exceptionalism. Of course, these experiences is not homogenous, but the repetitive nature of discrimination is related.

In relating to Jessica’s post, I am left wondering how to adequately teach someone like Toni Morrison’s work -- and to do so without exceptionalizing Morrison herself / her world. To Evie’s point about trauma porn, where is the line between doing Morrison’s work justice, and doing it a disservice by teaching it poorly/ too quickly/ without enough background?

Happy election day, y’all. 

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Displacing the Subject (Cara)

The relevant themes from this week’s readings to me are kinship, passing (as it relates to kinship), fugitivity (as I learned about it in my Feminist Theory class last semester when we read the Butler and Athanasiou), and Evie’s question about agency.

When thinking about disposession of a body, my first question is by who and for who? Often, for folks who inhabit bodies that are illegible in the hegemonic discourse, the choice to dis-identify and/ or disposess their body is not really a choice, and something that is forced upon them. However, I don’t think this render Evie’s question about agency in disidentifcation/ disposession irrelevant. However I think if we’re talking about Butler and agency it is crucial to understand the argument she makes in “Bodies that Matter” about how agency should not be the pinnacle of acceptance/equality, particularly when the categories that people are either identifying with or away from are already created. 

This leads me into thinking about refusal, resistance, and the ways kinship can be formed through these acts. We talked in feminist theory about the “logic of disposession,” which leaves me wondering, is the crucial distinction here when someone feels like they are opting in to disposession? Regardless of what Butler would argue the systems are forcing that person to do? 

I should note here that as a human who often thinks about gender and gender identity I don’t at all mean to minimize or discount those feelings. They are powerful and can, at times, be all consuming. To feel disconnected from your body, as I am learning more and more, can weigh on your brain and soul. But for some people it can also be empowering, and I am curious as to how to achieve a world where people can feel power in both identifcation and disidentification.

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Sex Sells (Cara)

After watching the music videos, and thinking about Halberstam’s text, I am left thinking about race and class above gender. Halberstam (who I am actually taking a class with this semester) talks a lot about masculinity -- particularly as it is performed differently between cis men and “butches.” And although Halberstam talks extensively about the need for “culturally-specific” language to discuss various gender identities and sexualities, he does not talk at all about how race impacts these various cultures, and the language differences that come with that, even in the U.S. For instance, when Halberstam is talking about Butches, he is talking largely about white women / genderqueer folks. There is no discussion of “studs,” black folks, often lesbian, often genderqueer, who inhabit different spaces, and whose gender is often read and analyzed differently as a result of their blackness. Which does not mean that gender is any more or less constructed, or that the categories are any more true, but rather when talking about specificity, it is crucial to include all facets of identity in the conversation.

“What is wobbly and precarious at home looks sturdy and lasting when imported elsewhere; and so, as folks furiously debate gay marriage, gays in the military, and gay labor issues in the United States, “global gay” discourses transform contested categories and uneven political fields into stable identities and a politics of inclusion/ exclusion” (Halberstam, 127). 

Race also felt particularly prevalent in the videos that Schuyler posted. Notably, in the Amy Schumer video, where Schumer, the only white woman is [facetiously] singing and dancing in front of all women of color, some black women, about her body without acknowledging the race dynamic, I found myself feeling uncomfortable. Especially in a world where black women’s bodies are routinely mocked (a la Columbia Women’s basketball team) and/or consumed as meat as opposed to as humans, Schumer’s video felt tactless. 

However, in Teyana Taylor’s interview, she explicitly talks about how her experience was “amazing” and that she left feeling “you can have it all.” Which is interesting, particularly in the face of some of Halberstam’s other work (The Queer Art of Failure), where he talks about the inability to have it all, and that being desirable, and specifically queer. 

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Looking, Learning [and gender queerness?] (Cara)

“An active/passive heterosexual division of labour has similarly controlled narrative structure. According to the principles of the ruling ideology and the psychical structures that back it up, the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification” (Mulvey, 838). 

I have been thinking a lot about what it means for women/ people who are read as female to perform pain. In part as a result of Hillary Clinton getting pneumonia, and Donald Trump making a logical leap (that many American voters followed, and will continue to all the way to the polls), as well as someone close to me needing emergency surgery for a problem with her ovary. Although Mulvey’s piece is about sexual objectification on screen, I think the objectification and subsequent writing off of women and their pain is related. 

In Women’s Studies, we talk often about the creation of, and access to knowledge. Who gets to decide how and when and what knowledge to make, as well as dictating the power structure  that will be represented both in the creation of that knowledge, and in the knowledge itself. 

In reading Evie’s post, I too was struck by Mulvey’s comment that 

“Although the film is really being shown, is there to be seen, conditions of screening and narrative conventions give the spectator an illusion of looking in on a private world. Among other things, the position of the spectators in the cinema is blatantly one of repression of their exhibitionism and projection of the repressed desire on to the performer” (836) -- and thinking about the moments when female pain is made public in the real world, but kept private or hush hush on screen.

Why is it that Hillary Clinton couldn’t tell the American public that she was sick, and therefore cancelled a speech? Why, when sitting in the E.R did it take hours before my friend, who was getting progressively sicker and experience more pain to be treated with any kind of urgency? What does it mean, as a female, to perform pain? Why is men performing emotional pain on screen attractive to the masses, but females doing it is somehow tired or whiney? In Lesbians who Kill around the 15 minute mark, the actresses perform emotional distress/ pain/ frustration in an almost parodying way. The audience is giggling some (it is funny), as the lesbians on stage make fun of themselves and their emotional trials, to try to lighten the mood but also convey some tropes of the “typical lesbian experience.”