Guiding Questions on Feminisms Matter
Week 3 Class Post
Below are a few of my favorite questions with my responses to the assignment we had on Feminisms Matter by Victoria Bromley:
How does considering gender as performance rather than biology help create new understanding/knowledge in relation to your interest area?
This is such a cool concept. We really do perform our gender. Our sex is different, but with everything we do, our clothing, our hair styles, our mannerisms and the way we speak, all contribute to how we act out our gender in society. In relation to my common book, we act our gender through our dress. At the same time, others evaluate our gender based on the clothing we wear to present ourselves to the world. You see someone (man or women, male or female) wearing a dress and you assume they are female, because that is a huge component that goes into how one evaluates the gender of the people around them.
How does considering the language used to discuss your interest area help generate understanding of that thing? (Remember the move from arguing to asking. For example, if someone says women are less capable athletes than men instead of arguing you ask why would that person use this language to discuss gender and athletics?)
For example, if someone were to say “she’s a slut” when they see a woman dressed provocatively. I could ask why do you say that and what about her and what about your experiences lead you to say that. It’s important to remembers that the statement reflects more about the sayer than the subject; it’s about their thought processes and what they have learned and been taught throughout their lives.
How does considering your interest area as undefinable affect your understanding of that thing? Of yourself? Of others?
I think that considering my area of interest as undefinable actually creates a better understanding. Because there are no “rules” or “boundaries” of a concept that is undefinable, it allows the issue and the movement towards equality in that aspect to be flexible and to flow and apply to more than one conversation or topic. Women’s dress is used to evaluate them, it’s used to categorize women into “good girls” and “bad girls”. Women’s dress is regulated and controlled by schools, places of employment, our state, all the way up to our federal government. Women’s dress is used as an excuse for why something bad happened to her or why something was done to her. Women’s dress and how it is seen and interpreted is not definable. This gives me a better understanding of myself and of those around me because it tells me that at any time: I am being judged and evaluated on the clothing I put on my back that day, and that someone may or may not tell me that what I am wearing is not appropriate, and that what I choose to wear may be used as the “cause” of a sexual assault on me.
