#response6

[awasikonis]

Body Controls Politics, Politics Control Body

In “Gut Feminism” by Elizabeth Wilson she considers the role biology plays in feminist theory. This is an interesting feat; wouldn’t we not have feminism if biology did not exist? Sex determines who we are as soon as you come out of the womb (or even before that). If you have a penis, you then fulfill a certain role in society and with that comes privilege.

Elizabeth’s line, “there is an anxiety about biology’s power to determine form and control politics” brings up an interesting point that connected all the dots in my head. What I discovered is: body control politics, politics control body. If you think about it for a second it makes total sense. . . at least for me. Depending on our bodies and what sex and gender we are, that determines our social status in society. If you are born with a penis and identify through that penis (lol) basically meaning you are a man, then you instantly have control of politics due to your privilege. All the white dudes at the top with their shriveled dicks are the ones deciding the fate of our bodies. Which then leads me to politics control the body. Take abortions for example. For some reason (which I think we know why) policy is centered around a woman’s body (oh wait duh. . . patriarchy). Biology gives certain people the power to decide another’s choice about their body because of that person’s biology.

Another point brought up in the book: is the body flexible? That doesn’t mean stretching, or yoga, and whether or not you can touch your toes. What my understanding is if the body is arbitrary and a “social construction.” I believe it’s a social construction and we use it to determine a lot of things about our society and what role you play based on how you look and present yourself. We perceive others through the body and with that comes expectations based on how you act.  

[ncgonzalez-blog]

My project is about the way people can make us feel. It is a photo series of the eyes of one specific person in candid moments. I believe that someone’s eyes can tell us a lot about how they are feeling, and when you’re with someone who has the ability to change the way you feel easily, it can be a lot more obvious. In Sol Worth’s “Picture’s Can’t Say Ain’t”, he says that pictures cannot be true or false. I believe that pictures can convey some sort of truth. When you photograph someone for the purpose of capturing their true emotion, hopefully the emotion that the audience sees in the photo is true to what the subject’s emotion at the time was. In that case, the photo conveys truth, because the claim you are making to that subject’s emotion is being made in the picture. However, there are different ways to edit a photo or frame it with specific captions that can alter the truth that the photo conveys. If someone is crying in a photo and they obviously look very sad, but the caption said that the subject was crying tears of joy, it may make the viewer take a second look, because people believe what they see, but what they read also has a lot of influence and power over what those same people believe. I will try to be as truthful as possible in the captions of my images. In this photo, the subject is in a relaxed and tranquil state. I wonder what I would think if I weren't there at the time the photo was taken.