ENG303.1002/J.LANGELLE//UNIVNEV/RENO/DRAJOHNSON//SPRING2020
07 April 2020--
Please choose two of the following questions to answer. Your posts (answers to these questions) are due by Wednesday, 4/8/2020. Then, after everyone has posted to the discussion board, select at least one classmate to respond to.
1. What is the difference between sex and gender? 2. Is patriarchal control a systemic problem?
3. écriture féminine-- One might mistake the effort to create a non-patriarchal form of communication as a purely "feminist" construction. That the misconception is valid stems from the initial attempt of women to stand alone and equal to man, or the "feminist movement" of the mid-20th century. Look no further than the language that evolved from that equality movement and some of the language such as male chauvinism, sexism and women's liberation. In his landmark 1985 essay in the American Speech journal, Fred R. Shapiro takes a close look at the three terms. Citing Sheldon Vanauken, a Virginia English professor, he notes;
" The parallels between sexism and racism are sharp and clear. Each embodies false assumptions in a myth. And just as a racist is one who proclaims or justifies or assumes the supremacy of one race over another, so a sexist is one who proclaims or justifies or assumes the supremacy of one sex (guess which) over the other. But the meaning of sexist is obvious. And that's the whole point. It's a better word than male chauvinist which is bulky, usually mispronounced, and imprecise in meaning.... Sexist, on the other hand, is short, precise, instantly understandable. It has a sharp, vicious sound; and it inherits the ugly overtones of racist." (Shapiro, 7)
" When the mass media began to find the women's movement newsworthy, the imagined spectacle of the 'bra-burning,' 'man-hating,' invective hurling 'women's libber' held a peculiar fascination for them. The specific invective seized on as especially entertaining was male chauvinist pig." (8)
Note in particular the negative connotation of "women's libber." The women's movement didn't have to wait around to develop its own lingo, the press had already done it for the cause. Shapiro concludes with;
"Today, women's liberation is still widely used, but preeminence has clearly passed to women's movement. It stands at the head of a vocabulary, including such terms as consciousness-raising, sex object, sisterhood, women's studies, sexual harassment and Ms., through which women have attempted to replace the received patriarchal names with a new vernacular articulating their own experience and perceptions." (13)
Note: Shapiro cites in footnote #4 that male chauvinism was first coined during the student left revolts of the Sixties but other evidence points much further back to the mid-1930's and was a line in a play. Confirmation of that can be found in a Winston Burdett column in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle; "...he is therefore only making a display of male chauvinism when he attempts to run down the lovely ladies of the California Coast." (Burdett)
Cited: Tyson, L., Feminist Criticism, Critical Theory , Routledge, 2015 (pages 79-128)
Shapiro, Fred R. “Historical Notes on the Vocabulary of the Women's Movement.” American Speech, vol. 60, no. 1, 1985, pp. 3–16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/454643 (Links to an external site.) . Accessed 7 Apr. 2020.
Burdett, W., The Sound Track, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 13 December, 1936, Page C-5.
Bra burning photo, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45303069
4. What is biological essentialism and why is it dangerous?
5. "Binary Oppositions"-- In the text, Lois Tyson points out on pages 95-96 a useful argument on polarity as enforcement of patriarchal control, her examples are clear and concise such as father/mother and sun/moon. It is here that the concept of écriture féminine is introduced as where the woman is with respect to the polarity;
"Clearly, according to patriarchial thinking, the woman occupies the right side of each of these oppositions, the side that patriarchy considers inferior...while it is assumed that the male is defined by the left side of each opposition, the site that patriarchy considers superior." (Tyson, 96)
Elimination of that polarity by construction of a different, if not completely new, language to counter this patriarchical control is the objective. The binary opposition theory can be extended even further in the left/right analogy with respect to sex and gender. For instance, for the most part, the man has been introduced first and usually is given credit in the entertainment world before the lady, such as "Sonny and Cher."
Only rarely was there a "Liz and Richard" that captivated fans and filled the gossip columns. Even then, when a divorce was filed in the above two, it was all about Cher and Liz, not about the "significant others" who became the also rans. Today however, a recent Google search will show that "Meghan and Harry" at 4.8 million results falls far below "Harry and Meghan" at 31.5 million results. It also brings into scrutiny and verification the subordinate role played by the right side of the polarity where "Batman and Robin" reflects the first as the "Dark Knight" and the second as "Boy Wonder." A sense of heroic superiority is given to the first and his subservient less than manly sidekick is written into the duality. It shows also in "The Lone Ranger and Tonto," where again, this time the Native-American is relegated to the role of not-that-essential. In fact, in the early TV series, it showed The Lone Ranger and his horse, "Hi-ho, Silver, away..!!" and riding off without Tonto. Any number of internet searchs will eventually lead to Tonto as being stupid and inferior to the Masked Man, thus relegated to the polar right side of binary opposition. Again, "Holmes and Watson" is a significant example where polarity may represent superior-inferior traits.
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As a show stopper in the end, note The Three Stooges, where "Moe," is obviously far superior to "Larry" who is lost in the genderless (?) neverland of the middle and "Curly" on the right, who carries on through most of the episodes less manly than the other two. From a Freudian standpoint, Curly is far more abused and the subject of repressed hostilities issued by the other two constantly throughout each story, rarely does he get the opportunity to retaliate. As in the case of the patriarchal culture, Curly is a prime example of a one-way universe, with Moe being the omnipotent enforcer and Larry his grinning sycophant lackey.
Cited Tyson, L., Feminist Criticism, Critical Theory, Routledge, 2015 (pages 79-128)
"Liz and Richard,"
https://www.womansday.com/life/entertainment/g2243/elizabeth-taylor-and-richard-burton-love-story/ (Links to an external site.) Edited by James L'Angelle on Apr 7 at 5:24pm
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Another interesting take on binary opposition is the move by religion from pronouncing a married couple "man and wife" to it now being "husband and wife." In relation to Christine Delphy on page 93, where;
"marriage is a labor contract that ties women to unpaid domestic labor, commonly trivialized as 'housework,' not considered important enough to be seriously analyzed as a topic,"
Translated, it means the church might eventually seal the wedding deal with,
"I now pronounce you man and housewife."
Discussion Response:
Hello Kailee,
Your point of major world cultures being male-dominated is well taken. However, with a token reference to religion as a major influence on patriarchy, Tyson only briefly mentions the "biblical Eve" on page 87, calling it a "patriarchal interpretation," as;
"the origin of sin and death in the world."
In fact, the instance where Eve is held accountable in the Bible for that very origin of sin and death is a bit more complicated than what Tyson assumes. In Genesis, where the versions vary depending on the school, the theme is roughly the same. Eve is goaded (by the serpent) into eating from the tree of knowledge and her first decision after she is enlightened is to make a bad career move. Eve could have kept "man" in ignorance and subdued him, instead she talks Adam into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. She pays dearly for it, among other things the Lord tells her;
"Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." (Genesis 3:16)
Of all the arguments that keep women in bondage, this is one of the most powerful.
https://biblehub.com/genesis/3-16.htm
(Links to an external site.)
ENG303.1002/J.LANGELLE//UNIVNEV/RENO/DRAJOHNSON//SPRING2020