rayj's blog

I don't know if anyone from our class is still posting here but I saw this and thought of our class and the discussion of male feminists, and societal views of them as kind of awesomecoolwow look at you being a great person, compared to more negative views of female feminists http://amajor7.tumblr.com/post/31102777716/double-standards-are-weird-and-these-look-like

 [just speak nearby the borders of our minds] <-- link

This is a piece about borders. About communities. About movement and restrictions and ideologies. I wanted to interrogate how feminism is at times bounded by qualifiers, that is, to differentiate between French feminism and Third-World Feminism, and the ways in which those are both appropriate and constructed such that the result is constructed identities viewed as essential.

Among artists in the 20th and 21st century, explicit reference to prior works has become a mode of producing pieces. This may be in the form of collage or pastiche of some kind, and in video art, it is typically through found footage that these references can be made. Video Artists like Dara Birnbaum have spoken on the power of reappropriating footage, specifically, in her case, from popular media sources, but some of the logic remains in what I have done. Birnbaum wanted the agency to engage with the images being presented to her, to take ownership and subvert their meanings to create new meaning, asserting that she wanted to “talk back” to the media. Further, she asserts:

For our presentation, we wanted to interrogate how sex education information is or is not distributed freely, and when that information should be allowed to be consumed. We thought about form and delivery, and in the spirit of feminism and freely available information, made a series of little zines with sexual health/body/sexuality information, with the intention that we would "book bomb" a local library's young adult section, thereby subverting the institutional modes of publishing and the vetting process inherent to that institution, as well as utilizing nearly free resources (each zine is just one piece of white paper, and there are no staples, glue, or tape to keep the zines together)

This was something of a pilot of what such a project could be, with a lot of room for developing the content of the zines, but largely we wanted to be frank and inclusive, to not privilege the gender binary or any normative way of being that may silence other voices, as much as possible. It was also important to allow space for youths to find other resources, and give them a lexicon from which to draw to speak on these topics and ask questions more effectively, an act of empowerment that hopefully reflects some of the goals of feminism, writ large. 

I'm just thinking about our discomfort with statements and whatnot, and as an education minor, I think a lot about learning and pedagogy and whatever. So, there's this thing called the zone of proximal development, and Vgotsky, a psychologist wrote about it extensively. In my understanding, it's that we should push students to a place where their learning is challenged, but not to a point where students cannot be successful in the work they are confronted with. Perhaps we have been pushed in some ways too much, in some ways not enough. 

For me, I think that is a way in which my learning in this class has sometimes been lacking. And maybe it's just me, I don't know. Just some thoughts, that maybe I am at times not challenged enough, but also pushed in ways that make me shut down intellectually. I'm not sure.

I’m working to develop and create a storyboard for the video piece I want to produce for my final project, but I am wondering if the directive and narrative-reflective form of the storyboard. That is, this happens, then this, then this. And that is not the kind of video I want to make, nor does it reflect the way I do my work, so I’m not sure if I should try to conform to the process, that it might make my work better, or if I should just do as I typically do, which is to be a bit more organic in my process, although perhaps less deliberate?

Tumblr discussion about congratulating men for being feminist, and the problems/possibilities in that. 

Original post HERE

Some Responses HERE

Irony of reblogging HERE

I think this demands some critical attention, and it's not perfect, I mean, it's a CollegeHumor video so, it's not going to pe perfect, but I also think it gets at our discussion of women and the shame of watching porn, that women would be more reluctant to discuss their porn watching habits with others, and kind of capitalizes on the shock value situation. Why shoudl it be so shocking to have a hegemonically pretty girl yelling about how much she likes anal fisting or POV? 

Feminist Porn Awards qualifications for feminist porn, link here: 

"In order to be considered for a Feminist Porn Award, the movie/short/website/whatever!  must meet at least one of the following criteria:

     1)  A woman had a hand in the production, writing, direction, etc. of the work.

     2)  It depicts genuine female pleasure

     3)  It expands the boundaries of sexual representation on film and challenges stereotypes that are often found in mainstream porn. 

And of course, it has to be hot!

Overall, Feminist Porn Award winners tend to show movies that consider a female viewer from start to finish.  This means that you are more likely to see active desire and consent, real orgasms, and women taking control of their own fantasies (even when that fantasy is to hand over that control)."

This is Kate Bornstein's contribution to Dan Savage's It Gets Better campaign, which I (and a lot of people, this is a good summarization of a lot of the criticism of the campaign) have some problems with. I think, though, that Bornstein's contribution is my favorite one, and one that I actually agree with//don't think is harmful or as fraught with some issues of power, hegemony, etc. 

I'm bringing this here because in some ways, it relates to the Half the Sky movement in that it is a movement fueled by people in positions of privilege and power, with good intentions, but perhaps without too much of a critical eye to how the message is deployed/represented. 

Just wanted to let y'all know Kate Bornstein, author of My Gender Workbook, is working on a new edition! She also is calling for submissions and input from us! And by US I mean everyone, she wants a multitude of perspectives to inform her work, as always, which is a reason I love her. 

Here is the link to her blog and the call for submissions/discussion of the new book!