Week 13--Thinking About Writing and Viewing

It's interesting that noone has challenged the assumption that "For me, Serendip is very interesting, but because it does not involve the personal, I think it can be less controversial and less vibrant than personal journals."

Please see some other Serendip pages outside of this course:

Mifestrone: The Abortion Pill

Sleep Paralysis

Sleepwalking

Measure for Measure (explores eating disorders)

Among others, these web postings describe real fear and real nitty-gritty interactions between people. I enjoy what you all do and write on Serendip, but it is a construct of your class and yourselves, not limited by Serendip's identity and range of published experiences.

Katie, THANK YOU for your posting about...posting. I am not one of those people who enjoys trying to catch all my thoughts and explain them in person, but I would rather do it in person than in any other way--the audience is too broad and unresponsive elsewhere.

One of the reasons I am posting so late is because I don't know what to say, or if I'm entitled to say it. I didn't love see, minotaur. Before I meet Jessy, I feel as though I am not allowed to try to make sense of the speaker. Mostly because I am pissed that the poem basically assumed I would/could/refused to understand the person writing it.

I understand, Jessy, that you must be more pissed off than I can ever be for not finding the language to explain yourself, but how can you be angry with the audience for not seeing you in your writing if you don't see yourself?

Here's a thought: instead of using third person pronouns, why not make them all second person, and invite the person to respond?

I have always wondered about the act of "reclaiming," chaning the meaning and connotations of language and terms that have been used as methods of oppression.  Susan Stryker comments that "words like 'creature,' 'monster,' and 'unnatural' need to be reclaimed by the transgendered.  By embracing and accepting them, even piling one on top of another, we may dispel their ability to harm us" (Stryker 246). My curiousity with reclaiming relates to the change in connotation that only seem to be prevelant and understood in that specific culture.  By adopting the terms that have been used to marginalize and then adapting them in an effort to unify, it seems as though the words would have lost all power.  Reclaiming also seems exclusive, as it does not attempt include outsiders, excluding those that may one day become insiders.   This idea is similar to the conversation we have had in class about the term "feminist" and whether or not it is possible to identify with a term you do not fully understand.

Jessy seems to be addressing the same issues with language in "see minotaur": "There aren't any words for what I am, not real words, that just anyone would understand....  I'm never what they have in mind" (Brody 2).  Jessy's situation seems to be a little different as it is an attempt to define the individual and not a group.

I am wondering how it is possible to define yourself within a group?  If you identify as female, you are not solely female; instead that characteristics makes up only one part of your personal identity.  I would what the role of language (and naming and reclaiming) has to do with the way in which we define ourselves as individuals and in groups.  By placing ourself in one group (female, male, transgendered), are we not thereby assuming that we understand that group and thus can define it?  How does the relate to the conversations we've been having  in class about identifying as a "feminist"?

In "see minotaur," Jessy writes, "There aren't any words for what I am, not real words, that just anyone would understand" (2).  This sentence seems to capture the trouble we've been having in trying to define "feminism": We can't say the word in a broad context—a context of "just anyone"—and expect that it carries the same connotations for our listeners as it does for us.   This can be problematic when we care how people are interpreting our words, twisting them to mean something other than what we intended.  Maybe we don't care enough about the opinions of people who think "feminist" = "man hater" to explain our personal philosophies to them, but surely sometimes we want to express our versions of ourselves using conventional language.  

I was struck by Stryker's insistence that "words like 'creature,' 'monster,' and 'unnatural' need to be reclaimed by the transgendered.  By embracing and accepting them, even piling one on top of another, we may dispel their ability to harm us" (246).  I understand the idea of the reclamation of words, but does the intent of the speaker truly not matter once those words have been reclaimed?  Even if you can embrace words that you previously found offensive, can you always avoid taking offense to them when someone inteds to offend?

I too am interested in the relationship between blogging and feminism, and emerged from reading the blog excerpt with some of the same questions as jlustick.  

In what ways does a blurred, or not-so-blurred, line between academic and personal blogging interfere or gel with your definition of feminism, and in what ways does your insistence on rules on your blog do the same? 

 Who is your audience, for the most part? 

Jessy-

I just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoyed your essay, and it shed so much light on a lot of issues I have been thinking about a lot lately. I, too, have a personal online journal, and it is a strange mix of personal and academic writings, and every day I ask myself, "who do I want my audience to be for this? Why am I writing for other people to see instead of just myself?" Who do you think is your audience, and what would you like your audience to be? What is your objective(s) in having a livejournal?

For me, Serendip is very interesting, but because it does not involve the personal, I think it can be less controversial and less vibrant than personal journals. It doesn't allow itself to get to the nitty gritty honesty of our real life sexism and the real dynamics between people of different genders in their every day personal lives. Do you agree with this?  

I think that academic blogging is ridiculous. I do think that all academic papers are in some way personal and maybe even more personal than bogs/online journals etc. Because the personal is not as explicit it allows the person to be more truthful because their person is not as easily exposed. Bloggers come across to me as exhibitionists and in this sense they are fake to me because I know I cannot truly understand their experiences (even after reading their works). At least with academic, third person, papers I can acknowledge that the political is personal but also recognize that I cannot possibly comprehend everything about that person's point of view. 

All of the online conversations that takes place in forums, e-messages, aim, etc. devalue face-to-face human interaction.  How intimate is a person being with you sharing their ideas on some virtual plane? There's a sort of sacredness about ideas that is unable to be expressed without the face-to-face interaction. 

Hi Jessy,

In See Minotaur, in a portion skumar previously quoted, you write that you "suppose the best term is genderqueer". In Stryker's manifesto she uses the term "genderfuck", as in "I stood at the podium wearing genderfuck drag" (245). Are the two terms different in significant ways? Is genderqueer less about appearance, and more about one's own inner self? I feel like I've heard 'genderfuck' used to refer to a movement, or to a fashion sense, but I've heard genderqueer used mostly to talk about individuals.

At one point, you seem to make a distinction between the 'you', which i interpreted to mostly refer to the audience/the blob of people out there potentially reading whatever it is you've written (but perhaps it is meant for a more specific you?), seeing and listening. You write "youcantseeme", but then immediately ask "Are you listening to me!?!?" Is there something better, or more necessary, about listening?

Is seeing an act of judgment or objectifying (as we've talked about in some of our classes), while listening is about communication? Should we have read your texts out loud instead, or is the act of representing and then us reading already too far gone? Is that why you instruct, in Part Two, "Don't imagine a book"?

Jessy,

It seems that you have experimented with your style of writing quite a bit. I was wondering how this experimentation has developed your personal identity, your public persona, and your identity as a "feminist"?

Also, your writing seems very personal. Where do you think the boundary of public/private should be in academic writing? Is it possible to write for one's self when inherently there is an audience?