Critical Feminist Studies

Here is what I think is an excellent advertisement for doing self breast exams:

http://i.imgur.com/aCoPs.jpg

Here is some more background.

It brings to mind a lot of thoughts about how women's bodies are used in advertising, and while most of the time it seems very objectifying, I think that this is fantastic. It's using women's bodies because it's about women's bodies. Yes their eyes/faces are cropped out, but I thought it would look weirder or even more pornographic for their eyes to be there. I also don't think that that is a terribly uncommon attribute for ads or information about breast cancer screening.

But one of my friends brought up the point of: who is the target audience?

Nonetheless, I really like the idea of "You are not immune."

Lesson Plan?

Day 1- As several people expressed an interest in learning about the "basics" of feminism, we decided to dedicate the first class as a "Feminism 101" course.

Day 2- Continue with "Feminist Fairy Tales" by Barbara J. Walker

At this point we talked about having a week on Feminism and Sex Work 

Day 3- A documentary on sex workers? 

Day 4- First-hand accounts on sex-workers

We would then be able to discuss the role of the documentary in feminism, with the first-hand occurrences as well

Spend the next week looking at queer and sexuality? Some ideas for Day's 5 and 6:

Looking at the history of queer and sexuality. How does it relate to feminism?
Maybe "Khaos theory", or Judith Butler?

Day's 7 and 8:

Look at feminists who are not women

Men, transfolk etc. 

Look at Men's rights movement?
Discuss breaking down the binary? Feminism's role?

Last day before performances:

 Bring it home: Trans at women's colleges, which are traditionally feminist institutions. What is our role now? As feminist institutions? 

These are the notes from the discussion between FrigginSushi, MC, meowwalex, and I.

ISSUES WE WERE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN:

-       Globalize but also non-white American feminists

-       More theory – not necessarily gender and performativity but what do feminist writers think feminism is. More of a foundation.

• We would have to decide from where we want to draw that foundation. There is so much out there and we would have to determine what would be useful. We have to pick and choose.
• That is how most other English classes are structured, but is that how we want our structured?
• Pick one topic and give basic theories on that. But that is picking single women out to represent feminism and we’re trying to avoid that?
• Can’t really give a “crash course.” It would also be a lot of heavy academia reading.
• Look through Feminist Ryan Gosling tumblr and discuss the theories brought up in the memes. 

-       Liked the documentary. Do another one?

-       Poems are fun. Don’t have specific examples of feminist poetry.

-       Queer stuff. Other voices. Non cis women. It would be new, unexplored territory.  FrigginSushi really likes Tyra Banks.

Just wanting to be sure that "everyone" knows about the interesting and adroit (feminist?) move our team made last week: Bryn Mawr College books performance artist Villanova cancelled.

Also, here's French feminism updated -- a new study showing that young women deserve credit for pioneering vocal trends and popular slang: They're Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve.

Read this:

http://www.smithsophian.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor-1.2792404#.T0bPBfEgenk

EDIT: Taken down on Smith's website due to technical difficulties. Read it on Jezebel instead:

http://jezebel.com/Anne-spurzem/

And read the responses here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/182294368547549/

Incredible, shocking? I feel fear/shame knowing that it is statistically likely that there are BMC alums like this. I know that BMC has changed a lot over the years, and somehow I wonder how the first decade of graduating classes would react to or interact with the last decade of graduating classes (GOLD - Graduates of the Last Decade).

I was troubled by our in class salt licking, not because I dislike salt, but because ordinary table salt, licked out of our hands, is so different from the way salt is described in The Book of Salt, and so contrary to how salt is used in cooking.  Throughout reading the book, and throughout class on Thursday, I had this unformed idea in my head that we never really got to understand the significance of the salt in the book.  Then, when we read parts of Jessy's post about the queerness in the book being a fact that is simply allowed to be an ingredient that, though it enriches the story and brings a complexity to it, is not overburdened that I understood what was vexxing me.

This weekend, please add as a "new comment" here your proposal for the remainder  of our semester's work together. Begin with a paragraph or two of a mid-semester evaluation of how we're doing in learning together:
what's working? What needs working on? What should we keep, of our shared practices? What might we change up?

Turn then from questions of "form" to those of "content": What other genres, geographies, forms of gender or sexuality studies would you like to explore, if the remainder of the class were an independent study? What do you recommend our exploring together? How action-based or action-directed do you want our work to be? Say "why" in answer to each of these questions (i.e. how do your selections expand/extend/challenge what we have already done?).

I have two more weeks of material planned for after break (wiggle room, to order new books, do some course planning), but we will spend next week selecting material together for NINE [AS YET UNPLANNED] CLASSES.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089474/Beck-Laxton-Kieran-Cooper-reveal-sex-gender-neutral-child-Sasha.html

I have been thinking about this article frequently ever since I found it online about a month ago. What most struck me initially was not the content of the article, but rather the vehement response/comments below the article (if you follow the link and scroll down you'll see these). Most people's reactions fell somewhere along the line of equating the parent's actions with some form of child abuse, or generally "screwing their child up". I did not identify with this reaction until more recently when a follow up article was published:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090169/Sasha-Laxton-Gender-neutral-childs-reaction-mothers-questions-sex.html.

What is a feminist work? I've, for the most part, enjoyed the readings we've been assigned in class. Reading Canzone and Lifting Belly were very different experiences. With Canzone I could tell very clearly the sexual nature in which the poem was meant to be felt (or tasted?). However, with Lifting Belly I was clueless. Despite the fact that I was searching for a hint of feminism and even lesbian sex I missed all of the clues. Until our discussion in class I had no idea what lifting belly stood for and to be honest I was bored and skimmed the whole thing. 

Despite my confusion in content and meaning of these poems, I found myself further confused looking for feminist meaning in the works. Are these poems feminist? In what way? Talking about sexuality from a women's point of view? What makes a literary work, a poem, a movie, or rather anything feminist?