"I have been writing to impress old white men. Countless decisions I've made about what to write and how to write it have been in acquiescence to the options of the white male literati. Not only acquiescence but a beseeching, approval seeking, people pleasing." -From Watkins' "On Pandering"
"Women at the bank were essentially forced into the femininity closet -- hiding all signs that they were female humans with lives. Worse, they were buried so deep in those closets, they didn't come out to each other and talk about the sexist horror show that was their workplace." - From Peck's "Why Women Need to Stick Together at Work. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-workplace-equality_us_56a79152e4b0b87beec5fb28?ir=Women§ion=us_women&utm_hp_ref=women
What other male-dominated employment fields are women harassed for participating in? Are there any jobs or careers where men are looked down on similarly to the way women are? How does being shamed for ones gender impact the workplace and inter-office relationships? How can women begin to respectfully alter this dynamic so that they are accepted in all areas of productivity?
Your posts remind me of a question that I've been pondering: about whether in some cases "pandering" is a conscious choice? And if pandering is the only way we can "respectfully" alter misogynistic workplaces? Or if we need to drop the notion of "respectful" discourse at some point?
“On Pandering”-Claire Watkins “The truth is, the fact that our culture considers male writers more serious than me was not a revelation. I’d been getting the messages of Stephen’s e-mail long before my friend forwarded it to me—all women do. We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in.” (4)
“8 Ways Men Don't Realize They Are Subtly Shaming Women”- Rutherford-Morrison “We find it in subtle biases and macroaggressions, or in statements that seem innocuous at first but rely on unspoken assumptions about women’s “proper” roles in society. This kind of sexism is hard to combat because a lot of people don’t even realize they’re doing it. I think most guys, for example, aren’t going through their lives consciously thinking “I hate women!” or “Women are inferior!” But that doesn’t mean many of them don’t participate in and perpetuate a culture that shames women simply for existing.” http://www.bustle.com/articles/115512-8-ways-men-dont-realize-they-are-subtly-shaming-women
Guiding Questions: Why do you think that our culture has such a large impact on the way that women are perceived and what their “proper roles” are in society? Do you think that many men are so used to the idea of what a woman is or should be, that they make sexist remarks and biased views about women without even realizing it? Why have women become such a target for shaming and assumptions that women aren’t able to do all that men can do?
“I am saying a sexual negation, a refusal to acknowledge a female writer as a writer, as a peer, as a person, is of a piece with sexual entitlement. No, more than a piece, it is practically a prerequisite” "On Pandering", Claire Vaye Watkins
"Master of None" episode 7, "Ladies and Gentlemen", Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang http://becomingmia.tumblr.com/post/133233295222/andreii-tarkovsky-master-of-none-ladies-and (just click the link the quote is there)
Guiding Questions: How can it be that women are both noticed and ignored due to their gender and their sexuality? Why are these double standards, the oversexualization of woman as a dismissal or a complete ignore, placed upon women in our society? What are they, and we, supposed to make of this polarized attention, and how are we, as a society, supposed to fix these ingrained yet subtle problems? How can we fix the mindset and assumptions of men when they don't even know what they are doing or understand the importance of their words/actions?
I love that you found a "Master of None" example. I haven't started watching the full series yet, but from the clips I've seen there is such important work being done on that show as far as race, gender, you name it. I wonder if just having conversations with one's close friends (or boyfriends in this case) about the micro-agressions and second-guessing (which may happen subconsciously because of how men, too are conditioned) is a start? Or maybe I'm an optimist?
“On Pandering” - Claire Vaye Watkins “‘I tried to get in Claire’s bed. It was a big, comfortable bed. She said no, how would she explain it to the boy she was getting to know. I said there was nothing to explain to the boy, nothing’s going to happen. It’s like sleeping with your gay friend. But she wasn’t so sure. She had been drinking and I don’t drink.’” (3) Excerpt from Stephen Elliott’s Daily Rumpus e-newsletter, “Overheard in Columbus”
“When The Nice Guy Down The Street Makes You Uncomfortable” - Sadie Stein “The 'problem' of course, is that as women we're vulnerable in ways guys can't appreciate. Sure, they can comprehend that catcalling is offensive and that pervs rubbing against you on the subway is disgusting. But they can't understand the smaller things you need to guard against, day in and day out, that you can't be too friendly, because it just leaves you…open." http://jezebel.com/5046087/when-the-nice-guy-down-the-street-makes-you-uncomfortable
Guiding Questions: Do you think that men, in general, understand sexism and if and when they are being sexist? Why do you think that some men are unaware of their boundaries? How can we let people know if they are making us uncomfortable? What can we do to change this dynamic?
Your posts remind me of how hard it is to distinguish overt sexism from accidental sexism, if that's the right word for it. I mean, if sexism is systemic, that means that men, too, are victims of powerful discourses that lead them to act in certain ways when "reading" and interacting with women. I wonder if having conversations with male allies--or loved ones--about our discomfort might be a start? Especially if many men are unaware of the micro-aggressions we negotiate every day?
I found this video on facebook today and felt it related a lot to what we discussed in class. But I feel like it particularly pertains to this post/response. In circumstances where women are being objectified and disregarded as individuals, these Mexican women are taking immediate action to respond to and discourage any sort of harassment from male counterparts.
"On Pandering" - Claire Vaye Watkins "Now, I realize I'm not a special snowflake, that every woman who writes has a handbag full of stories like this. There is probably an entire teeming sub-subgenre entitled "Stephen Elliott Comes to Town." I offer this here partly because it was my very first personal run-in with overtly misogynistic behavior from a male writer, and so perhaps my most instructive." (3)
"I did not want to chat with a guy with a blank profile, “discreet” photographs, who lived in another country, and who was older than my father. So he threatened to kill me." (http://hell-is-okcupid.tumblr.com/post/138038697986/i-did-not-want-to-chat-with-a-guy-with-a-blank)
Guiding Questions:
Watkins makes it clear that she is not the first female author/student that Elliott tried to get in bed with, and that she certainly will not be the last. Sort of to reiterate what Nicollette said, do you think that men realize they are being sexist? If this is not Elliott's first time "trying to get in bed" with who he was staying with, he probably isn't the only male author that has tried this, do you think this happens in every profession? How can we change this dynamic between men and women in various different professions? Will we ever be able to really change it?
This entire tumblr is quite an interesting find. Sure dating apps don't have the best reputation, but this is madness. http://hell-is-okcupid.tumblr.com/post/137831133717/wow-this-guys-a-dick-i-let-him-get-to-me-at
Wow. As per this OKCupid post, I'm equal parts happy that this woman shared her experiences and equal parts horrified that this happened to her. There's actually a new online dating app, called "Bumble" that was developed by a woman to help women like this who are often harassed on online dating sites. Basically, the woman has to make the first move before any communication happens. I wonder if it's better?
And to answer your original question, I have to believe there is hope when it comes to helping men understand that "no" means "no." I wonder if the move to reframe the rhetoric as "consent" will work?
“The truth is, the fact that our culture considers male writers more serious than me was not a revelation. I’d been getting the messages of Stephen’s email long before my friend forwarded it to me – all women do. We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in.” (“On Pandering,” p.4).
“Here’s the truth. There is an actual difference between male and female comedy writers, and I’m going to reveal it now. The men urinate in cups. And sometimes jars.” (Bossypants by Tina Fey).
Guiding questions: In Bossypants, Tina Fey suggests that there aren’t any major differences between men and women who write comedy when it comes to the actual writing. Are there any legitimate differences between male and female writers, or do we only perceive differences as a result of social stigmas? What might we find if we examined how women writers perceive other women writers? What do women think of women writers in comparison with “old white men” writers?
I love, love, love that you posted this particular quote from Tina Fey's essay about women comedy writers. It's one of my favorites! Your questions bring up some very difficult ideas I've been grappling with: do we read female writers differently because they're women? And if it's unfair to do so--after all, they're equally as talented--then how can we discuss gender inequality and the very fact that we do read women writers differently? And that they are read differently? How do we discuss gendered writing without perpetuating the idea that women are subject to their gender and somehow different, which in a patriarchal society has often been construed as "lesser"? And I hope we can address your second set of questions in this class!
On Pandering - Watkins "As a young woman I had one and only one intense and ceaseless pastime, thought that's not the right word, though neither is hobby or passion... that hobby, that interest, that passion was this: watching boys do stuff," (4).
Todd Harris Goldman "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them."
Guiding question: Why are so many men oblivious to how sexist their behavior is? Are they ignorant, or has society conditioned them to not care?
I like that you pulled out this quotation about how women are taught to watch, which normalizes the notion that males do and women just are. And I do think that this doing/watching binary (which I was also victim of) subconsciously works to normalize misconceptions about women in boys'--and later, mens'-- minds. When an issue is systemic, we can work to educate against such misperceptions; it's when the education fails that I think we can start to blame individuals.
“We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in” – Watkins, On Pandering
Buzzfeed's Video "I am a Women but I am NOT" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdKwTdjm-Ls
Why is there such a need in this culture to make women, whom are also people, feel little or less then? Women are human beings as well, why are we being invalidated? Why do we have to explain ourselves to get a point across? The point should already be there. Women, are people and people have feelings. Why do men feel the need there are “humans” but women are seen as the “other”? I don't have to explain myself because of my gender and sex to anyone, yet why am I forced to?
The video you posted really works to challenge essentialism as we discussed it in the last class. I'd like it if someday we could just forget about the "I'm a woman" part and just lead with the second sentence...if that second sentence in all its variations could become the normative so women didn't constantly have to re-define "woman" and the gendered assumptions behind the word...if we could speak as individuals without having to always speak as "women," in other words.
“I have been reenacting in my artmaking the undying pastime of my girlhood: watching boys, emulating them, trying to catch the attention of the ones who have no idea I exist" - Watkins, On Pandering
Power of Story: Serious Ladies at 2015 Sundance Film Festival. This video is a little long (clocks in at 90 minutes) but in it, four different women television writers discuss dealing with archetypes, writing anti-heroes, and creating art that is realistic. In particular, Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project) discusses how her character is scrutinized by viewers and critics because she is not necessarily likeable. Lena Dunham also makes the point that people often confuse her own persona with the character she portrays/writes, as if she can not be more than one type of woman. Television writing is often seen as a boys club, and this panel shows what happens when women stop simply watching and instead create their own true art. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMKN9Vx85mc
These are layered issues. Why must women television characters be deemed likeable to be considered great characters when male characters (think Michael Scott, The Office or Walter White, Breaking Bad) can get away with terrible behavior and still praised? ALSO why do women writers get trapped within their roles? Could it have to do with the belief women only write through personal experience/cannot grasp another portion of life? (Just as Watkins was portrayed as the drunk girl, instead of a fellow writer).
Watkins say, “I am trying to understand a phenomenon that happens in my head, and maybe in yours too, whereby the white supremacist patriarchy determines what I write.” Joan Didion once said “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” I think it connects to Watkins quote because I think we should all just write for ourselves without thinking of the white supremacist patriarchy. We should all just write like Didion How do we eliminate the voices of the white supremacist patriarchy from our heads, especially since they dictate and influence what and how everyone writes today? Do you think adding more diverse literature from women and people of color in high school would help eliminate that influence that the white patriarchy has?
Natalie’s Thoughts on Being a Girl, Rather than a Person, in Society.
“On Pandering” -- Claire Vaye Watkins
“. . . a world where Kyle Minor was Kyle Minor, a writer ‘with a book of stories out, a couple of kids, teaching classes up in Toledo, finishing what sounds like a fantastic novel and contemplating law school.’ Whereas I was Claire, no last name, ‘the student,’ owner of a big, comfortable bed. Until my friend forwarded that e-mail to me, I’d been under the impression that since I wrote, I was a writer, period. If I wrote bad I was a bad writer, if I wrote good I was a good writer. Simple as that. I was, I knew, every bit as ambitious as Kyle Minor and Stephen Elliott. I loved books just as much as Kyle and Stephen did, read as much as they did, and worked just as hard to get the right words in the right order. But now I was confronted with Google Groups listserv proof that, to Stephen, Kyle was a writer and I was a drunk girl. . . . When I said, I’m a writer, Stephen heard, I’m a girl. And, because I was a girl, when I said, No, you cannot sleep in my bed, he heard someone who ‘wasn’t so sure.’ . . . Because I was not a writer, not a person, I was easily made into a drunk girl unable to tell her own story.” (2-3). “The truth is, the fact that our culture considers male writers more serious than me was not a revelation. I’d been getting the messages of Stephen’s e-mail long before my friend forwarded it to me—all women do. We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in” (4).
Always #LikeAGirl Campaign Commercial
Always, a feminine product company has a campaign out, where they are doing social experiments associated with young girls being stigmatized by society. The aim is to get people to think differently and see that doing things “like a girl” is a good thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
“If somebody else says that running like a girl, or kicking like a girl, or shooting like a girl is something that you shouldn’t be doing, that’s their problem, because if you’re still scoring, and still getting to the ball in time, and you’re still being first, you’re doing it right. It doesn’t matter what they say. I mean, yes, I kick like a girl, and I swim like a girl, and I walk like a girl, and I wake up in the morning like a girl, because I am a girl, and that is not something I should be ashamed of. So I am going to do it anyway” (2:05-2:35).
Why #LikeAGirl is Just a Load of #CorporateBullshit -- H Bourne
“Always are just riding the crimson tide of the latest feminist wave and it’s pissing me off. . . . Always already make LOTS of money out of female insecurity . . . Where are the ‘unattractive’ girls in the video? Half of the older actresses are plastered in makeup and look like they haven’t eaten a cake since 1986. And the kids? They look like they’ve just wandered out of Shutterstocksville, after you typed ‘perfect All-American cute child’ into the search box. If this campaign really wants to build young girls’ self-esteem, where is the overweight child please? Where is the acne-ridden teenager? They briefly discuss how confidence evaporates during adolescence, but your typical teenagers are notably absent. Can only young pretty things fight for self-esteem? Are we complicit, in that we will we only reblog videos containing All-American perfects who are good at baseball? . . . And why does feminism suddenly mean being good at running and PE? It’s like a Katniss Everdeen hangover. I get that ‘throwing like a girl’ and ‘running like a girl’ are insults, lodged in linguistic gendered fuckery, but still…SOME GIRLS ARE STILL SHIT AT RUNNING. What about us? When did being a feminist and being ‘strong’ mean strong in the literal sense? Suddenly in this video all the girls run really well and boast about winning ‘the race’. I have never won a race. I have never thrown a ball that has gone where it was supposed to. This doesn’t make me #LikeAGirl, this makes me not great at sport . . . Can I not fight gender inequality and still not be able to run for the bus without hyperventilating? . . . What is the aim of #LikeAGirl? Umm…. How about to #LikeMakeALotOfMoney? I get that it’s good a huge company are using their reach to spread a positive message. And the message, let’s acknowledge, is positive. Of course I don’t want little girls’ confidence to be eroded by the time they are teenagers. But that is not why they spent all this time and money making the video. . . . I searched every inch of both the UK and USA Always website and I couldn’t find ONE thing they were planning to do to build self-esteem in young girls….other than getting people to retweet the viral video plastered with their branding. They’re not using the profits to fund self-esteem classes in schools . . . whenever you’re clicking repost you’re essentially doing free advertising for a large conglomerate who thinks periods are blue and your vag needs to be perfumed.”
“On Pandering” -- Claire Vaye Watkins “I am saying a sexist negation, a refusal to acknowledge a female writer as a writer, as a peer, as a person, is of a piece with sexual entitlement. No, more than of a piece, it is practically a prerequisite. Humans are wide, open vessels, capable of almost anything” (3). “Look, I said with my stories: I can write old men, I can write sex, I can write abortion. I can write hard, unflinching, unsentimental. I can write an old man getting a boner! . . . She can write like a man, they said, by which they meant, She can write” (7).
Guiding Question(s): In “On Pandering,” Claire has made the point that she has been basically identified as a girl, while her colleague is identified by his accomplishments and status. In the #LikeAGirl campaign by Always, little girls are saying they are proud to do things “like a girl.” Do you think it is more important to have accomplishments linked to being a woman (i.e. First female President, female athlete, female writer), or just be recognized for your accomplishments? Are campaigns like #LikeAGirl aiding the feminist movement or presenting the wrong idea in the long run? Is there a way to successfully escape the “culture that hates us” or change the misogynist world around us?
(I did compose this post prior to class, but forgot to post it. Sorry for the delay!)
“On Pandering” – Claire Vaye Watkins “I saw, in the form of paragraphs and sentences, my area of expertise, how it took only a few lines to go from professional dismissal to sexual entitlement to being treated as property to gaslighting” (3).
“Oxford apologizes for ‘flippant’ tweet about ‘rabid feminist” – Carrie Nelson “What’s the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘rabid’? Is it a rabid animal? Rabid enthusiasm? Or perhaps a rabid feminist?” http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/oxford-dictionaries-rabid-feminist/?fb=ss&prtnr=wrn
Guiding Question:
Watkins talks about how she expressed the same skill, knowledge of literature, and enthusiasm about her work as her male colleague did when they both met Stephen Elliott. Yet, when Elliott wrote about the encounter, he was praised for his work while she was criticised for being drunk and not letting him into her bed. Suddenly, she is no longer a writer but simply a girl. Out of all the possible nouns that the Oxford dictionary could have used to compliment the adjective “rabid,” they chose feminist. Statements like these are made about women all the time, every day. Do you think they are made consciously? That is, is the speaker deliberately choosing words and phrases that paint women in a negative light? Or rather, are we trained by the society we live in to view women this way? Are we conditioned to unconsciously associate feminists with the quality of being “rabid”? Are we taught to view women as girls and girls alone, regardless of their accomplishments, roles, and qualities?
2. “On Pandering” – Claire Vaye Watkins - Quote from the text: “She can write like a man, they said, by which they meant, She can write” (7).
- Related Contemporary Text: An article on J.K. Rowling's psuedonyms - that's right, plural! Not just known as "J.K." anymore, she actually has a male pen name too for a newer crime novel / series she has published. http://mic.com/articles/55499/why-did-j-k-rowling-use-a-male-pen-name-for-her-crime-novel#.Ov1XEayXR
“Publishers seem convinced that men are put off by female writers. They have certain expectations of what women produce and by all accounts, the average male just does not want to read a work by a woman.” “Women’s fiction is a term that is broadly used to describe romance and chick lit among other. This term causes a problem as if we only see women’s names on certain genres such as chick lit or YA then we are going to associate all female writers with such fare. The publishing industry is conditioning our attitudes towards female writers in the worst way possible.”
“Considering she changed her name once in the name of sales, from Joanne to J.K., it would have been nice for her to blaze the trail not taken. I would have hoped we had come a long way since Rowling was told to use a pseudonym because boys won’t read books written by a girl. Apparently we haven’t because the world’s best-selling author feels the need to change her gender to write a crime novel.”
http://robert-galbraith.com/about/ J.K. Rowling’s official website for Robert Galbraith, including all her reasoning for going with a male pseudonym.
A couple of sort-of related quotes that I found interesting: “ undeniably sexy girl” “ Robin, is a temporary secretary “
Robin is the sexy secretary – of course – to the male ex-military private eye protagonist. Thanks for following that archetype, J.K.
- The question is not why women feel they have to disguise themselves or their feminity/ feminism. It’s not ‘How did we let this get this way?’ It’s: What can we do about it? What are we going to do about it? (If you’re Watkins, you say, we “burn (the) whole motherfucking system to the ground and build something better” (9/33). Do you agree?
“So I watched Nabokov, watched Thomas Hardy, watched Raymond Carver. I read women (some, but not enough) but I didn’t watch them.” -Watkins, 5
“At moments like this, when my whiteness materializes in front of me and I can see it, I am so embarrassed of it and also so angry at myself for not being always as aware of it as I am there in that awkward, painful, absurd, essential moment. I want to unsee it, make it invisible again, and usually I do, because it feels better. I have that privilege.” -Watkins, On Pandering
‘Within 24 hours George had five responses—three manuscript requests and two warm rejections praising his exciting project. For contrast, under my own name, the same letter and pages sent 50 times had netted me a total of two manuscript requests. The responses gave me a little frisson of delight at being called “Mr.” and then I got mad. Three manuscript requests on a Saturday, not even during business hours! The judgments about my work that had seemed as solid as the walls of my house had turned out to be meaningless. My novel wasn’t the problem; it was me—Catherine.” [http://jezebel.com/homme-de-plume-what-i-learned-sending-my-novel-out-und-1720637627]
Guiding Questions: One of the challenges women face in terms of literary acclaim is not only Being recognized for their works, but getting their foot in the door in the first place. For years, women published under pseudonyms, or anonymously. In this day and age, why should women still feel that they have to hide their sex in order to get their work into the literary world? Can this be solved by reading a work in such a way that completely disregards the author’s sex?
Watkins- "On Pandering" "But nearly all my life has been arranged around this activity. I've filled my days doing this, spent all my free time and a great amount of time that was not free doing it. That hobby, that interest, that passion was this: watching boys do stuff." -Watkins, page 4
"Mean Boys Can't Keep Girls Off The Soccer Field. #15Girls" "When I started playing, I did feel like there was a lot of prejudice. They called me a macho girl, they called me a lesbian."
Guiding Questions: The idea of "watching boys do stuff" also plays out in literature classes, where male authors are studied much more than female authors. If women's literature were more widely read, would it aid the advancement of women's involvement in things like sports (such as the story about the girls playing soccer in Brazil)? Would the female perspective be more understood? Would the consciousness that the text is coming from a female voice impact the reader's interpretation in a positive or negative way?
"On Pandering" by Claire Vaye Watkins “When I said, I’m a writer, Stephen heard, I’m a girl.”- Watkins, Page 4
Image of sexist batman: http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/1/18863/2109076-sexistbatman.jpg (and kind of going along with that the whole "Training to be Batman's Wife tee-shirt for women)
Guiding Question: Based off the quotation from Watkins and the comic from Batman, showing that they see her as only a woman and not a competent fighter, have you experienced any problems with people not seeing you as a writer or something you are serious about due to your sex or gender?
"On Pandering" - Watkins "...it only took a few lines to go from professional dismissal to sexual entitlement to being treated as property to gaslighting" (3).
Power of Story: Serious Ladies at 2015 Sundance Festival The mainstream media contributes to negative female archetypes in their portrayal of women (I have no quote, sorry).
Why do we perceive female characters as having to be "likeable" to present a good role when male characters have the freedom to be "dislikeable" and still be a strong role?
"After watching Girls for the first time my friend Annie McGreevy says, “That was my experience, too, but I didn’t know it was okay to make art about it.” And maybe it’s still not okay." –Watkins’ "On Pandering," p. 8 http://legionofleia.com/2015/11/wheresrey-hasbro-target-are-we-really-going-to-start-star-wars-this-way/ -"...they had an exclusive set of large Star Wars figures from Hasbro, and once again, the main female character was missing." Guiding Question: As shown by the quote from "On Pandering" and the article about the lack of Star Wars action figures of the female protagonist of the latest film, it is clear that strong female characters are still having a difficult time permeating popular culture. Are these just the latest in a long series of unheard cries about the depiction of women in the media, or are women beginning to break through?
(This is a post written on time but never posted because I was confused about the assignment). Claire Vaye Watkins- On Pandering “Because I was not a writer, not a person, I was easily made into a drunk girl unable to tell her own story.” “I spend my day with a baby and that, patriarchy says, is not the stuff of art. Once again I am a girl and not a writer. No one said this. No one has to. I am saying it to myself.” “I can write old men, I can write sex, I can write abortion. I can write hard, unflinching, unsentimental. I can write an old man getting a boner!”
Observation: In eighth grade I took a creative writing class. There were only two boys in our class, one of them was Aiden. I’d known Aiden since before I had entered the Arcata school district. I met him on a playground before the fall semester of fifth grade where he was rude to me. However, being in a new city and meeting a boy my age who went to the school I was going to attend, and who had sharp, pretty, electric blue eyes meant that I fell into quick infatuation. After getting to school I learned what a loser Aiden was, and set my heart on to another blue eyed beauty. Aiden and I barely acknowledged each other until seventh grade when he was seated next to me in Ms. Hubbard’s advanced math class. Aiden was still a loser, puberty had not been kind to him, his hair was always a dishellved mess and he reeked of B.O. But he loved the weird and perverse, and was funny. He earned his social merit by making crude jokes towards girls and spouting out absurdities. He wasn’t a good student but he wore “stoner genius” well and won favor with teachers because he was in the GIFTED program where all the bad yet “genius” students ended up. Up until this point I had always liked math. I was good at it, in third grade I had earned the title “long division queen” and that confidence had carried me through the rest of my math career until this point. Middle school had been rough on me. The first day of sixth grade I became the target of bullying by a popular boy named Ryan Eartman, after loudly voicing that I didn’t want to date him because “he wasn’t my type.” Fast forward to seventh grade I was a loser, I’d lost my best friend, one of my teachers had joked to the rest of the class that I was a “dumb blond” and that image stuck with me, the ditzy girl. “Harmony, you’re in the smart math class?!” I remember the shock in a classmate’s voice after finding out that the ditzy blond had surpassed him in math. Aiden sat next to me in math, I was already at a disadvantage because I could never remember my calculator, and was lost when Mrs. Hubbard only started teaching us formulas for our tiny machines rather than the mathematics behind them. He talked loudly during class to another boy named Phoenix, about how hot Mrs. Hubbard was. She ignored their jokes, or pretended not to hear. When I refused to let Aiden copy the answers from my quizzes, tests, and homework he cited off sexual acts that disturbed my prude, youthful ears until I relented. One day when I stayed home “sick” from school Mrs. Hubbard told the class that I cheated. The next year, though I got the same grade as Aiden in Math, I was moved down a level while Aiden stayed on the advance track. My friend, a writer, took creative writing with me. I liked to write, I always had, but the only thing I ever excelled at was theater, that was my thing, and Dakota, my friend, was quick to remind me of it. While I wrote pieces that catered to my wish fulfillment and were centered on interests like boys and being a preteen girl. Dakota wrote stories. Aiden wrote bizarre drug trips, and I was jealous because the class marveled over it. Dakota, who hated Aiden, even remarked that he could actually kind of write. So one day I pulled all my literary male references together (Tom Robbins and Gregory Maguire) and went about trying to create something contemporary and cutting, I ended up with an artist describing a bearded lady in Central Park. It was not me, it was not good, but I loved it. No matter how hard I tried I was never capable of seamlessly pandering.
Simone De Beauvoir- The Second Sex “A man would never get the notion of writing a book on the peculiar situation of being a human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say “I am a woman.” Simone De Beauvoir “In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles , for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; where as women represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity.” Xxi Guiding Question(s): Watkins concern is that of finding our own voices, like Zawacki she seems to think that creating more of the same content is a cycle that will drown out our voices. Today do women have a place other than ‘other’? If so, when we do are we trapped in that image? What are the dangers of breaking the mold? How do you write for women, and how do you find your own voice when you’ve been labeled?
"I have been writing to impress old white men. Countless decisions I've made about what to write and how to write it have been in acquiescence to the options of the white male literati. Not only acquiescence but a beseeching, approval seeking, people pleasing." -From Watkins' "On Pandering"
ReplyDelete"Women at the bank were essentially forced into the femininity closet -- hiding all signs that they were female humans with lives. Worse, they were buried so deep in those closets, they didn't come out to each other and talk about the sexist horror show that was their workplace." - From Peck's "Why Women Need to Stick Together at Work.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-workplace-equality_us_56a79152e4b0b87beec5fb28?ir=Women§ion=us_women&utm_hp_ref=women
What other male-dominated employment fields are women harassed for participating in? Are there any jobs or careers where men are looked down on similarly to the way women are? How does being shamed for ones gender impact the workplace and inter-office relationships? How can women begin to respectfully alter this dynamic so that they are accepted in all areas of productivity?
Your posts remind me of a question that I've been pondering: about whether in some cases "pandering" is a conscious choice? And if pandering is the only way we can "respectfully" alter misogynistic workplaces? Or if we need to drop the notion of "respectful" discourse at some point?
Delete“On Pandering”-Claire Watkins
ReplyDelete“The truth is, the fact that our culture considers male writers more serious than me was not a revelation. I’d been getting the messages of Stephen’s e-mail long before my friend forwarded it to me—all women do. We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in.” (4)
“8 Ways Men Don't Realize They Are Subtly Shaming Women”- Rutherford-Morrison
“We find it in subtle biases and macroaggressions, or in statements that seem innocuous at first but rely on unspoken assumptions about women’s “proper” roles in society. This kind of sexism is hard to combat because a lot of people don’t even realize they’re doing it. I think most guys, for example, aren’t going through their lives consciously thinking “I hate women!” or “Women are inferior!” But that doesn’t mean many of them don’t participate in and perpetuate a culture that shames women simply for existing.”
http://www.bustle.com/articles/115512-8-ways-men-dont-realize-they-are-subtly-shaming-women
Guiding Questions: Why do you think that our culture has such a large impact on the way that women are perceived and what their “proper roles” are in society? Do you think that many men are so used to the idea of what a woman is or should be, that they make sexist remarks and biased views about women without even realizing it? Why have women become such a target for shaming and assumptions that women aren’t able to do all that men can do?
“I am saying a sexual negation, a refusal to acknowledge a female writer as a writer, as a peer, as a person, is of a piece with sexual entitlement. No, more than a piece, it is practically a prerequisite” "On Pandering", Claire Vaye Watkins
ReplyDelete"Master of None" episode 7, "Ladies and Gentlemen", Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang
http://becomingmia.tumblr.com/post/133233295222/andreii-tarkovsky-master-of-none-ladies-and
(just click the link the quote is there)
Guiding Questions: How can it be that women are both noticed and ignored due to their gender and their sexuality? Why are these double standards, the oversexualization of woman as a dismissal or a complete ignore, placed upon women in our society? What are they, and we, supposed to make of this polarized attention, and how are we, as a society, supposed to fix these ingrained yet subtle problems? How can we fix the mindset and assumptions of men when they don't even know what they are doing or understand the importance of their words/actions?
I love that you found a "Master of None" example. I haven't started watching the full series yet, but from the clips I've seen there is such important work being done on that show as far as race, gender, you name it. I wonder if just having conversations with one's close friends (or boyfriends in this case) about the micro-agressions and second-guessing (which may happen subconsciously because of how men, too are conditioned) is a start? Or maybe I'm an optimist?
Delete“On Pandering” - Claire Vaye Watkins
ReplyDelete“‘I tried to get in Claire’s bed. It was a big, comfortable bed. She said no, how would she explain it to the boy she was getting to know. I said there was nothing to explain to the boy, nothing’s going to happen. It’s like sleeping with your gay friend. But she wasn’t so sure. She had been drinking and I don’t drink.’” (3) Excerpt from Stephen Elliott’s Daily Rumpus e-newsletter, “Overheard in Columbus”
“When The Nice Guy Down The Street Makes You Uncomfortable” - Sadie Stein
“The 'problem' of course, is that as women we're vulnerable in ways guys can't appreciate. Sure, they can comprehend that catcalling is offensive and that pervs rubbing against you on the subway is disgusting. But they can't understand the smaller things you need to guard against, day in and day out, that you can't be too friendly, because it just leaves you…open."
http://jezebel.com/5046087/when-the-nice-guy-down-the-street-makes-you-uncomfortable
Guiding Questions: Do you think that men, in general, understand sexism and if and when they are being sexist? Why do you think that some men are unaware of their boundaries? How can we let people know if they are making us uncomfortable? What can we do to change this dynamic?
Your posts remind me of how hard it is to distinguish overt sexism from accidental sexism, if that's the right word for it. I mean, if sexism is systemic, that means that men, too, are victims of powerful discourses that lead them to act in certain ways when "reading" and interacting with women. I wonder if having conversations with male allies--or loved ones--about our discomfort might be a start? Especially if many men are unaware of the micro-aggressions we negotiate every day?
DeleteI found this video on facebook today and felt it related a lot to what we discussed in class. But I feel like it particularly pertains to this post/response. In circumstances where women are being objectified and disregarded as individuals, these Mexican women are taking immediate action to respond to and discourage any sort of harassment from male counterparts.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5JIU7Qdkk
"On Pandering" - Claire Vaye Watkins
ReplyDelete"Now, I realize I'm not a special snowflake, that every woman who writes has a handbag full of stories like this. There is probably an entire teeming sub-subgenre entitled "Stephen Elliott Comes to Town." I offer this here partly because it was my very first personal run-in with overtly misogynistic behavior from a male writer, and so perhaps my most instructive." (3)
"I did not want to chat with a guy with a blank profile, “discreet” photographs, who lived in another country, and who was older than my father. So he threatened to kill me." (http://hell-is-okcupid.tumblr.com/post/138038697986/i-did-not-want-to-chat-with-a-guy-with-a-blank)
Guiding Questions:
Watkins makes it clear that she is not the first female author/student that Elliott tried to get in bed with, and that she certainly will not be the last. Sort of to reiterate what Nicollette said, do you think that men realize they are being sexist? If this is not Elliott's first time "trying to get in bed" with who he was staying with, he probably isn't the only male author that has tried this, do you think this happens in every profession? How can we change this dynamic between men and women in various different professions? Will we ever be able to really change it?
This entire tumblr is quite an interesting find. Sure dating apps don't have the best reputation, but this is madness. http://hell-is-okcupid.tumblr.com/post/137831133717/wow-this-guys-a-dick-i-let-him-get-to-me-at
DeleteWow. As per this OKCupid post, I'm equal parts happy that this woman shared her experiences and equal parts horrified that this happened to her. There's actually a new online dating app, called "Bumble" that was developed by a woman to help women like this who are often harassed on online dating sites. Basically, the woman has to make the first move before any communication happens. I wonder if it's better?
DeleteAnd to answer your original question, I have to believe there is hope when it comes to helping men understand that "no" means "no." I wonder if the move to reframe the rhetoric as "consent" will work?
“The truth is, the fact that our culture considers male writers more serious than me was not a revelation. I’d been getting the messages of Stephen’s email long before my friend forwarded it to me – all women do. We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in.” (“On Pandering,” p.4).
ReplyDelete“Here’s the truth. There is an actual difference between male and female comedy writers, and I’m going to reveal it now. The men urinate in cups. And sometimes jars.” (Bossypants by Tina Fey).
Guiding questions:
In Bossypants, Tina Fey suggests that there aren’t any major differences between men and women who write comedy when it comes to the actual writing. Are there any legitimate differences between male and female writers, or do we only perceive differences as a result of social stigmas?
What might we find if we examined how women writers perceive other women writers? What do women think of women writers in comparison with “old white men” writers?
I love, love, love that you posted this particular quote from Tina Fey's essay about women comedy writers. It's one of my favorites! Your questions bring up some very difficult ideas I've been grappling with: do we read female writers differently because they're women? And if it's unfair to do so--after all, they're equally as talented--then how can we discuss gender inequality and the very fact that we do read women writers differently? And that they are read differently? How do we discuss gendered writing without perpetuating the idea that women are subject to their gender and somehow different, which in a patriarchal society has often been construed as "lesser"? And I hope we can address your second set of questions in this class!
DeleteOn Pandering - Watkins
ReplyDelete"As a young woman I had one and only one intense and ceaseless pastime, thought that's not the right word, though neither is hobby or passion... that hobby, that interest, that passion was this: watching boys do stuff," (4).
Todd Harris Goldman
"Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them."
Guiding question:
Why are so many men oblivious to how sexist their behavior is? Are they ignorant, or has society conditioned them to not care?
Here is the video I was talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gz-jxjCmg
DeleteI like that you pulled out this quotation about how women are taught to watch, which normalizes the notion that males do and women just are. And I do think that this doing/watching binary (which I was also victim of) subconsciously works to normalize misconceptions about women in boys'--and later, mens'-- minds. When an issue is systemic, we can work to educate against such misperceptions; it's when the education fails that I think we can start to blame individuals.
Delete“We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in” – Watkins, On Pandering
ReplyDeleteBuzzfeed's Video "I am a Women but I am NOT"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdKwTdjm-Ls
Why is there such a need in this culture to make women, whom are also people, feel little or less then? Women are human beings as well, why are we being invalidated? Why do we have to explain ourselves to get a point across? The point should already be there. Women, are people and people have feelings. Why do men feel the need there are “humans” but women are seen as the “other”? I don't have to explain myself because of my gender and sex to anyone, yet why am I forced to?
The video you posted really works to challenge essentialism as we discussed it in the last class. I'd like it if someday we could just forget about the "I'm a woman" part and just lead with the second sentence...if that second sentence in all its variations could become the normative so women didn't constantly have to re-define "woman" and the gendered assumptions behind the word...if we could speak as individuals without having to always speak as "women," in other words.
ReplyDelete“I have been reenacting in my artmaking the undying pastime of my girlhood: watching boys, emulating them, trying to catch the attention of the ones who have no idea I exist" - Watkins, On Pandering
ReplyDeletePower of Story: Serious Ladies at 2015 Sundance Film Festival. This video is a little long (clocks in at 90 minutes) but in it, four different women television writers discuss dealing with archetypes, writing anti-heroes, and creating art that is realistic. In particular, Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project) discusses how her character is scrutinized by viewers and critics because she is not necessarily likeable. Lena Dunham also makes the point that people often confuse her own persona with the character she portrays/writes, as if she can not be more than one type of woman. Television writing is often seen as a boys club, and this panel shows what happens when women stop simply watching and instead create their own true art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMKN9Vx85mc
These are layered issues. Why must women television characters be deemed likeable to be considered great characters when male characters (think Michael Scott, The Office or Walter White, Breaking Bad) can get away with terrible behavior and still praised? ALSO why do women writers get trapped within their roles? Could it have to do with the belief women only write through personal experience/cannot grasp another portion of life? (Just as Watkins was portrayed as the drunk girl, instead of a fellow writer).
Watkins say, “I am trying to understand a phenomenon that happens in my head, and maybe in yours too, whereby the white supremacist patriarchy determines what I write.”
ReplyDeleteJoan Didion once said “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” I think it connects to Watkins quote because I think we should all just write for ourselves without thinking of the white supremacist patriarchy. We should all just write like Didion
How do we eliminate the voices of the white supremacist patriarchy from our heads, especially since they dictate and influence what and how everyone writes today? Do you think adding more diverse literature from women and people of color in high school would help eliminate that influence that the white patriarchy has?
Natalie’s Thoughts on Being a Girl, Rather than a Person, in Society.
ReplyDelete“On Pandering” -- Claire Vaye Watkins
“. . . a world where Kyle Minor was Kyle Minor, a writer ‘with a book of stories out, a couple of kids, teaching classes up in Toledo, finishing what sounds like a fantastic novel and contemplating law school.’ Whereas I was Claire, no last name, ‘the student,’ owner of a big, comfortable bed. Until my friend forwarded that e-mail to me, I’d been under the impression that since I wrote, I was a writer, period. If I wrote bad I was a bad writer, if I wrote good I was a good writer. Simple as that. I was, I knew, every bit as ambitious as Kyle Minor and Stephen Elliott. I loved books just as much as Kyle and Stephen did, read as much as they did, and worked just as hard to get the right words in the right order. But now I was confronted with Google Groups listserv proof that, to Stephen, Kyle was a writer and I was a drunk girl. . . . When I said, I’m a writer, Stephen heard, I’m a girl. And, because I was a girl, when I said, No, you cannot sleep in my bed, he heard someone who ‘wasn’t so sure.’ . . . Because I was not a writer, not a person, I was easily made into a drunk girl unable to tell her own story.” (2-3).
“The truth is, the fact that our culture considers male writers more serious than me was not a revelation. I’d been getting the messages of Stephen’s e-mail long before my friend forwarded it to me—all women do. We live in a culture that hates us. We get that. Misogyny is the water we swim in” (4).
Always #LikeAGirl Campaign Commercial
Always, a feminine product company has a campaign out, where they are doing social experiments associated with young girls being stigmatized by society. The aim is to get people to think differently and see that doing things “like a girl” is a good thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
“If somebody else says that running like a girl, or kicking like a girl, or shooting like a girl is something that you shouldn’t be doing, that’s their problem, because if you’re still scoring, and still getting to the ball in time, and you’re still being first, you’re doing it right. It doesn’t matter what they say. I mean, yes, I kick like a girl, and I swim like a girl, and I walk like a girl, and I wake up in the morning like a girl, because I am a girl, and that is not something I should be ashamed of. So I am going to do it anyway” (2:05-2:35).
(read more below)
Why #LikeAGirl is Just a Load of #CorporateBullshit -- H Bourne
Delete“Always are just riding the crimson tide of the latest feminist wave and it’s pissing me off. . . . Always already make LOTS of money out of female insecurity . . . Where are the ‘unattractive’ girls in the video? Half of the older actresses are plastered in makeup and look like they haven’t eaten a cake since 1986. And the kids? They look like they’ve just wandered out of Shutterstocksville, after you typed ‘perfect All-American cute child’ into the search box. If this campaign really wants to build young girls’ self-esteem, where is the overweight child please? Where is the acne-ridden teenager? They briefly discuss how confidence evaporates during adolescence, but your typical teenagers are notably absent. Can only young pretty things fight for self-esteem? Are we complicit, in that we will we only reblog videos containing All-American perfects who are good at baseball? . . . And why does feminism suddenly mean being good at running and PE? It’s like a Katniss Everdeen hangover. I get that ‘throwing like a girl’ and ‘running like a girl’ are insults, lodged in linguistic gendered fuckery, but still…SOME GIRLS ARE STILL SHIT AT RUNNING. What about us? When did being a feminist and being ‘strong’ mean strong in the literal sense? Suddenly in this video all the girls run really well and boast about winning ‘the race’. I have never won a race. I have never thrown a ball that has gone where it was supposed to. This doesn’t make me #LikeAGirl, this makes me not great at sport . . . Can I not fight gender inequality and still not be able to run for the bus without hyperventilating? . . . What is the aim of #LikeAGirl? Umm…. How about to #LikeMakeALotOfMoney? I get that it’s good a huge company are using their reach to spread a positive message. And the message, let’s acknowledge, is positive. Of course I don’t want little girls’ confidence to be eroded by the time they are teenagers. But that is not why they spent all this time and money making the video. . . . I searched every inch of both the UK and USA Always website and I couldn’t find ONE thing they were planning to do to build self-esteem in young girls….other than getting people to retweet the viral video plastered with their branding. They’re not using the profits to fund self-esteem classes in schools . . . whenever you’re clicking repost you’re essentially doing free advertising for a large conglomerate who thinks periods are blue and your vag needs to be perfumed.”
http://vagendamagazine.com/2014/07/why-likeagirl-is-justaloadofcorporatebullshit/
“On Pandering” -- Claire Vaye Watkins
“I am saying a sexist negation, a refusal to acknowledge a female writer as a writer, as a peer, as a person, is of a piece with sexual entitlement. No, more than of a piece, it is practically a prerequisite. Humans are wide, open vessels, capable of almost anything” (3).
“Look, I said with my stories: I can write old men, I can write sex, I can write abortion. I can write hard, unflinching, unsentimental. I can write an old man getting a boner! . . . She can write like a man, they said, by which they meant, She can write” (7).
Guiding Question(s): In “On Pandering,” Claire has made the point that she has been basically identified as a girl, while her colleague is identified by his accomplishments and status. In the #LikeAGirl campaign by Always, little girls are saying they are proud to do things “like a girl.” Do you think it is more important to have accomplishments linked to being a woman (i.e. First female President, female athlete, female writer), or just be recognized for your accomplishments? Are campaigns like #LikeAGirl aiding the feminist movement or presenting the wrong idea in the long run? Is there a way to successfully escape the “culture that hates us” or change the misogynist world around us?
Watkins’ “On Pandering”
ReplyDelete(I did compose this post prior to class, but forgot to post it. Sorry for the delay!)
“On Pandering” – Claire Vaye Watkins
“I saw, in the form of paragraphs and sentences, my area of expertise, how it took only a few lines to go from professional dismissal to sexual entitlement to being treated as property to gaslighting” (3).
“Oxford apologizes for ‘flippant’ tweet about ‘rabid feminist” – Carrie Nelson
“What’s the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘rabid’? Is it a rabid animal? Rabid enthusiasm? Or perhaps a rabid feminist?”
http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/oxford-dictionaries-rabid-feminist/?fb=ss&prtnr=wrn
Guiding Question:
Watkins talks about how she expressed the same skill, knowledge of literature, and enthusiasm about her work as her male colleague did when they both met Stephen Elliott. Yet, when Elliott wrote about the encounter, he was praised for his work while she was criticised for being drunk and not letting him into her bed. Suddenly, she is no longer a writer but simply a girl.
Out of all the possible nouns that the Oxford dictionary could have used to compliment the adjective “rabid,” they chose feminist.
Statements like these are made about women all the time, every day. Do you think they are made consciously? That is, is the speaker deliberately choosing words and phrases that paint women in a negative light? Or rather, are we trained by the society we live in to view women this way? Are we conditioned to unconsciously associate feminists with the quality of being “rabid”? Are we taught to view women as girls and girls alone, regardless of their accomplishments, roles, and qualities?
2. “On Pandering” – Claire Vaye Watkins
ReplyDelete- Quote from the text: “She can write like a man, they said, by which they meant, She can write” (7).
- Related Contemporary Text:
An article on J.K. Rowling's psuedonyms - that's right, plural! Not just known as "J.K." anymore, she actually has a male pen name too for a newer crime novel / series she has published.
http://mic.com/articles/55499/why-did-j-k-rowling-use-a-male-pen-name-for-her-crime-novel#.Ov1XEayXR
“Publishers seem convinced that men are put off by female writers. They have certain expectations of what women produce and by all accounts, the average male just does not want to read a work by a woman.”
“Women’s fiction is a term that is broadly used to describe romance and chick lit among other. This term causes a problem as if we only see women’s names on certain genres such as chick lit or YA then we are going to associate all female writers with such fare. The publishing industry is conditioning our attitudes towards female writers in the worst way possible.”
“Considering she changed her name once in the name of sales, from Joanne to J.K., it would have been nice for her to blaze the trail not taken. I would have hoped we had come a long way since Rowling was told to use a pseudonym because boys won’t read books written by a girl. Apparently we haven’t because the world’s best-selling author feels the need to change her gender to write a crime novel.”
http://robert-galbraith.com/about/
J.K. Rowling’s official website for Robert Galbraith, including all her reasoning for going with a male pseudonym.
A couple of sort-of related quotes that I found interesting:
“ undeniably sexy girl”
“ Robin, is a temporary secretary “
Robin is the sexy secretary – of course – to the male ex-military private eye protagonist. Thanks for following that archetype, J.K.
- The question is not why women feel they have to disguise themselves or their feminity/ feminism. It’s not ‘How did we let this get this way?’
It’s: What can we do about it? What are we going to do about it?
(If you’re Watkins, you say, we “burn (the) whole motherfucking system to the ground and build something better” (9/33). Do you agree?
Watkins- "On Pandering"
ReplyDelete“So I watched Nabokov, watched Thomas Hardy, watched Raymond Carver. I read women (some, but not enough) but I didn’t watch them.” -Watkins, 5
“At moments like this, when my whiteness materializes in front of me and I can see it, I am so embarrassed of it and also so angry at myself for not being always as aware of it as I am there in that awkward, painful, absurd, essential moment. I want to unsee it, make it invisible again, and usually I do, because it feels better. I have that privilege.” -Watkins, On Pandering
‘Within 24 hours George had five responses—three manuscript requests and two warm rejections praising his exciting project. For contrast, under my own name, the same letter and pages sent 50 times had netted me a total of two manuscript requests. The responses gave me a little frisson of delight at being called “Mr.” and then I got mad. Three manuscript requests on a Saturday, not even during business hours! The judgments about my work that had seemed as solid as the walls of my house had turned out to be meaningless. My novel wasn’t the problem; it was me—Catherine.”
[http://jezebel.com/homme-de-plume-what-i-learned-sending-my-novel-out-und-1720637627]
Guiding Questions: One of the challenges women face in terms of literary acclaim is not only
Being recognized for their works, but getting their foot in the door in the first place. For years, women published under pseudonyms, or anonymously. In this day and age, why should women still feel that they have to hide their sex in order to get their work into the literary world? Can this be solved by reading a work in such a way that completely disregards the author’s sex?
Watkins- "On Pandering"
ReplyDelete"But nearly all my life has been arranged around this activity. I've filled my days doing this, spent all my free time and a great amount of time that was not free doing it. That hobby, that interest, that passion was this: watching boys do stuff." -Watkins, page 4
"Mean Boys Can't Keep Girls Off The Soccer Field. #15Girls"
"When I started playing, I did feel like there was a lot of prejudice. They called me a macho girl, they called me a lesbian."
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=446873862&m=448981078&live=1
Guiding Questions: The idea of "watching boys do stuff" also plays out in literature classes, where male authors are studied much more than female authors. If women's literature were more widely read, would it aid the advancement of women's involvement in things like sports (such as the story about the girls playing soccer in Brazil)? Would the female perspective be more understood? Would the consciousness that the text is coming from a female voice impact the reader's interpretation in a positive or negative way?
"On Pandering" by Claire Vaye Watkins
ReplyDelete“When I said, I’m a writer, Stephen heard, I’m a girl.”- Watkins, Page 4
Image of sexist batman:
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/1/18863/2109076-sexistbatman.jpg
(and kind of going along with that the whole "Training to be Batman's Wife tee-shirt for women)
Guiding Question:
Based off the quotation from Watkins and the comic from Batman, showing that they see her as only a woman and not a competent fighter, have you experienced any problems with people not seeing you as a writer or something you are serious about due to your sex or gender?
"On Pandering" - Watkins
ReplyDelete"...it only took a few lines to go from professional dismissal to sexual entitlement to being treated as property to gaslighting" (3).
Power of Story: Serious Ladies at 2015 Sundance Festival
The mainstream media contributes to negative female archetypes in their portrayal of women (I have no quote, sorry).
Why do we perceive female characters as having to be "likeable" to present a good role when male characters have the freedom to be "dislikeable" and still be a strong role?
"After watching Girls for the first time my friend Annie McGreevy says, “That was my experience, too, but I didn’t know it was okay to make art about it.” And maybe it’s still not okay." –Watkins’ "On Pandering," p. 8
ReplyDeletehttp://legionofleia.com/2015/11/wheresrey-hasbro-target-are-we-really-going-to-start-star-wars-this-way/
-"...they had an exclusive set of large Star Wars figures from Hasbro, and once again, the main female character was missing."
Guiding Question:
As shown by the quote from "On Pandering" and the article about the lack of Star Wars action figures of the female protagonist of the latest film, it is clear that strong female characters are still having a difficult time permeating popular culture. Are these just the latest in a long series of unheard cries about the depiction of women in the media, or are women beginning to break through?
(This is a post written on time but never posted because I was confused about the assignment). Claire Vaye Watkins- On Pandering
ReplyDelete“Because I was not a writer, not a person, I was easily made into a drunk girl unable to tell her own story.”
“I spend my day with a baby and that, patriarchy says, is not the stuff of art. Once again I am a girl and not a writer. No one said this. No one has to. I am saying it to myself.”
“I can write old men, I can write sex, I can write abortion. I can write hard, unflinching, unsentimental. I can write an old man getting a boner!”
Observation:
ReplyDeleteIn eighth grade I took a creative writing class. There were only two boys in our class, one of them was Aiden.
I’d known Aiden since before I had entered the Arcata school district. I met him on a playground before the fall semester of fifth grade where he was rude to me. However, being in a new city and meeting a boy my age who went to the school I was going to attend, and who had sharp, pretty, electric blue eyes meant that I fell into quick infatuation. After getting to school I learned what a loser Aiden was, and set my heart on to another blue eyed beauty.
Aiden and I barely acknowledged each other until seventh grade when he was seated next to me in Ms. Hubbard’s advanced math class. Aiden was still a loser, puberty had not been kind to him, his hair was always a dishellved mess and he reeked of B.O. But he loved the weird and perverse, and was funny. He earned his social merit by making crude jokes towards girls and spouting out absurdities.
He wasn’t a good student but he wore “stoner genius” well and won favor with teachers because he was in the GIFTED program where all the bad yet “genius” students ended up.
Up until this point I had always liked math. I was good at it, in third grade I had earned the title “long division queen” and that confidence had carried me through the rest of my math career until this point.
Middle school had been rough on me. The first day of sixth grade I became the target of bullying by a popular boy named Ryan Eartman, after loudly voicing that I didn’t want to date him because “he wasn’t my type.”
Fast forward to seventh grade I was a loser, I’d lost my best friend, one of my teachers had joked to the rest of the class that I was a “dumb blond” and that image stuck with me, the ditzy girl.
“Harmony, you’re in the smart math class?!” I remember the shock in a classmate’s voice after finding out that the ditzy blond had surpassed him in math.
Aiden sat next to me in math, I was already at a disadvantage because I could never remember my calculator, and was lost when Mrs. Hubbard only started teaching us formulas for our tiny machines rather than the mathematics behind them.
He talked loudly during class to another boy named Phoenix, about how hot Mrs. Hubbard was. She ignored their jokes, or pretended not to hear.
When I refused to let Aiden copy the answers from my quizzes, tests, and homework he cited off sexual acts that disturbed my prude, youthful ears until I relented.
One day when I stayed home “sick” from school Mrs. Hubbard told the class that I cheated. The next year, though I got the same grade as Aiden in Math, I was moved down a level while Aiden stayed on the advance track.
My friend, a writer, took creative writing with me.
I liked to write, I always had, but the only thing I ever excelled at was theater, that was my thing, and Dakota, my friend, was quick to remind me of it. While I wrote pieces that catered to my wish fulfillment and were centered on interests like boys and being a preteen girl. Dakota wrote stories.
Aiden wrote bizarre drug trips, and I was jealous because the class marveled over it. Dakota, who hated Aiden, even remarked that he could actually kind of write.
So one day I pulled all my literary male references together (Tom Robbins and Gregory Maguire) and went about trying to create something contemporary and cutting, I ended up with an artist describing a bearded lady in Central Park. It was not me, it was not good, but I loved it.
No matter how hard I tried I was never capable of seamlessly pandering.
Simone De Beauvoir- The Second Sex
ReplyDelete“A man would never get the notion of writing a book on the peculiar situation of being a human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say “I am a woman.” Simone De Beauvoir
“In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles , for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; where as women represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity.” Xxi
Guiding Question(s): Watkins concern is that of finding our own voices, like Zawacki she seems to think that creating more of the same content is a cycle that will drown out our voices. Today do women have a place other than ‘other’? If so, when we do are we trapped in that image? What are the dangers of breaking the mold? How do you write for women, and how do you find your own voice when you’ve been labeled?