Monday, March 30 2009

Today’s Agenda

Dangerous Tools Class #2

Feminism and Queer Theory

Last time we met, we talked about Psychoanalysis , and how a basic understanding of Freud’s theories of the “Oceanic Experience” and the “Oedipal Complex” can help you approach and understand literature.

Today, we are going to take up the issues of Feminism and Queer Theory . We can take up these issues during the same class because they are related in a number of important ways.  Both of these topics are far too broad to be summarized in one class, or even one semester, but I am going to introduce a few basic concepts today.

When you hear the word “feminism” what does it make you think of?

You probably think of something like “equality between men and women.” Well, this is part of Feminism, but it’s really a too simple understanding of the concept.  Don’t get me wrong, many feminists are very concerned with this issue, but we need to begin our discussion by considering an even more fundamental issue:

What we call “Feminism” today is a complex subject that has a very exciting intellectual history. For our purposes, we need to take up the following concerns

1) Your culture is, at its core, a POWER SYSTEM. POWER is given to certain people for certain reasons, generally for the purpose of sustaining culture. In America, social power has traditionally been assigned to people based on their race, gender, and economic status (class) — stuff you have almost no control over. (though that may change during the 21st century)

Why do we have this power system? Well, one reason is that keeps us from tearing each other apart – or so they say. What it really comes down to is the security of money, but we will get to that when we get into Marxism later this week.

2)  If you are a white man from a lower-middle- to middle-class background, your society decided long ago that you were going to have certain opportunities in life, that would all steer you towards living a life that will help society sustain itself.  Your “path” has many branches, but you are encouraged to stay ON IT by aspiring to be a certain idealized KIND of man.

BEHOLD! THE HARMLESS OAF!

3) If you are a woman from a similar lower- to middle-class background, your society has also decided that you are going to have certain opportunities in life, and you are steered down this road so that you can be help society sustain itself. Your path also has many branches, and you are also encouraged to stay on it by aspiring to be a certain kind of idealized woman.

(Notice I used a cartoon. There’s a reason for that.)

4) Now, some branches of the MALE path and the FEMALE path cross. But there are certain branches that tend to not to cross in our society, and FEMINISM is very concerned with these branches. Why is it that there are some very different expectations between men and women in society? In the 19^th century, the earliest feminists had to fight against the Victorian notion that , because men and women are physically different in size, they are BETTER suited to different kinds of lives. (i.e. it was believed that, because men had broader shoulders, more blood got to their brains, so they were smarter (really!))

5) Well, let’s stop for a moment and think about Freud’s baby. The baby wants to make its world as orderly and womb-like as possible, so it is very likely to latch on to whichever PATH it is most frequently directed to pursue.  The problem, it turns out that GENDER is an AWFUL way to create distinctions between people. We know that there is no natural predisposition to playing with trucks or dolls, and that a great deal of the interest people express in these subjects has to do with the fact that these are the ONLY available tools they have as children to ACHIEVE the oceanic experience. If you are a boy or a girl, and you grow up with only dolls or trucks, you are going to like playing with whichever toys you had access to. You don’t come out of the womb looking for a Barbie.

6) Feminism asks us to consider WHY we have Gender paths in our society – and what their value may be. As I told you a moment ago, GENDER is an excellent tool for strapping people to certain life paths, but it also LIMITS your understanding of who you are and what your capacities may be.

7) This brings me to QUEER theory, which does not mean “homosexual theory.” Queer theory is concerned with disturbing social norms, like the norms that surround traditional gender roles.  In this sense, the word “Queer” is used in its original sense, which means “odd.” Certainly, it is true that the word is also being used an bring up issues of sexuality. The point is notice that the word is begin used in both capacities.

8) Once we begin to look at GENDER roles, we may begin to see that our culture has an extremely detailed social system for how people are supposed to act based on their SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Heterosexual men and women have to dance around a host of social conventions when they interact, as must gay men and women.  The question is, “Why do we have these conventions, and how do they limit who we are and who we hope to be? What is the reasoning under these conventions? What we are finding today is that many of these conventions are based on notions of fear and ignorance, rather than anything approaching logic.

9) As we read Jane Eyre, we are most directly confronted with GENDER issues: what is appropriate for a “plain” woman life Jane to do with her life?  As we ask these questions, we also begin to ask how gender may be connected to issues of race and class, which we will take up shortly.

Now, let’s get to work.

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