What gender are you today?

At the end of last class we were discussing gender in terms of Judith Butler’s idea concerning gender ideology and gender roles as performance. I made the analogy of females wearing ‘masculine’ clothes as opposed to males wearing ‘feminine’ clothes. I use quotes around those words because, as I used them in class, I was refereeing only to a more Western/American idea of masculinity and femininity. Our gender ideologies put flowing, floral, vibrant, and more tightly fitted clothing along with jewelry, cosmetics, and lengthy hair as feminine attributes. What is important to understand is that this ideology is nothing more than that – ideology that is neither intrinsic nor universal among humans. In fact, many cultures make very little distinction between the physical appearance of male and female in terms of material adorning. Furthermore, there are some cultures, found mainly in Africa and sparsely in Asia, that maintain the exact opposite of our gender ideology. In certain African societies it is the young warrior males who adorn dresses, jewelry, and make-up and it is the simplistically clad women who heckle and swoon and compete over the beauty of the men. Even in the history of European and American cultures we see examples of this (i.e.- wigs worn by men of high religious or political status). Outside of the biologically predisposition of human males to have a heavier build than females, which pitted them since the birth of our species to be more likely called upon to take on more physically strenuous tasks, there is actually very little about who we are as men – versus – women that takes root anywhere else than in our own enculturation. Our culture tells us that a woman’s hair should be long and a man’s hair should be short and, as I believe Judith Butler would agree, it is us – the humans – who perform this ideology in our daily lives by cutting or not cutting our hair. These roles are often times reversed – such in the case of ‘masculine’ females or ‘masculine’ males (typically associated with homosexuality), cross-dressing, transgendered persons, drag performance, and many other instances. This is merely a more complex performance where the culture’s gender ideology is flipped, but it still serves a social purpose and is therefore selected by the human for performance. So tomorrow when you wake up and go to dress yourself, as Dr. Lillian said she does some mornings, think about what it is you wish to perform that day, dress accordingly, and see if you notice any reactions or interactions that are of cultural interest to the issue of gender.

Women of Purdah

Tuesday’s class conversation spurred multiple branches of thought, as do most conversations with Feminism as their leading topics. I wanted to looked more at what Dr. Lillian was talking about concerning the Muslim feminist. I recently read a book entitled Lost in the Land of Oz by Madonna Kolbenschlag in which she undertakes the goal of identity, specifically feminist identity, in American culture. She talks about Muslim feminist and their adherence to the practice of purdah: the veiling and seclusion of women from the society of men. A Western view of this practice stimulates one to think of this it as the suppression and oppression of women. Likened to this, is the ceremonial, often religious, practice of female circumcision in many African cultures – a practice that Western critics interestingly renamed female ‘mutilation’. Again, this is an instance where Western inclination manifests claims of female suppression. I think it is of utmost importance for us to research and understand these practices from an emic point of view; that is, from the cultural point of view of those who function within the culture that uses these practices. The Muslim Feminist that Dr. Lillian talked about and about whom Kolbenschlag writes fight for the right to maintain the practice of purdah because they do not view it as suppression, but rather as a cultural practice important to their society. They ‘submit’ themselves to the practice because they feel that it is religiously and ideologically upright. This mindset can only be understood from these women’s worldview.

However, it is also important for us to understand that these women’s worldview – just like your worldview and my worldview – are shaped and constructed by the cultural atmosphere in which they are born, raised, grow, and function. Here we can step out and take an anthropological etic (scientifically object) view of the cultural influences that may predispose Muslim women to accept their position within the purdah system. For an Anthropology class centered on gender and gender manifestations within culture, I am reading a text by Daphne Spain titled Gendered Spaces in which she analyzes cross-cultural manifestations of gender in terms of spatial segregation in the home, workplace, schools, and other meaningful spaces. Spain concludes at one point that cultures where women are veiled, secluded, and kept separate or distant from the ‘realm of men’ (she speaks specifically on cultures that practice purdah and many gender-segregated African cultures) are most typically also characterized by a limited access to knowledge for women. She dissects the typical home of a Muslim family and shows how women are secluded within different spaces of the home and are almost always kept away from gaining any type of knowledge outside of the domestic skills needed for her role as wife and mother. Knowledge outside of this is reserved only for men. If we track American feminism, we see that as women were progressively allowed access to knowledge (first grades schools, then college, then post graduate studies) through the end of the 19th century on into the middle of the 20th century, we see a direct rise in the movement for women’s rights of equality and integration into what was typically known as the ‘realm of men’. So in this manner it appears that a women’s self-adherence to purdah practices or female circumcision practices may in fact be a direct cause of their limited access to the knowledge of men.

So the question stands: if given more access to knowledge and education, would the women of these cultures more readily shed the practices that work to seclude and possibly degrade or oppress them, or will they be even more submissive to these practices? Are these practices caused by controlling men and their dominance over knowledge or is it unfair to make such a judgment on the basis that only the women within these cultures can understand their loyalty to such practices? Whatever the answer, the point that most warrants making is that we should always be willing to examine cultural situations from all angles, including the point of view from inside the source.

Photoshop for Democrats in 2008

Jenkins makes some very strong connections between campaigns, voters, television, and the internet. He makes a distinction between push media – such as television where advertisement is provided without active search – and pull media – such as the internet where surfers must find the information on their own. He makes the statement “The Internet reaches the hard core, television the undecided”. This statement, though true for the 2004 elections, seems a bit outdated in the election cycle that is at hand. When I get on Facebook.com to check up on the mess that is my social entanglements, I am now blasted with application invitations, cause messages, and poster pop-ups advertising everything from Hilary Clinton’s universal healthcare plan to Barack Obama’s “We Can” slogan. Don’t see much from the Republican side of the tracks on account that there isn’t much of a contest; but the Democrats are battling it out on Youtube, Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo, and everywhere else, and there is no “pull media” about it. Turn the computer on and there it is. Though the television still gives us that push push push, in the past four years Internet campaigning has becoming just as in your face as Television.

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not that far away....

A dedicated Star Wars fan myself, I have been active in the Star Wars Universe offered by the intricate connectivity of the World Wide Web. However, it is interesting to look at this Star Wars community before the onset of such global interaction. During my third semester at LSU I wrote a term paper on Star Wars fans as a discourse community; and discourse community they are! They have their own vocabulary composed of words defined from the movies, novels, video games, comics, and dictionaries. Yes that’s correct -dictionaries. There are at least, to my knowledge, three volumes of Star Wars encyclopedia/dictionaries that in roughly 300-400 pages define for you every alien species, language, dialect, planet, weaponry, space craft, character, war, battle, and major character present in some Star Wars medium. To be unversed in such vocabulary is to be excluded from the community, thus defining for themselves the actual boundaries between community members and mere observers. I, myself can only claim a high level of observer status on account of my very basic knowledge of the universe as a whole. Before the internet, this community established their own common meeting place famously known (and to many infamously known) as Star Wars conventions. Though these events never quite reached the extreme popularity and high attendance as its rival the Star Trek conventions, Star Wars community members across the globe have been attending Star Wars conventions in impressive numbers at multiple locations in many different countries and cultures annually, biannually, and even quarterly since the first movie release in 1977. Having been to only one such convention myself I cannot give much testament to the experience entirely, but I can say that just as people criticize those who attend such events, members of this community are rather critical of those on the outside of the community. For example, at the convention I attended in Dallas, Texas, I was responded to as an obvious outsider being that I left my Princess Leah hair-buns and Darth Vader mask at home and being that I did not have the type of knowledge to interact in the ongoing role-playing. The internet has of course expanded both the number of community members and the amount of knowledge to be shared and acquired. However, the internet has not taken the place of the actual physical interaction that conventions offer. In fact, the internet has only increased awareness of convention schedules, locations, and agendas so that community members can be ready and informed to take their active role in the Star Wars Universe. Below is a link if you are interested in these conventions. And as always - May the force be with you!

http://www.starwars.com/community/event/con/archive.html