Response 13: "Gender Asymmetry And Erotic Triangles"

I liked this reading because it has an interesting argument that “even heterosexual relations in literature and culture often take their structure not only through the relation between women and men, but also, and especially, through men’s relations to each other” and that “the desired woman…gives the desiring man status with other men, a trophy, a sense of victory and power….over observing, envious, or rival men” (321). While it is true that sometimes rivalry between the males is what shapes their actions perhaps to figure out each other’s strategy because neither wants to lose the woman. In a way, it’s a little sad that there is more emphasis on the rival and figuring out their strategies etcetera. It also made me question if either male rival ever spends as much exhaustive intellectual effort in regards to the woman of interest. Honestly, if she were portrayed as intellectual and powerful (and if she was aware that both of them were fighting over her), many stories where patriarchy and this “relationship” between the men would not exist; because if she was intelligent and strategic, she would pair up with the man she was interested in and they would scheme together on how to defeat his rival together.

While I can understand the reasoning behind the first quote, I’m not entirely convinced on the declaration that “’The total relationship of exchange which constitutes marriage is not established between a man and a woman, but between two groups or men, and the woman figures only as one of the objects in the exchange, not as one of the partners’” (324). However, I can see this statement being more applicable to societal structure more in 1985 than today. At the same time, I do have to admit that this structure still does exist in some areas of the world. Even in arranged marriages, the agreements are primarily between the parents (of the male and female) or agreements are between the male and the parents on both sides.

Response 12: "From Interiority To Gender Performatives"

I do agree with Butler’s argument that gender is held to “’compulsory’ and ‘normative’ heterosexuality” (581). One reason is because even today, most societies around the world frown on any type of sexuality that isn’t heterosexual (homosexuality, asexuality) and because of this, “as a strategy of survival within compulsory systems, gender is a performance with clearly punitive consequences…indeed, we regularly punish those who fail to do their gender right” (585). “the gendered body is performative” and expectations of how gender is portrayed varies throughout the world (583). The idea of what is means to be male is primarily characterized by “male” traits such as aggression and an external toughness, physical and emotional. The football quarterback is the epitome of an ultimate male, in the West anyway. However while strength, especially physical is a generally universal standard/expectation of masculinity expected from men, the definition of masculinity is different in other areas of the world, such as parts of Asia. In Korea, men are increasingly becoming meterosexual, they even get clear pedicures, and Korea is actually one of the largest emerging markets for male facial skin care and some cosmetic products. While the idea of a meterosexual male has slightly permeated towards the West, it is still not an idea that is absolutely accepted. While Derrida might disagree, a universal truth is that human beings do not want to be shunned by their societies. Due to this, many perform repeated actions that are associated with either gender to fit in so that they are not excluded for being themselves. In a way, this act of attempting to fit in by performing expected gender roles is in a way a mimicry of what it means to be an ideal man or an ideal woman. 

Response 11: "Scientia Sexualis"

While I do agree that some Eastern countries approach sexuality as an ars erotica/erotic art, that “foregrounds pleasure and its performances”, and that in these countries, sexuality isn’t discussed more out of reverence than in an attempt to avoid discussing such matters, it is also true that in a lot of these societies there are also certain taboos against exploring sexuality, for example outside of marriage or with another person of the same gender (592).

I also do agree with the argument he makes throughout the reading that to confess to a higher power that then judges you and decides to forgive or punish you “one confesses to the person or authority who will be judging one’s actions in return” (594). He goes on to mention that confession has been a method to extract truth, in “justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites” (595). Foucault also mentions that confession was used to extract truth and that sometimes “truth” was obtained through a confession under torture.  While one is confessing, and confessing is liberating, they are also giving up their power and letting someone else decide the consequences they themselves will have to face.

 It got me questioning the possibility of a role reversal. What about the possibility of a false confession in an attempt to gain power, and perhaps that this kind of power/advantage is even better because the authority figure they are “confessing” to is not aware that it is a false confession. This reversal of positions would have huge implications in justice, personal relationships etcetera. 

Response 10: "Feminism and Deconstruction"

“deconstruction provides the tools for exposing the fact that the opposition between the ‘sexes’, like the definitions of ‘women’ and ‘men’ is a social construction, not a reflection or articulation of biological fact…deconstruction sets up the possibility that the supposedly fixed opposition of masculine/feminine might lose its social prominence because we could begin to recognize that there is no necessary connection between anatomical sexuality and gender stereotypes or roles…(boys might be allowed to be more nurturing, for example)” (113). This statement also reminds of some instances where a gender didn’t follow an expected behavior associated with that gender; for example, the fierce and very female Amazon warriors. It is also true that there has been such an increase in certain traits being associated with or against either gender. For example, guys can’t be publicly emotional/sensitive, females can’t be bragging about their conquests without facing some sort of backlash. Even from a young age, children pick up on these cues and expectations. One blogger mom wrote about how her son wanted to take glitter pens to kindergarten but was hesitant to ask her to buy them for him because even by then he already understood that may be not be accepted by others. Once I volunteered to pack lunches for those that might not have enough to eat at home, and the organization also brought in some kids (around 6-10 year olds) to perhaps teach them certain values while they were still young. Each child had to get a bag, and put one of each item in the bag (1 jar of peanut butter, 1 box of cereal, 1 can of beans, 1 can of soup etcetera). By the time, the kids were halfway through the line, the bags got so heavy that they started dragging the bags behind them. The girls were more willing to accept help from an adult. There was one younger boy who let an adult volunteer help him carry his bag, but as soon as he realized that all of the other boys were doing it by themselves, he insisted that the didn’t need help while packing the next bag. In situations like this, deconstructing the constructed oppositions between genders would be quite liberating. Perhaps this deconstruction of expected gender traits and behavior will also decrease the stigma that gay and trans communities face.  

I appreciate deconstruction because it is wary of the concept of one universal truth/ center because it leads us to re-examine and questions certain hierarchies or paradigms that are in place. For this reason, I disagree with Poovey’s statement/prediction towards the bottom of page 114 that deconstruction will be rewritten/left behind. While I do agree that not every text would be best analyzed through a deconstructive approach, it is an undoubtedly helpful tool in re-examining familiar texts and being able to see them in a new way. 

Response 9: "Sorties..."

 “…all these pairs of oppositions are couples. Does that mean something?” (654)

I had two different reactions to this particular reading. One the one hand, I found myself comparing passages supporting some of the claims, and on the other, I found myself recalling situations where the opposite happened.

“Night to his day—that has forever been the fantasy. Black to his white. Shut out his system’s space, she is the repressed that ensures the system’s functioning” (657).  

It reminds me of Elizabeth I and how her court advisers tried to get her to marry so that he could rule the throne and country, while she would be on the sidelines and the bearer of his children. From their point of view, by not marrying she was risking “the system’s functioning”. From a deconstruction perspective, in her case, the presence of an unmarried queen and the lack of a husband didn't indicate weakness, but rather showcased her qualities of independence, strategy, and the ability to be a better ruler than her father. Would the presence of a husband have meant that she would have been considered just a shadow, would her ideas have never come into fruition? Would that have led to England never having a Golden Age? Possibly. 

Kind of similar to that is another quote: “Beautiful, but passive; hence desirable; all mystery emanates from them. It is men who like to play dolls…Just enough life—and not too much. Then he will kiss her. So that when she opens her eyes she will see only him; him in the place of everything, all him” (656). 

It reminded me of The Doll’s House and how the author of this reading was talking about how philosophy kind of inserts itself into literature (for example, regarding how women are viewed). In the beginning of the play, Nora is seen as this light, pretty thing that plays with her children without a care in the world and seems to be all in for her husband. However, when Torvald finds out that she’s illegally borrowed money, he doesn’t acknowledge the fact that she did it for him, or that she’s been strategically thrifty and saving money without his knowledge to pay the money back, he seems to care more about the fact that it’s going to reflect badly on him and says Nora can’t raise their children anymore. However once he finds out that Nora is forgiven by Krogstad, he attempts to take back his words and return her to the lively plaything she was. The play is a reflection of the quote from the reading, it’s exactly how Torvald sees his wife.

In both these situations, Elizabeth I and Nora were both judged and placed under sociocultural expectations as women first. Their cunning, their strategy, their ability to not only survive but thrive in difficult situations took a far second role. This also reminded me of the deconstruction analysis I did about Red in Orange is the New Black. As the author of this reading aptly put it: “isn’t the worst thing that, really, woman is not castrated” (658).

One woman that was able to thrive and came to mind was Fiona from Shrek. “And suppose he kissed me? How can I will this kiss? Am I willing?” (657). It reminded me of the scene where Fiona first sees Shrek (assuming he’s her knight in shining armor) and tries to look pretty and will the kiss so that the spell will be broken. It’s pretty funny and different from the other “once upon a time” princesses (such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty etcetera).  

All screenshots obtained from "Shrek Meets Fiona (1st Time)." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web.

Response 8: "The Blind Spot of an Old Dream"

While I found Freud’s excerpt in the section “Woman, science’s unknown” to be interesting, I basically disagreed with what he said. The quote talks about how “Throughout history people have knocked their heads against the riddle of the nature of femininity” and how men have never stopped worrying about trying to understand this “problem” and how this worry doesn't apply to women because they are the said “problem” (644). He seems to contradict himself when he talks about how the debate of understanding femininity doesn't involve women. Even from just the quote itself, the woman doesn't seem to be the “problem”; the problem seems to lie more in the fact that men debate amongst themselves on what they think defines femininity without including the perspective of the subject of discussion.

There is a quote on page 650 that I agree with, where Irigaray states that Freud's analysis "is an organized system whose meaning is regulated by paradigms and units of value that are in turn determined by male subjects" and it is particularly because of that that women are seen as less than/lacking throughout the text.

In a way, it also reminds me how the New Critics emphasized meaning could only be derived from the text and avoided looking at how external factors such as societal events could have also influenced the said piece of literature (for example, how the New Critics disregarded societal changes in the South). In both these situations, Freud and the New Critics are looking at things from the perspective of the "norm" (white, male) and because of this, they may not always read/assess the situation from the most accurate viewpoint.

Another one of Irigary's statements that I agreed with was: “…it is precisely the downplaying of the female side of this series of binary oppositions that marks the importance of the masculine” (644). It’s quite true and interesting how even the dominant term in the binary relies on the ‘inferior term’ to reassert its advantage; it also reminded me of a previous discussion about how even the status of the master relies on showing how many servants he has. I wonder what Freud would have to say about the fact that this seeming perfection and elevated status of males relies so heavily on his perception of women as passive and inferior/imperfect. Another question is: which is the lesser of two evils? To be completely dismissed (as the New Critics did) or to thought of as subservient (as Freud did).

Response 7: "Infection In The Sentence"

Several passages stood out to me, so I decided to list them and my observations/responses below.

 “On the one hand…the woman writer’s male precursors symbolize authority; on the other hand despite their authority, they fail to define the ways in which she experiences her own identity as a writer” (668). Perhaps one reason “they fail to define the ways” is because they (male writers) don’t really even attempt to understand the struggles and experiences of a female writer. However, the question is, even if male writers attempted (during this time period) to define how females experience their identity as a writer would it even be accurate? While women were considered the outsiders and the aliens during the time this reading was written, would males and the patriarchal structure that was so used to being the norm be entirely successful in accurately defining the struggles and realizations of the female writer?

“…like most women in patriarchal society, the woman writer does experience her gender as a painful obstacle, or even a debilitating inadequacy… Her culturally conditioned timidity about self-dramatization, her dread of the patriarchal authority of art, her anxiety about the impropriety of female invention” (669). This quote reminded me of something I learned in an Abnormal Psychology class: researchers wanted to determine whether or not that was any bias in how males versus females were diagnosed by a psychologist. So, they sent a list of symptoms to various psychologists; each psychologist received the same list of patient symptoms. Only the gender was changed (male/female).  A majority of the lists where the gender was manipulated to female were diagnosed with Historonic Personality Disorder (which is where one is diagnosed to be an attention seeker, overly emotional and dramatic). However, the lists where the gender was manipulated to be male were determined to be narcissists. Thus, this disadvantage and stereotyping that females face, not only in the field of literature, but also in the field of science. 

“In the nineteenth century, however, the complex of social prescriptions these diseases parody did not merely urge women to act in ways which would cause them to become ill; nineteenth century culture seems to have actually admonished women to be ill” (671). That sickness wasn’t a “byproduct” but rather the desired goal (671). This passage was probably my favorite, just because it seems to be quite absurd, and also the fact that it was “’considered natural and almost laudable to break down under all conceivable varieties of strain—a winter dissipation, a houseful of servants, a quarrel with a female friend, not to speak of more legitimate reasons” (671). This idealized frailty reminds me of Lacan’s mirror stage, something that is always aspired to but never quite achieved. In addition, it seems to be a way of almost silencing not only the female authors but the entire female gender. Perhaps if one is struggling to survive because they are so sick (here, on purpose), how will they ever find the time to question this established patriarchal structure?