Art and Gender Winter 2012

The Effect of Intimacy: Tracey Emin's Bad Sex Aesthetics

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 07:08:43 -0500

-discussion of Doyle’s essay-

The idea of bad sex is one that is notably absent from our usual discussions of sex in present-day America. We talk about sex all the time, think about it, even have it, but somehow we are still very sex-negative, especially where women are concerned. On the one hand, we have the double-bind: women who have sex too much (or enjoy sex at all) are sluts, women who don’t have sex are prudes. On the other side of the coin, we have the hyper-feminist idea of sex: pure, perfect, consensual, enjoyable sex (often between lesbians), or non-consensual, sadomasochistic, humiliating, damaging sex (often heterosexual). The discussion of porn is colored by these various extremes, as is the discussion of sex in general. But Tracey Emin’s work explores the use of various kinds of sex and how they can be positive and negative, but along the spectrum of experience rather than as an objective extreme. Sex is different for everyone, and deciding that one kidn of sex is objectively best sounds a lot like sex policing to me. So when someone says that sadomasochism, or bondage, or humiliation, or simply being objectified in the bedroom, is always damaging and a form of rape in some cases, I have to disagree.

The essay also talks about how objectification manifests in sex, which I thought was really interesting, since I’d never thought of the act of connecting bodies sexually as being self-destroying. I’m not sure I agree with it, since I think the individual is unaffected by the experience in the end (that is, they are affected, since every experience colors the way someone sees and reacts to the world, but they are no less themselves in most cases), but the idea of two sexual participants bonding to create a temporary, single unit is intriguing. I will agree, however, that certain experiences of sex can cause a severe change in self. For instance, rape (which, to be fair, is more of an act of violence than an act of sexual desire) can change a victim’s personality intensely, and sometimes personally. In most cases of consensual sex, however, I think the biggest effect a sexual experience can have on a person is their future knowledge of what they do and do not want/like from other sexual experiences.

Dan Fishback's Talk

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 06:57:32 -0500

I thought Dan was an incredible speaker. He seemed very approachable, which I think is part of why the discussion afterwards was so valuable- people were able to speak up and say things without being nervous, so what they said was more thoughtful. The talk itself occasionally included some things that I wasn’t very comfortable with (I don’t remember everything he said, but I think there was a Holocaust comparison that I disagreed with somewhat), but overall the points he made were really interesting and well tied together.

I think one of his strongest points (and one of his main points, obviously) was that the current queer generation doesn’t really know what to do with itself, because it has very few predecessors since so many of them died of AIDS in the 1980s. I had never thought about the absence of gay men of that age group, since I grew up with an uncle and his partner who are of that age, and it never really came to mind. But when Dan talked about all the artists who had passed before their time, especially the ones who hadn’t yet hit their prime or made their great work, I realized how huge of an epidemic this really was. It was before my time, but the effects it has had on my time—on people I would have looked up to, members of the queer community whose influence and experience and ideas I will never learn from—are immense.

How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic; and Binding to Another's Wound: Of Weddings and Witness

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 06:24:38 -0500

-discussion on the Crimp and Blocker essays-

Although these essays only had a few things tying them together (AIDS and how it affects lovers and their art), there was a shared underlying theme of the influence of society on relationships, and the subsequent influence of relationship on artwork. Society is what gives validity to marriage (and therefore what denies validity to gay relationships, since they cannot get married in most places). Equally, it is what chooses who should be protected from AIDS and who is “asking for it.” It makes gay people into lesser people, who deserve less. Obviously this isn’t a new subject, since there is such a widespread amount of homophobia all over the world (and, in the focus of these articles, in America), but having it driven to home to the extent that these articles (particularly Crimp’s article about the AIDS propoganda crisis) do is a very different experience. It creates a very strong us-vs-them mentality, which is generally absent from the Blocker essay. Perhaps this is partially influenced by Crimp’s being a gay man. Since he’s suffered these problems and biases himself, it might understandably make him more sensitive to those issues than Blocker is.

Reinventing Herself: The Black Female Nude

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 06:10:13 -0500

-discussion of Farrington’s article-

This article contained some great examples of why minority presence is not necessarily desirable without also including fair representation. Visibility is a wonderful thing for marginalized groups, but when it comes as a stereotype, particularly one that lessens the validity of that marginalized group as being equal to whatever the “norm” is, it almost isn’t worth it. I don’t want to compare it too much to the Sassy Gay Friend stereotype, since that’s usually fairly positive and the Hottentot Venus is very negative, but it’s the same overall concept. In media portrayals, minority groups fit into one very specific mold. Maybe they think that showing someone from that minority group who does not fit into that mold is portraying that group incorrectly, that they are the “wrong” kind of gay, that they aren’t “ethnic” enough. Whatever it is that causes this phenomenon, it’s obviously not new (judging from the age of the art included in the Farrington essay), and it needs to be dealt with.

The Feminist Art Programs at Fresno and CalArts, 1970-75

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 06:03:40 -0500

-discussion of Wilding’s article-

I do really like the idea of a feminist art program, one where women artists could have their own space and freedom to work and express themselves. I think the consciousness-raising is a good idea, and I also like the fact that they met off-campus so that they would have a completely free and safe space. I do wonder, however, if the campus itself suffered from having the feminist art group meet off-campus rather than on-campus. I think in order to be really effective, a social justice group of any kind needs to be involved with other people as well as having safe spaces for its members. Womanhouse did a good job bringing “the outside world” into the realm of the feminist artists, which I think is a good example of opening the group up to the public for the purposes of education. I feel like having meetings on campus would have made them more visible, though, which might have made them more effective.

This guy has been at our campus twice now. This time he brought...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:23:47 -0500

This guy has been at our campus twice now. This time he brought friends, including a fifteen-year-old boy (we know his age because a couple students were talking to him). They’re almost funny, since they’ve been telling us how this whole campus is more full of perverts than anywhere else (well, a good portion of the population will have had at least one threesome before they graduate, but that’s neither here nor there) and that girls with dyed hair are messing with God’s creation, and such… but it bothers me to see them spread their hate to a kid and teach them to share their hateful views. But that’s how hate works. It spreads. It gets itself all over you whether you want it to leave a mark or not.

ohdeargodwhy: I’ve been designing some posters for my school’s...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:06:49 -0500

ohdeargodwhy:

I’ve been designing some posters for my school’s feminist society

feel free to use them yourself!

"I don’t want to be a feminist anymore. Like a five-year-old, I want to close my eyes, stick my..."

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:19:42 -0500

“

I don’t want to be a feminist anymore. Like a five-year-old, I want to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears, stomp my feet on the floor and scream “No! No, you cannot make me, I won’t, leave me alone!” I am, simply put, too tired. So very, very tired.

I am tired of fighting with my friends. I am tired of arguing that someone groping and slapping my butt isn’t “what I have to expect”, just because I’m at a bar, and the one attacking my butt has a drink in the other hand. I am tired of hearing “boys will be boys” and “when you’re dressed like that …” and “that’s just what guys do”. I am tired of trying to drown those sentiments in loud, repetitive no’s, screamed over and over again, till my throat is sore and my voice weak – just to hear them repeated, as soon as exhaustion threatens to silence me.

I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of seeing someone writing something offensive, sexist, racist, ageist, ableist, somewhere online. I am tired of seeing those writings getting likes and lol’s, and SO TRUE’s. I am tired of being consumed by confusion and anger, typing, typing, typing and typing a seemingly endless response, including research, links and statistics, and then hesitate clicking “submit”. I am tired of knowing that I hesitate because I am afraid of the flood of responses that will come. I am tired of knowing that I will be bombarded with lighten up’s, stop whining’s and get a sense of humor’s for so long, that I will start to wonder if I am indeed wound up too tight, a nagger and humorless. I am tired of the fact that I’m afraid of being called a cunt, even though I don’t find genitalia insulting or demeaning.

”

- Via albinwonderland (via feminishblog)

The Bechdel Test

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:21:00 -0500

The Bechdel Test is a measurement of female presence in movies. Not fair representation, not non-misogynistic characters, not feminism, simply the existence of women.

The test is simple:

there must be at least two women in the movie.
they must both have names.
they must converse during the movie at least once, about something OTHER than a man.

A surprising and and saddening number of movies can’t pass this simple test. This website has a pretty good catalogue of movies that pass the Bechdel Test, and ones that fail for various reasons: http://bechdeltest.com/

Cloud Nine

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:06:00 -0500

As confusing as this play could be at times (I understood most of it, but a few bits were hard to get at first), I really liked the contrasts between the Act One characters and the Act Two characters. So I kind of wanted to compare some of the characters from Act One with the characters that their actors played in Act Two, because those doubled-up roles were definitely chosen with purpose.

Act One ——> Act Two

CLIVE: The stereotypical father, disgusted by homosexuality and other forms of sin (adultery, his son being effeminate) but falls prey to adultery himself ——> GROWN UP EDWARD, his gay son who nevertheless ends up having a relationship with two women (one of whom is his younger sister)
MAUD: Betty’s mother who has started living with Clive and Betty; she is very opinionated and overprotective (read: nosy and meddling) about Betty, and very judgmental ——> LIN, Vic’s lesbian friend and eventually her lover (and Edward’s), who is fairly open-minded but doesn’t like to be told how to raise her child and who is very protective of Cathy. (There’s also the “maudlin” pun.)
ELLEN, the governess who hates children, who is in love with Betty but who eventually falls into a mutually reluctant marriage with Harry Bagley ——> VIC, who is in a turbulent marriage with Martin (played by the same person who played Harry) and who eventually experiments with (and enjoys greatly) loving a woman, Lin; she is also fiercely devoted to her son, Tommy.
MRS. SAUNDERS, a very independent widow who refuses to be “protected” from bad news like the other women, who carries a gun at all times, who does not wish to ever be married again, and who carries on an affair with Clive ——> SOLDIER, the ghostly version of Lin’s brother that she sees, who speaks only of boredom and a wish to have killed someone before he was killed, and of fucking.

The parallels and relationships between these characters are really interesting, especially when the characters from Act One start interacting with the Act Two characters. Probably the most moving example of this was at the very end, when modern Betty reflects on her life and renewed sexuality, and has to literally face the criticism of her ex-husband and mother… and then spites them, realizing that she is happy with her new, sexually liberated self, at which point her younger, oppressed, self-deprecating, limited self enters the stage, and the two embrace and reconcile. That part made me tear up, to be honest; it was odd that Betty became such an important character right at the end when she hadn’t been the major focus since early in Act One, but it was put together very well.

kataklysm: scrapscallion: When we talk about androgynous...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:03:58 -0500

kataklysm:

scrapscallion:

When we talk about androgynous fashion, we usually mean female-presenting people in outfits that incorporate or echo menswear. One seldom sees male-presenting people doing the same with womenswear, at least in the mainstream.

I think some of that must be a side effect of the privileging of traits, roles, and characteristics associated with masculinity over those associated with femininity—a woman in masculine-associated roles or clothing is moving in the direction of higher status and increased social privilege, at least implicitly; a man in feminine-associated roles or clothing, lower. We associate women in menswear with freedom and assertion; men in womenswear with deviation, grotesquerie, and parody.

How fucked up is that?

Good commentary, and FUCKING EXCELLENT OUTFIT.

I would try and add something, but scrapscallion said everything I would have said using better phrasing.

Photo

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:03:13 -0500

gingerhaze: In a world of cleavage windows and skintight...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:51:38 -0500

gingerhaze:

In a world of cleavage windows and skintight pleather pants, one woman will fight crime with practicality! And then afterwards go to the grocery store and pick up some eggs!

(Credit to grapeykins for Practical Woman!)

Shoebox Full of Letters: Ways Gender-Privileged Men Can Challenge Sexism

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:45:37 -0500

Shoebox Full of Letters: Ways Gender-Privileged Men Can Challenge Sexism:

meeca:

(This list will be forever in-progress. Please add on as you see fit).

Challenge sexist jokes, such as dumb blonde jokes or jokes about rape.

Avoid using words such as “bitch”, “hoe”, “slut.”

Recognize when you “zone out” when women are speaking, when you value a man’s opinion…

Also, if you’re interested in superheroes/superheroines and how they are portrayed in regards...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:26:00 -0500

Also, if you’re interested in superheroes/superheroines and how they are portrayed in regards to gender, this Cracked article has a surprisingly well-thought-out explanation for sexism in super costumes. To be honest, I would never have expected to read something this thoughtful from Cracked, which seems to have been tackling more serious issues (but as hilariously as usual) lately.

Their choice for the character with the most sexist costume: Namor.

When I first saw it, I was pretty confused and a little worried… but their explanation is quite interesting.

[…] it’s not ridiculous because he’s wearing a superpowered Speedo: That’s how any man would react to being well-built, usually glistening and most often found on the beach. The ridiculousness comes from people who justify the superpowered strippers by pointing out that men are just as unreasonably objectified in comics. Near-naked superhorny women is a male fantasy. Being a hulking Adonis who can punch through tanks is also a male fantasy. This … this isn’t hard, guys, unlike many things when you’re considering those issues.

I enjoyed that because I have actually heard this argument: that muscular men in speedos are being objectified just the way that nearly-naked women are. But that’s not true. For men, it’s a representation of their strength, virility, and overall masculinity. It’s still for men’s eyes.

"If you really want to support Starfire’s “liberated sexuality” like she’s..."

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:14:00 -0500

“If you really want to support Starfire’s “liberated sexuality” like she’s somehow a person with real agency, what people should really be campaigning for is more half-clothed dudes in suggestive poses to get drawn around her, since I’m sure that’s what she’d like to see. But people don’t really want that, do they? Because it’s not about what Starfire wants. It’s about what straight male readers want. And they want to see Starfire with her clothes falling off. And hey, hey — there’s nothing wrong with that specifically, but let’s be honest about what’s happening and who we’re serving (or not serving) and at whose expense. And let’s be honest about the fact that this treatment happens almost exclusively to women, which is a huge part of what makes it so problematic.”

- http://http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/09/22/starfire-catwoman-sex-superheroine/

For those who don’t know, the issue here is that DC Comics recently rebooted several of their comic book characters, including Catwoman and Starfire, both of whom are now purported to be “sexually liberated” but who are actually more blatantly objectified than ever.

I have no idea where I got this, it was from somewhere on tumblr...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:54:36 -0500

I have no idea where I got this, it was from somewhere on tumblr I believe, but I really liked it. Apparently this little girl couldn’t decide between dressing as a princess or Darth Vader, so she and her family just combined the two. The Force is with this one…

Dis/playing the Phallus: Male Artists Perform their Masculinities

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:25:17 -0500

-observations on Jones’ article, week 6-

To be completely honest, after getting through the entire article I stopped really understanding the concept of “phallus.” I know that it’s sort of a mythic, intangible, man-constructed object that gives men power and the lack of which makes women an object of power to be used by men. I wouldn’t have been able to explain exactly how it affects a lot of the art in the article without the author explaining it. I mean, yeah, the photo of the man in the bed with two women was pretty obviously a pro-masculinity shot, and the comments of Yves Klein using women to paint his Anthropometry but not giving them any credit definitely had at least tinges of misogyny, but the phallus itself is a concept that really doesn’t quite strike a chord with me. Sometimes it seems like there’s this penis conspiracy between the male artists (and other men) of the world. And yes, that is what the patriarchy is in a nutshell, but it’s a lot more hegemonic and subconscious rather than a verbal agreement by men to oppress women.

Warhol Gives Good Face: Publicity and the Politics of Prosopopoeia

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:04:00 -0500

-observations on Flatley’s article, week 6-

Subaltern counterpublics are a really cool concepts to me. Within the last year or so, since I’ve joined Kaleidoscope and took the Women’s Studies class, I’ve been more aware of erasure in the media. A lot of minorities are ignored and invisible at best, and stereotyped or represented badly at worst. So the idea of making a place where marginalized groups can become the majority is really cool. The article almost made it seem like Warhol was thinking only of himself and his personal feelings of isolation, rather than a broader concern for the homosexual community in general. And while I can understand wanting to express individual pain through artwork, I don’t think it really warrants a person being respected and renowned for being a representative of their community.

(I’m not personally a big fan of Andy Warhol’s art, though. I understand the message he is trying to send with some of his projects, but they aren’t personally to my taste.)

How has gender presented itself in your life?

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:59:00 -0500

Gender has always been a big part of how I think about myself and how I see the world around me. I have always considered myself a girl, for the most part. But I’m not very feminine, and “girly” things were always kind of uncomfortable for me. I wasn’t sporty or anything “boyish” like that, either. Sometimes it was just easier to wear guys’ clothes and not worry about being girly or boyish at all.

When I was in high school and first started wearing guys’ clothing, I think I confused my parents and family a little. I mostly did it because it was easier than wearing women’s clothing- cheaper and less maintenance. Once, though, I was mistaken for a guy (and hit on, actually, which was great because my boyfriend was with me at the time) and I surprised myself in how excited I was about that. I don’t know if I wanted to be seen as a guy, or if it was more that at least I had an identity since I didn’t really feel like a girl very much, but I sort of took it upon myself to dress in either androgynous clothing or to cross-dress in some fairly tame ways.

A Very Manly Me, a picture I drew of myself at the end of ninth grade (2007).

But it did make me wonder if I really considered myself a girl. Around that time, a few of my friends came out as being trans*, so the idea was at the front of my mind. I did realize that I was a girl, but it wasn’t until college when Kscope had a Gender Identity day that I thought about gender being a spectrum rather than an either-or. That makes me feel more comfortable in my identity and presentation.

It’s kind of funny; I haven’t wondered much about my gender identity or presentation for a few years, because I sort of came to the conclusion that I knew who I was and didn’t really care what other people thought I was. But recently I’ve been in the swing dance for Frelon, where I am a lead (which is usually the masculine role). It’s odd being a lady lead, not least because the people who are choreographing refer to different dancers as “the guy” and “the girl,” not “the lead” and “the follow.” It’s odd how out of place it makes me feel. There are other lady leads, so that makes things easier, but for one thing it’s kind of sad to think that I’ll never be able to dance with a boyfriend (just because I’m really bad at learning the opposite of what I already know, and boys pretty much never learn to be follows). It’s also kind of fun, though, being in the “male” role. I can feel debonair and dashing! Which is a fun change sometimes.