Dancing Around Objectification
Summary: Two separate women in different worlds find commonality in profession. They are dancers who are idealized and dehumanized by their audiences. However, their difference in race results in different levels of idolization. The Harlem dancer, for example, when she performs becomes dehumanized to both goddess and whore to the men. Whereas the white dancer of Invisible Man is forced to play both virgin and whore to her racially diverse audience. However, Ellison’s dancer has the social power to deny those men “below” her status, if not those above as well. Both works demonstrate women who are faced with sexualized and degrading treatment in America, but their contrasting perception highlight the issue of racial inequality.
Response: I feel like I would’ve understood the article a little more with more context about the text’s being discussed. To try and aid my understanding I ended up reading the poem and a quick summary of the book. It helped a little but overall I remain confused.
Questions: Doesn’t the setting of these two texts matter? For example, Harlem was a predominantly black neighborhood so most of the audience would’ve been black.
Intersectionality 101
Summary: According to the post, the theory of intersectionality examines how various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, etc. interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels. It creates a system of oppression that reflects the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination. There are three approaches to studying intersectionality, the interlocking matrix of oppression being one. The writer’s example in a nutshell, tells us that people are often oppressed for many reasons but it’s hard to distinguish which reason caused the most pain. Standpoint theory being another, is the idea that an individual’s’ perspectives are influenced by their own experiences in social settings. The example given for this theory was that if two people of the same sex and ethnicity can relate on those two factors but if they come from different economic statuses their viewpoints can vary significantly.
Response: This post reminded me of “The Dangers of a Single Story.” The speaker, who was born into a middle-class Nigerian family, was heavily influenced by this. When she visited the village of a boy who lived with her family she was amazed by what she saw. She said “…I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.” This shows that there are many factors behind a person’s perception. Questions: Despite having read this I’m sure it’s not impossible for two people who associate with different groups to come to an agreement on a particular issue, right?
The Urgency of Intersectionality
Summary: Kimberle Crenshaw conducted an exercise with her audience in which she read out two sets of names, the audience was to remain standing if they recognized the name. The first set were names of young black men who were victims of police violence and the second set was almost identical except for the fact that they were women. A majority of the audience didn’t recognize the second set of names because the speaker states that “communications experts tell us that when facts do not fit with the available frames, people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into their way of thinking about a problem.” Thus the women’s names have simply been disregarded or forgotten. The speaker found that “intersectionality” resonated with what she was witnessing. Many of our social justice problems like racism and sexism are often overlapping, creating multiple levels of social injustice. Response: By this point I’ve gotten the gist of intersectionality and the video really solidified my understanding. I participated in the speaker’s exercise and I was able to recognize the first set of names as young black men who were victims of police violence. However, i didn’t recognize the second set of names. It really proved the speaker’s point that when you can’t “sell” the news it is often disregarded.
Questions: Do you think that we as a society will ever stop finding reasons to oppress a particular group?
Bechdel Test
Summary: The Bechdel test is a method for evaluating the portrayal of women in fiction. For a film to pass the test it has to feature at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The test has been used to call attention to gender inequality in fiction. Some explanations as to why many films fail the Bechdel test include the relative lack of gender diversity among scriptwriters and other movie professionals. However, there are a lot of kinks to the test that need to be worked out so take the results lightly. Response: This test bothered me a little because some movies aren’t necessarily tailored towards women. For example, the example they gave of a movie that didn’t pass this test was Pacific Rim (2013). If you haven’t seen the movie here’s a quick rundown, it’s a sci-fi action movie with giant robots called jaegers who fight creatures called kaiju. It’s a movie where humanity sets asides their differences to save the world and of course, humanity wins at the end. I mean if you’re a women into these kinds of things, go ahead and watch it, but you’re not there to watch the movie for the character development. My point being that the test should account for genre, among other things.
Questions: Is the test purely to raise awareness or is it supposed to deter potential movie-goers from watching a particular film because it’s not women-friendly?