This week I've been considering the positioning of femininity- It's not at all something that's innate, it's learned just like any other social activity. As impossible as the modern beauty standards are - at least those that define the Beauty Myth - they can still be learned and perfected, albeit not by a human being with a normally functioning metabolism. But one is tempted to ask what it would be like if there were no clear rubric for gauging femininity, no dress code or coda.
Would girls wear full faces of makeup to class at 9:30am, or expose themselves to intense UV rays in beds, multiplying their risk of skin cancer for the sake of a tan, or skip breakfast and have a salad for lunch before going running, if being thin and tan and perfectly presented weren't considered the hallmark of femininity? It's worth thinking about, I think.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Introductory Niceties
This is a little late in coming, because it's been kind of weird figuring out how the blogger system works, but I finally gave in to the promise of a less restrictive format. I'm not expecting to make any friends with this system, and it probably won't be nearly as decorous or polite as my cards, but I think that it's also likely to be a far more accurate gauge of my feelings on the readings, because I am very rarely a decorous or polite person.
My problem with both the Rush reading and the Guyland reading are basically the same. Both of them took for granted that the artificial dichotomy of girl vs. boy, man vs. woman is not only natural and completely acceptable, but the only option. You might feel that one version of it is superior to another - that it isn't okay for guys to treat girls as objects, as decoration for their arms and lives, or for sorority girls to treat potential pledges like a commodity, to be ruthlessly judged and discarded when they are found wanting for any reason - but nowhere is it even posited that there might be some better way where everyone can be taken and judged on their own merits.
Maybe this is just me being my pinko liberal commie self (I type with heavy sarcasm), but I'd like to think that there are more important aspects of a person's personhood than their secondary sexual characteristics. But hey, what do I know. I'm just a WGS major.
My problem with both the Rush reading and the Guyland reading are basically the same. Both of them took for granted that the artificial dichotomy of girl vs. boy, man vs. woman is not only natural and completely acceptable, but the only option. You might feel that one version of it is superior to another - that it isn't okay for guys to treat girls as objects, as decoration for their arms and lives, or for sorority girls to treat potential pledges like a commodity, to be ruthlessly judged and discarded when they are found wanting for any reason - but nowhere is it even posited that there might be some better way where everyone can be taken and judged on their own merits.
Maybe this is just me being my pinko liberal commie self (I type with heavy sarcasm), but I'd like to think that there are more important aspects of a person's personhood than their secondary sexual characteristics. But hey, what do I know. I'm just a WGS major.
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