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| <nettime> u-turns and brouhahas digest [x2: bechtel, rosler] |
Brent Bechtel <[email protected]> <nettime> Gender and U-Turns martha rosler <[email protected]> Re: <nettime> The Sondheim brou-ha-ha: one perspective - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 23:00:39 -0600 From: Brent Bechtel <[email protected]> Subject: <nettime> Gender and U-Turns There are no Men's Studies courses because of the nature of liberation; many would drop this book into the recycling bin labeled "civil liberties" - there could be connotations, denotations, misappropriations, committees, reinvented lexicons strapped alongside in the canvas sacks headed towards the sneeze-worthy, rarely-circulated books depository. Blazing through academics and politic fund-raising (always alumni conscious, you must see) stacks of unacceptable, offensive words (offensive thought, of course, is assumed incapable of coat-hanger abortions, vasectomies, hymens, glans penis lubrications, and catastrophic mentions of corollary -- even weakened and calmed by phenobarbital, alcohol, alprazolam, purring cats and ataxia -- comparisons are best hidden in hollow trees; myths of freedom were guarded by patriotic squirrels in such a place, as I was told ...) Naked or nude? Oh, these were questions along with gender in my first sociology class at university. Be careful. Don't mistake sex and gender, especially not aloud. Thankfully, it was a state school, West Virginia University, and I did not buy the books, study, use notes, and received an A. "Behold! Academics is an abandoned circus for a half-sleeping poet to mock with a triumphal grin!" Ah, yes I know: Other sciences are not so infantile, puerile and stapled into lecture halls with packing crates and soggy cardboard boxes (which did once hold lettuce, among other perishable foodstuffs.) Allow me a moment of flat, horrid reductionist observation: Western civilization -- *ahem* civilization on Earth, has for nearly all generations, in the majority, followed patriarchy, male headship (this is an antiquated term used by some Jews and Christians, etc.,) This is not comprehensive, it is one sentence. Patrilineal and matrilineal customs vary. Examine your genealogy -- "Female Child" "Female, dead, age 3" -- no names given, nothing recorded, this well beyond the Enlightenment and Great Awakening in the United States -- (a diversion, but full of smug and growling analysis.) Infant mortality, death in childbirth for a wife without a first name? Too common for a culture claiming marriage as a treaty between two equals -- too full of blasphemed blasphemies directed toward discomfort -- oh, and this oppressor, the male? (I do not count this all-inclusive; neither dualistic/binary.) Why do descendants of enslaved Africans search through and for records that do not exist to find a heritage? Oh? Why do males of European descent find clear records of their names, births, signatures in Christian Bibles, shares and stocks in attics and their handiwork preserved by families, generationally, as pseudo-sacred? Ah, men have studied themselves enough, I declare! Our accounts are known, my great-grandfather's daughter had no recorded name and died days from her birth; what is there to study apart from painted photographs -- often photographs taken of the child after an infant death -- no name, no history, no lineage, no concern, SIMPLY FUNCTION my fingers declare. Why do I have books with my great-great-grandfathers signature and notes inside but I have never heard of a female of my family signing her ownership of a printed book; of a library established by a woman (for simplicity, let me invoke the gender-sex roles of the 1900s-1920s.) MEN HAVE STUDIED THEMSELVES this could be as simple as a joke about masturbation, but this is a dance for archives, for understanding, preservation, iterations and categories I have no time to type. Men know themselves well; they have known themselves well; there are too many records of wars and cabinetry and preaching and discipline and HEADSHIP of FAMILY set in concrete (which arrived eventually, but was never as pretty as cobblestones ...) YES MEN ARE CATALOGED but WOMEN have a missing history -- this is why I believe Women's Research, Education, and A Firm Establishment of Identity (however this may be chosen by gender and sex or sex and non-sex and sexual non-sexual corporeal and chemical dictum) is DUE. It is welcome. Details of social justice fill enough dusty books; they can be referenced with a NIOSH approved mask if you are sensitive to rot and mold. Or did OSHA determine those standards? Now I begin to ponder whether both Man and Woman and Child have any names recorded when Material Data Safety Sheets sift through my hypothetical-grandson's desk. -Brent [email protected] Nancy Mauro-Flude wrote: > Why Isn't There Men's Studies? Gender and Us: > > A bit of a cop out but I find this quote by Kathy Acker (Lest We Forget) sums > up the vicissitudes in question, <...> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 17:53:41 +0200 (GMT+02:00) From: martha rosler <[email protected]> Subject: Re: <nettime> The Sondheim brou-ha-ha: one perspective dear e., to be quick and dirty, not even academe is safe from the retrenchment on women's so called role equality, not only are women's studies programs (aka the girls' ghettos) being closed all over the place, senior women profs are being hounded out, all over the place. A number of senior women in science recently wrote letters to the times (you can read them online if you are postnewsprint) detailing how lousy it remains for women--despite all the gains in employment and even acceptance-- in science and math. And even good ol 60 minutes the show had a program on recently dismissed HP head nancy wazzername and the one before, carly fiorina and how much worse their fate was than would be any male's would be in the same circumstances. Women's wages are still nowhere near par with men's and more people like youare repeating the Playboy-promulgated remarks from 40, countem, 40 years ago about victorian corsets and fainting spells the last time women became uppity and comp(see articles with titles liek the new woman or the new girl) . And did we mention the so called double day of work plus maintenance and reproduction of labor? I could write lots more, about theory and the need questioned in another post, for thewomen to enunciate special demands but i will leave more serious posts to those better able to do them. It was the result failure of pan human (:) ) universalist demands for justice to take account, in the real world, for the demands of Others and to provide space to voice them in their own way, themselves, that led to so called 3 wave feminism... lots of histories out there to read... I repeat what i sugested above, we are in a moment of anti-woman sentiment and retrenchment of commitments to all kinds of inclusiveness and one in which those shutting em down feel inoculated against criticism, having already proved that 'affirmative action doesnt work or has worked or cannot be allowed to work' not to be rude, but your post, in all good faith, literally reiterated the precise points made by men of good will in the late 60s and early 70s: All around me I see strong women, including in leadership roles, so what is the problem! The answer is begun precisely with the remark that part of the problem is that you don't see the problem. as to nettime and women... (!) cheers, martha beenaroundtheblock rosler -----Original Message----- >From: "E. Miller" <[email protected]> >Sent: Oct 13, 2006 9:19 PM >To: [email protected] >Subject: <nettime> The Sondheim brou-ha-ha: one perspective > >Okay, I'll chime in too. <...> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]