NOTE: This entry has been post dated to the original date that I wrote it so it still fits the timeline of our class discussions. It was not submitted on time because my computer and I have both been infected with a virus. (***Not a computer to human virus spawned from my earlier sexuality crisis regarding office furniture).
I feel the need to revisit Girl Meets Boy after today's class discussion. I was excited that the role of IPHISOL and graffiti in the novel came up. When I first read the novel I was reading for aspects of belonging and othering and the negotiations of boundary that ensue. The negotiation for public space between marketing propaganda and protest art in the novel align with the negotiations of gender and sexuality also therein. Here's a condensed version:
Robin (and later the Message Boys) employ graffiti to turn public spaces into platforms of protest. The mysterious IPHISOL that Anthea encounters at the beginning of the novel is concerned with transforming marketing ads into "anti-adverts". As their name implies, the "Pure" corporation can be read as a working symbol of the majority- their propaganda is readily accepted in public spaces. Robin's messages are those of the counterculture. (Arguably Smith has chosen human rights propaganda to make Robin a charming rebel and to move readers to empathy for her romance with Anthea.) Simultaneously Robin and Anthea are negotiating a space for their relationship in the myth of Iphis and Midge is negotiating a space for their relationship in her own life. Most important to the writer's argument is that the reader recognizes "Pure" as an antagonist for working towards a consumer monopoly and likens this evil force to the forces of social hegemony acting against Robin and Anthea.
I think I'm a desk, therefore I am?
What exactly happened in class yesterday?! With four hours of sleep my experience of that class was on the side of the sublime. I'm scared to return to the desk tomorrow lest it absorb my "meganess" or cause me to fall in love with it. I have been feeling differently about furniture lately...
Here we are grappling with assumptions and stereotypes we didn't even know we had! I anticipate how this course might affect the ways I perceive and place myself amidst the queer scenery. Embracing a paradigm fluidity is easier to do philosophically than practically. Heyes captures the issue vividly for me: "It is both necessary and troubling to seek out a home as a gendered or sexual being: necessary because community, recognition, and stability are essential to human flourishing and political resistance, and troubling because those very practices too often congeal into political ideologies and group formations that are exclusive or hegemonic" (p.1097).
I clearly remember the moment that the concepts of masculinity and femininity became an issue for me. I was at Dairy Queen with my mother and grandmother. [Here's the background: I was out to my mother, but not my grandmother]. Grandmother blundered onto the topic of the "new... couple... in town." [We come from a very small prairie town]. In struggling to explain that the women were lesbians my Grandmother began to refer to one of them with masculine pronouns. My mother kicked me fabulously hard under the table before I could say anything more than "Why the hell are you referring to this woman as a man?!" The answer: "Well, one of them is acting as the man isn't she? She looks like a man." In this hurtful moment I told myself "That sucks for them. I'm lucky I'm not a gender bending lesbian". "Othering" exactly as Stryker or Heyes would have predicted...
Only in the last few years of my life have I become conscious of the "othering" process that takes place as I negotiate my own "home" as a sexual, gendered, and political being. I have decided that I will focus my blog at least partially on the concept of the "the other"- how it appears in the works we read and how my own experiences relate.
Here we are grappling with assumptions and stereotypes we didn't even know we had! I anticipate how this course might affect the ways I perceive and place myself amidst the queer scenery. Embracing a paradigm fluidity is easier to do philosophically than practically. Heyes captures the issue vividly for me: "It is both necessary and troubling to seek out a home as a gendered or sexual being: necessary because community, recognition, and stability are essential to human flourishing and political resistance, and troubling because those very practices too often congeal into political ideologies and group formations that are exclusive or hegemonic" (p.1097).
I clearly remember the moment that the concepts of masculinity and femininity became an issue for me. I was at Dairy Queen with my mother and grandmother. [Here's the background: I was out to my mother, but not my grandmother]. Grandmother blundered onto the topic of the "new... couple... in town." [We come from a very small prairie town]. In struggling to explain that the women were lesbians my Grandmother began to refer to one of them with masculine pronouns. My mother kicked me fabulously hard under the table before I could say anything more than "Why the hell are you referring to this woman as a man?!" The answer: "Well, one of them is acting as the man isn't she? She looks like a man." In this hurtful moment I told myself "That sucks for them. I'm lucky I'm not a gender bending lesbian". "Othering" exactly as Stryker or Heyes would have predicted...
Only in the last few years of my life have I become conscious of the "othering" process that takes place as I negotiate my own "home" as a sexual, gendered, and political being. I have decided that I will focus my blog at least partially on the concept of the "the other"- how it appears in the works we read and how my own experiences relate.
desubjugah... what?
Is blogging the exhibitionist stepsister of journalling? Probably not if it's done properly but it's an art I'm new to so bear with me as I experiment.
After last thursday's class the entire foundation of my identity crumbled away and I spent the weekend shopping for men's boxer briefs and stick on mustaches. Okay, maybe not... but the mustache idea IS tempting...
After last thursday's class the entire foundation of my identity crumbled away and I spent the weekend shopping for men's boxer briefs and stick on mustaches. Okay, maybe not... but the mustache idea IS tempting...
Before I stick the other foot in I'll share a bit about myself and hopefully justify any cheekiness that might seep into my discussions of gender, sexuality, and politics. This is a very relevant class for me as a fourth year Education Student with an English Major and Social Studies minor. Even more so this class is important to me as a sexually fluid woman. I tend to be pigeonholed as a... oh God can I say it aloud... lesbian. However, I sincerely agree with Ren that "attraction should be allowed to happen between anyone" (Ren's Nest). I am comfortable in ambiguity but have also come to acknowledge the necessity of alternative faces and voices in politics. I'm excited to see how these faces and voices are present in the literature we read.
What I really did this weekend was dive into Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith. The book deserves a post of it's own so instead I'll share a song that really ties in with Thursday's debate on what gender and sexuality really are. Debate might not be a fair word; I think we are negotiating boundaries of belonging in this class. Just like the characters in the song? I'll let you interpret.
Her Space Holiday - Match Made In Texas Lyrics
