feminism – E367: Writing and Diversity

#NotAllMen

I’m sure we have all heard it- “not all men.”

Whether it rears its ugly head in a conversation about gendered violence or even every day microaggressions, people seem to love using this phrase as an argument against feminism. Not only am I sure we have all heard this phrase, I know we all have based on our discussion about Solnit’s writing in class.

At first, this seems like a logical response to the horrible things said about men. Surely not all men are this terrible.

This is true.

Not all men are horrible people. In fact, most men are wonderful individuals. However, this argument misses the point entirely. Unfortunately, enough men act in these ways for these statements to apply. Kirsty S. tackles this issue head on in her article “Why Men Should Stop Saying #NotAllMen. Immediately.”

Here, Kirsty discusses how damaging this seemingly common phrase is. As Kirsty puts it, “Yes, we KNOW that not every single man is responsible. Yes, we KNOW that you would never do that; and you’ve reminded us enough, thanks.” This addresses what I have brought up many times in class, the idea of not all but enough men.

She then goes on to discuss how useless of an argument “not all men” is.

“So #NotAllMen doesn’t clarify anything. It doesn’t add to the discussion or develop it in any way. All it does is derail and dismiss the lived experiences of women and girls. And what the men who leap to remind us that ‘’not all men are like that’’, are actually saying is, ‘’I’m not like that.’’ Or to put it another way, they are letting women know that discussing misogyny makes them uncomfortable, and they’d like to be absolved of any blame before they will let women continue.”
Kirsty S.

As Kirsty S. explains, yes, it is very difficult to discuss sexism and misogony. Both are heavy topics and, it is all too easy to feel like you are being accused of something awful. Instead of saying you’re “not like all men,” prove it with your words and actions and become a better ally. Unfortunately, everyone is sexist. We live in a sexist society upheld by sexist institutions. Even if you are not aware of your own aggressions, they still exist and need to be acknowledged.

Unlike Solnit’s piece, which many of my classmates decided was too aggressive to be successful, Kirsty’s piece is light and playful. She uses different memes and pictures to help lighten the mood on a very heavy topic. I think if you found Solnit’s piece to be “too much” you should really take a look at Kirsty S’s writing. She is less accusatory and more explanatory.

View at Medium.com

A link to the article. https://medium.com/@KirstyStricklan/why-men-should-stop-saying-notallmen-immediately-f657e244f7a1

S, Kirsty. “Why Men Should Stop Saying #NotAllMen. Immediately.” Medium, Medium, 25 Oct. 2017, medium.com/@KirstyStricklan/why-men-should-stop-saying-notallmen-immediately-f657e244f7a1.\

“The Feminist Perspective in Film Studies”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20687233.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Fbasic_SYC-4631%252Ftest&refreqid=excelsior%3Ad9fd30fe0fb9306435e3c254c0951175

This article was written by Dr. Ann Kaplan, who, at the time, was developing her course on women and film at Rutgers University. She sets out propose potential solutions to the issues regarding female oppression in the film industry.

One of the main takeaways from the article that I want to utilize in my research, is that Kaplan gives details about how to view a film through a feminist perspective. She states that if you just look at the overall representation of female characters in film, the sexism is obvious. However, she claims that the feminist perspective is not so simple. She wants people to understand that the portrayal of women in film goes beyond just the woman’s role in a film, you have to look at the film in the context of the society that it was created in, as well as the directors and producers who were involved in the creation of the film.

Even though Kaplan acknowledges that these additional levels of analysis complicate the feminist view on film, she says that this approach will raise people’s consciousness about women’s oppression overall.

The in-depth approach would counteract a too simplistic charge of sexism. It would help us see the complex roots behind sexism, and how attitudes to women are intertwined with a director’s entire way of seeing the world
Dr. Ann Kaplan

Kaplan goes on to continue to talk about how women play a passive role in film. The reason behind this being that women are typically viewed as being a part of a man’s world rather than existing in their own. Even though females are typically viewed through the male gaze, we can still learn a lot from these films. Women can see how they are being represented, and in turn, voice their own opinions, and realize that their opinions are more generalized than isolated.

Representation of women in film is important because film typically reflects society and can shape social attitudes.

Tara Lockhart’s Piece on Anzaldúa

I was instructed to read Tara Lockhart’s piece:

“Writing the Self: Gloria Anzaldúa, Textual Form, and Feminist Epistemology”

along with Anzaldúa’s piece, to make connections between the two, and to analyze Lockhart’s view on Anzaldúa’s story through a more feminist, textural lens. The link to Lockhart’s piece is found below if you want to give it a look:

Link

Being at A Crossroads & Being One Herself

“Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?”

-Ray Gwyn Smith

Gloria Anzaldúa’s piece is one filled with raw emotions, harsh criticisms of language and the way we use it, and an exploration of her inner-self and how she has coped with the hardships she has faced being a Chicana woman.

Growing up on the physical borderland of the Texas-US Southwest/Mexican border, Anzaldúa lived in a place she called a “place of contradiction where hatred, anger, and exploitation are part of the landscape but also where she finds a certain joy, especially at the unique positioning consciousness takes at the confluent streams.” (page 356). Anzaldúa grew up in a place where she was reprimanded for speaking Spanish on the playground and was told to control her Spanish tongue in order to seem more professional and to be respected in a society that did not understand her and her people.

Anzaldúa lived her life constantly grappling with the many languages and dialects she was able to speak such as Standard English, Tex-Mex, and Standard Spanish. For her, Tex-Mex was her preferred language – it made her feel welcomed and at home. She was often told by other people that her Chicano Spanish was incorrect, when really, it was a border tongue which developed naturally; it was a living language. (358)

The thing about being a Chicano is that if a person has a low estimation of her native tongue, they automatically have a low estimation of her. (361) From the other readings we have looked at in class, we can understand that this is very specific to people who do not speak English or even “proper” English dialects. Anzaldúa experiences language as a monumental part of who she is.

“I am my language.”

-Anzaldúa (362)

When looking at Tara Lockhart’s analysis of Anzaldúa’s piece in “Writing the Self: Gloria Anzaldúa, Textual Form, and Feminist Epistemology”, she offers insights of how Anzaldúa’s switching between English and Spanish throughout the piece is meant to be a strong, polemical statement. Reading Anzaldúa’s piece, I noticed how powerful it was because of the fact that it integrated both English and Spanish so effortlessly, showcasing Anzaldúa’s familiarity with both languages, and somehow making the reader uncomfortable in a way that Anzaldúa definitely meant to do. Her incorporating Spanish was to make English-only-speaking readers confront their own limitations and turn them into the “other” – something that they may feel as though they cannot identify with if they consider themselves a part of the dominant culture.

An important, interesting aspect of Anzaldúa’s piece that Lockhart brings to light is the fact that Anzaldúa’s essay is formatted in a way that she utilizes many page breaks and uses the white space to her advantage.

“Patches of speech and ideas are simultaneously held apart for contemplation.”

-Tara Lockhart

Anzaldúa uses these page breaks to make the reader pause and think about what she has just discussed, especially when she incorporates Spanish into the piece – she wants the reader to feel uncomfortable, to feel confusion, to feel the raw emotion Anzaldúa is emitting at being at a crossroads and ultimately, being a crossroad of multiple identities and languages herself.

I’ll end my response with a quote from Lockhart that caught my eye and for me, really captured Anzaldúa’s message:

“Chicanos are held together by their differences and this realization and recognition of difference is crucial to hybrid identity.”

-Tara Lockhart