(WGST 304 post #9)
This film follows a young French boy, Ludo, who feels he's a girl trapped in a boy's body. My favorite scene shows Ludo imagining his X chromosome being lost and thrown in the trash, explaining why he is a "girl-boy" to Jerome, the boy he wants to marry.
It seems perfectly clear to Ludo what she is. She seems to understand how she feels and what she should be, and has little problem expressing that. The real issues come into play during the film when her parents and the neighbors figure out that this isn't a joke and she isn't growing out of it. This goes back to child innocence and how children rarely get confused until their parents influence their thoughts one way or another. Families are supposed to be support systems, providing a safe haven from the rest of the cruel world when times get hard. For Ludo, and many children in this situation, it is the family that causes the problem and will not accept the child for what they feel they are: they must be what society says they are. The way we define gender must change. People cannot be but in boxes and labeled based on stereotypes and expectations.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
My Son is Gay Blog
(WGST 304 post #8)
This blog we read for class talks about how a 5 year old boy dressed up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween and the reactions from certain other mothers at his school.
As a child that rarely ever dressed as the conventional princess or ballerina for Halloween, I feel his pain. I was always Buzz Lightyear, or a dragon, or Prince Charming (to my best friend's Cinderella). I still cannot believe that people, especially mothers, are putting their noses where they don't belong: in a child's innocent imagination. It's not nearly as big of a deal for little girls to be Spider Man, but the minute a little boy puts on a dress and a wig, he's questionable. Stop taking the fun and innocence out of childhood, worry wart parents! Stop trying to define a child's sexuality in places it does not exist! Kids need to be able to express themselves and learn who they are through life experience. They will never grow into stable adults if you force feed them stereotypes about what is right and what is wrong for their gender.
To read more, here's a link to the blog--> My Son Is Gay
This blog we read for class talks about how a 5 year old boy dressed up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween and the reactions from certain other mothers at his school.
As a child that rarely ever dressed as the conventional princess or ballerina for Halloween, I feel his pain. I was always Buzz Lightyear, or a dragon, or Prince Charming (to my best friend's Cinderella). I still cannot believe that people, especially mothers, are putting their noses where they don't belong: in a child's innocent imagination. It's not nearly as big of a deal for little girls to be Spider Man, but the minute a little boy puts on a dress and a wig, he's questionable. Stop taking the fun and innocence out of childhood, worry wart parents! Stop trying to define a child's sexuality in places it does not exist! Kids need to be able to express themselves and learn who they are through life experience. They will never grow into stable adults if you force feed them stereotypes about what is right and what is wrong for their gender.
To read more, here's a link to the blog--> My Son Is Gay
The Man Box
Halberstam argues that society has created stereotypical qualities and traits that are equated with masculinity (and femininity). This creates a type of "box", used to put men (and women) in, to label them as what society deems masculine (or feminine). So if a man does not fit in this "man box", or has traits that are outside the box, he is ostracized or just not a man. Being outside the box somehow makes you inadequate, meaning you have to be one or the other: a man or a woman.
The problem is, no one fits in this box 100% of the time. Being what is traditionally thought of as masculine or feminine changes with time and personal experience. By putting people in boxes and labeling them with one or the other, you might be missing out on personality traits that make people, people: uniquely made individuals with individual likes and dislikes. No one fits in the box, so why does it exist?
Comfort Women
(WGST 304 post #6)
We watched a documentary on the women who were taken as sex slaves by the Japanese government during WWII to service the soldiers. According to the Japanese, this would decrease the number of rapes in occupied villages and stop the spread of STDs among the soldiers. Enloe also discusses the use of prostitution in the military as a way to create a form of militarized masculinity and comradery among the male soldiers.
The idea that men are such insatiable, hypersexual animals that cannot control themselves; will rape if they are not provided with a regular outlet for this sexual desire is sickening, and if I were a man, I'd be insulted. The kind of masculinity the military creates in this kind of environment is violent and misogynistic. People in the military are supposed to represent their countries in a way that will make them respectable and heroic, not abusive and terrifying. After reading the article by Enloe and watching the comfort women documentary, I felt that the images of masculinity perpetuated by the military not only lead to oppression of women, but also the oppression of men. This kind of militarized masculinity can be extremely harmful to men, especially if they do not feel they are truly a part of it, if they feel differently than they are told to feel. Imagine being told what you are supposed to do and how you are supposed to feel, but you don't quite measure up to that expectation...your self-worth and image will most likely suffer. Prostitution in the military doesn't just hurt women, it hurts men too.
We watched a documentary on the women who were taken as sex slaves by the Japanese government during WWII to service the soldiers. According to the Japanese, this would decrease the number of rapes in occupied villages and stop the spread of STDs among the soldiers. Enloe also discusses the use of prostitution in the military as a way to create a form of militarized masculinity and comradery among the male soldiers.
The idea that men are such insatiable, hypersexual animals that cannot control themselves; will rape if they are not provided with a regular outlet for this sexual desire is sickening, and if I were a man, I'd be insulted. The kind of masculinity the military creates in this kind of environment is violent and misogynistic. People in the military are supposed to represent their countries in a way that will make them respectable and heroic, not abusive and terrifying. After reading the article by Enloe and watching the comfort women documentary, I felt that the images of masculinity perpetuated by the military not only lead to oppression of women, but also the oppression of men. This kind of militarized masculinity can be extremely harmful to men, especially if they do not feel they are truly a part of it, if they feel differently than they are told to feel. Imagine being told what you are supposed to do and how you are supposed to feel, but you don't quite measure up to that expectation...your self-worth and image will most likely suffer. Prostitution in the military doesn't just hurt women, it hurts men too.
Black Talk
(WGST 304 post # 5)
In the film Crash (2004), there's a scene in which the black TV director, Cameron (Terrence Dashon Howard) is told by his white producer that the script needs to be changed because the lines of a black character in the scene do not sound "black enough". He's supposed to be "stupid" and doesn't "talk ebonics" enough to sound stupid. Cameron thinks the man is joking but it is made clear they have to re-shoot the scene.
We have been talking in class about modes of oppression constructed at the institutional, symbolic, and individual levels of society. This scene in the film is a clear representation of how language can create stereotypes for certain ethnicities and races of people. The way we attach definitions and expectations of what a certain person (with a certain skin color) should act like and speak like is a form of symbolic oppression constructed by society and perpetuated by itself. Why should a black person "sound" black? What does that even mean? Why do we have to separate "black" speech from "white" speech? Isn't it all just talking?
In the film Crash (2004), there's a scene in which the black TV director, Cameron (Terrence Dashon Howard) is told by his white producer that the script needs to be changed because the lines of a black character in the scene do not sound "black enough". He's supposed to be "stupid" and doesn't "talk ebonics" enough to sound stupid. Cameron thinks the man is joking but it is made clear they have to re-shoot the scene.
We have been talking in class about modes of oppression constructed at the institutional, symbolic, and individual levels of society. This scene in the film is a clear representation of how language can create stereotypes for certain ethnicities and races of people. The way we attach definitions and expectations of what a certain person (with a certain skin color) should act like and speak like is a form of symbolic oppression constructed by society and perpetuated by itself. Why should a black person "sound" black? What does that even mean? Why do we have to separate "black" speech from "white" speech? Isn't it all just talking?
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