Adrogyny:

What is Adrogyny?

One of the biggest and most prevalent mistakes in Western culture is the idea that there are two separate and "opposite" genders, masculinity and femininity. This gender dualism is not only false and without any factual or scientific support, but also very harmful. One strategy to overcome this wrongness is the idea of androgyny, by which masculinity and femininity are not conceived as opposite ends of one spectrum, but as two separate spectrums: you can be or have both at once (or neither), not only the one or the other. Thus, you can combine the various components of masculinity and femininity in any number of ways, according to your individual preferences, needs and nature. Should we then strive for an androgynous, individualist, highly diverse culture?

One genre of culture that celebrates androgyny is in the fashion world. As society's boundaries have changed, so too have the masculine-feminine boundaries blurred. From ambiguous sexual and physical attributes to a focus on gender-crossing fashion, we look at the changing face of androgyny - and how women's fashion is taking a masculine turn.

“Learn a playful dandyism and you will become the magnet for people’s dark, unrealised yearnings,” 

advises Robert Greene in his book The Art of Seduction. 

The ‘dandyism’ Greene is referring to isn’t prescriptive to a style of dress

 but rather to an underlying ambiguity. 

It’s about mixing masculine and feminine attributes. 

In other words, it’s about androgyny.

Compulsory Heterosexuality

Adrienne Rich argues that heterosexuality is a violent political institution making way for the "male right of physical, economical, and emotional access" to women. She urges women to direct their energies towards other women rather than men, and portrays lesbianism as an extension of feminism. She calls for what she describes as a greater understanding of lesbian experience, and believes that once such an understanding is obtained, these boundaries will be widened and women will be able to experience the "erotic" in female terms.

In order to gain this physical, economical, and emotional access for women, Rich lays out a framework developed by Kathleen Gough (both a social anthropologist and feminist) that lists “eight characteristics of male power in archaic and contemporary societies”. Along with the framework given, Rich sets to define the term lesbianism by giving two separate definitions for the term. Lesbian existence, she suggests, is “both the fact of the historical presence of lesbians and our continuing creation of the meaning of that existence. The other, lesbian continuum, refers to the overall “range - through each woman’s life and throughout history - of woman-identified experiences, not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman” . Below are the characteristics in which male power has demonstrated the suppression of female sexuality.

• 1. To deny women their own sexuality: destruction of sexuality displayed throughout history in sacred documents.
• 2. Forcing male sexuality upon women: rape, incest, torture, a constant message that men are better, and superior in society to women.
• 3. Exploiting their labor to control production: women have no control over choice of children, abortion, birth control and furthermore, no access to knowledge of such things.
• 4. Control over their children: lesbian mothers seen as unfit for motherhood, malpractice in society and the courts to further benefit the man.
• 5. Confinement: women unable to choose their own wardrobe (feminine dress seen as the only way), full economic dependence on the man, limited life in general.
• 6. Male transactions: women given away by fathers as gifts or hostesses by the husband for their own benefit, pimping women out.
• 7. Cramp women’s creativeness: male seen as more assimilated in society (they can participate more, culturally more important).
• 8. Men withholding attainment of knowledge: “Great Silence” (never speaking about lesbian existence in history), discrimination against women professionals.

Saussure Semiotics Video

Saussure saw the sign!

Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign as being composed of:
• a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and
• the 'signified' (signifié) - the concept it represents.

Virginia Woolf...

would not have been a fan of Twilight. Based on my research of her, I'm pretty confident in my assumption that she would be ashamed that teenage girls think this series of "books" is acceptable literature. I follow a pretty hilarious Tumblr account called WoolfWriter and my favorite entry is this one.

I'll add more to this, I'm just super tired and honestly, who wants to read incoherent babbling?

The Familiarity of the Unfamiliar

NPR posted an article about music, specifically Adele, and how we as listeners crave a perfect mixture unfamiliarity and familiarity. The perfect mix is called the Goldilocks zone. While reading the article, I couldn't help but be reminded of Freud's argument about the uncanny. Freud hypothesized that people were searching for new and original ideas in every aspect of life, but also craving the comfort of familiar and known ideas.

I've provided the link below if you'd like to read the article. Also read the comments, which are almost as interesting as the original article!

Adele & the Goldilocks zone

Hurston & DuBois

In our readings for today, DuBois urged African Americans to act respectfully when they finally gained equality like their white counterparts. I couldn't help but think of other leaders of similar movements would be happy with the way the latest generations act in today's society. For example, would Susan B. Anthony be okay with the fact that women can now vote, our gender is the least likely to utilize that right? Or would Virginia Woolf be happy that now women writers have the opportunity to be educated and listened/published, women of today admire Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame? I think not.

I'm not just talking about women. I think everyone should think about our predecessors and how they would feel about the way we're either abusing or our apathy about the rights they worked so hard to achieve...

Curiosity of Matthew Arnold

After doing some research about Arnold, I came across a blog that explains Arnold's reasoning in a more clear and concise way than I could ever attempt to try.

Curiosity vs. Culture

Enjoy!

Are you a Dandy or Flaneur?

"Keep cool, my babies."

"The most interesting man in the world..."

http://tinyurl.com/FlaneurPhotography

 

You may be asking yourself, "Why is Ellen posting so many pictures of Robert Redford and random Youtube/Vimeo videos?" The reason, my babies, is to help you understand Baudelaire's meaning in using the terms "dandy" and "Flaneur" in his works. The Dandy was someone who was wealthy and offered nothing economically to society. The Flaneur, on the other hand, was someone who stayed in the shadows and watched life pass him or her by.  The Flaneur movement in photography is really interesting to me but I can't help but wonder, why is a Flaneur more respected than a Dandy? They both clearly have time on their hands, whether they spend said time being social or photographing others living their lives. I encourage you to read more of Baudelaire's work and decide for yourself if you're a Dandy or a Flaneur! 

Samuel Johnson The Rambler & Preface to Shakespeare

Samuel Johnson defines the novel in very modern terms; ordinary events happening to people like me and you. Johnson felt the goal of the novel is to produce an interesting reality without wild impossible plot points and characterizations. He also stated that many works of fiction were comfortable because they are formulaic and predictable. Johnson illustrates a complex relationship between the characters' experience. He also surmises that readers compare the events of a novel based on personal experience and then measure their personal experience based on the novel's events. 

Johnson also feels that the younger generation can become deceived by novels if authors write wild and dangerous behaviors with little or no consequence. Johnson reminds us that romances were not realistic, therefore making them not dangerous because they could not be imitated. 

I enjoyed reading Johnson's theories and personal thoughts. I respected him before but now that respect has definitely grown. I appreciated that he did not discount any future works but gently put forth guidelines for future writers to be true to themselves and to look to the past, not their contemporaries, for inspiration. Below I will provide a link to an interesting article about Johnson's "The Rambler"...

Click here for Enlightenment!

Does Samuel Johnson not look like Richard Lewis?!

"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."

Taylor Mali performs "Ars Poetica"

Should we take Horace's advice?

For today's entry, I will be reviewing Horace's "Ars Poetica", a treatise on poetics and the place that decorum and form have in contemporary and future poetry.  At the beginning of the letter, Horace outlines his belief that writers possess a certain degree of freedom in his or her writing, within the bounds which keep them from polar extremes. He states this idea clearly on page 122**: "let the work of art be whatever you want, as long as it is simple and is unified."


The rest of Horace's letter, however, simply seems to illustrate certain limitations, guidelines, and rules a poet, playwright, or any other writer should follow. All of his proposed guidelines aim toward a common goal: to please the audience. Horace emphasizes "popular favor", "fan(s) in the audience", "popular demand", giving the public pleasure, "invent to please".


I wonder, then, what freedom a writer truly has who is a slave to popular opinion. While one may assent to the writer's right to write anything within certain loose bounds, is he able to exercise this right practically? How should the writer combine both the need to please the audience and the freedom to write whatever he chooses? 


Here are some points to remember during reading: 


1. It is better to follow a traditional story than to invent a new one. 


2. Good writing reflects good thinking. 


3. A play should be five acts--no more, no less. 


4. Graphic scenes should not be performed but saved for narration. 


5. Fictions need to keep as near as possible to real life. 


**The book I'm citing is The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism.