what is feminism?

I don't know how I could have made it any more clear than when I said:

quote:

---

2) When I say that certain characteristics are masculine in our culture, I'm saying neither that all men do them, or that no women do.

---

in message 132.It really does help when you read what I actually wrote, not what you want me to have said.

Ok, but while examining the motives of the producers/designers of the movie is certainly a valid means of criticism, it isn't the only means. And in fact the motives of the author are not generally examined in a feminist criticism of a text ("text" meaning any work of communication that we might choose to study), they're not usually relevant. The level of meaning that the author intends the text to have is only one of several levels of meaning contained in the text, and it is not one that I chose to consider. Let me say it again:

quote:

---

2) When I say that certain characteristics are masculine in our culture, I'm saying neither that all men do them, or that no women do.

---

When this sinks in, maybe we can all talk about this again. I don't see that that's in the least relevant to a feminist criticism of the work.

Look, I get it. That's what I've been saying it all along. So why are you treating this position like its controversial? You keep repeating it like it's something that I need to agree with, and so I don't understand, because I already have. I think you make a mistake of considering any school of criticism inherently superior to any other. They're just different frameworks through which we draw conclusions from texts. You don't have to agree with any of them, you can invent your own, whatever. "Criticizing" a school of criticism doesn't really make any sense.But you should know that treating the work seperately from the intentions of the author is not new, not restricted to just feminism, and not actually all that uncommon. The audience of a work brings so much to the table, and what they bring changes so much over time, that the initial intentions of the author are generally little more than curiosities. No, actually, you really don't. Most people don't. It's fairly rare, in fact, that we acually have any record whatsoever of the author's real intentions beyond the text itself. For instance, I challenge you to criticize The Merchant of Venice from the perspective of Shakespeare's intentions. In fact that's a great example of a text where Shakespeare's intentions don't matter a whit; modern audiences recieve the play so differently from audiences of Shakespeare's time that those intentions are simply too alien to inform our reception of the text in this time.Your mistake is that any one school of criticism is any more or less "valid" than any other. The only "invalid" criticism is one you can't support from the text. No. Neither your original interpretation, nor your new one, are any less or more valid. You can (and obiviously did) support them from the text.Do you know the poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening?" The common interpretation of that poem is that its about death. I disagree. I interpret it as a reflective moment for Santa Claus, and, more importantly, I can support that from the text. I'm certain that's not what Frost had in mind when he wrote it, but that doesn't make my interpretation any less valid. I don't understand. Wherever did I give the impression that I personally endorsed the idea of a man raping women and then abandoning them after they become pregnant? That's repugnant.If you mean, on the other hand, that I "personally endorse" the position that "love em and leave em" behaviors are associated with men in our culture, then I do absolutely endorse that position, because that's a true statement. Those behaviors are associated with men in our culture.

I wasn't sure what other word to use. If you want to use "man/woman" for sex, and "jwre/zxpcoi" for the personifications of masculine and feminine genders, whatever. You know I hate talking about what words mean. The problem here is that, despite our recognition of the distinction between sex and gender, this is not a distinction to which language has quite caught up. What makes it a masculine characteristic is that its most commonly associated with males. In other words, if I say "think of a rapist", most people are going to think of a man.I mean, this may be an unfortunate occurance, and it's probably in some cases a self-fulfilling prophecy that we associate maleness with rape and sexual violence, but that's a question of social policy.We're not doing that. We're just describing things, not advocating things. Or I was, anyway. Some people are going to interpret The Origin of Species, or even Gould's Structure of Evolutionary Theory as nihilistic or whatever. Those are valid interpretations of those texts, presuming that they can support them from the text.You conflate, however, the meanings the audience recieves from the text with the text itself. Those are two different things; meaning is contained in our heads, not in texts. Texts are just words (or pictures or sound, or whatever.) The meaning is something we get for ourselves, from ourselves.It's like the old joke. "What does it say? It doesn't say anything. You have to read it." Do you see what I mean, yet? That's an unfortunate equivocation on the term "criticism", and that's either an unfortunately unavoidable choice of words on your part, or you don't quite understand what we're doing here when I say that we're applying methods/schools of "criticism" to something. I guess it was the second thing. I'm not here to "critique", I'm here to apply methods of criticism to come away with interpretations that I can support from the text.That's it. That's all I'm here to do. This is a descriptive process, not advocacy of policy or judgement of outcome. I'm pretty sure that, in fact, I've recognized this. Ok? I can only speak from what I know, and I wasn't aware that it was such a fucking big deal to the fanboys that the alien's life cycle has gone through such sigificant revision in the subsequent movies. Jesus. Sorry, I was too busy trying to convince Arach I wasn't calling him a rapist.

I don't for a minute understand what you're talking about. I seriously don't. First you accuse me of conflating sex and gender, and now you're telling me that you understood that I wasn't? Can we stop speaking in riddles, now? If you think that I've made an error, would it be possible for you to just come out and say what it was? I'm not really convinced that's a relevant point. You appear to be conflating a cultural ideal of the "perfect" or "ultimate" man with cultural associations with maleness. We appear to be talking about two different things. In fact, the fact that culture would have to specifiy that the ideal man would not possess this characteristic of sexual violence is evidence that it is, in fact, associated with maleness. It is. It's just a school of criticism where we develop interpretations of the text that focus on the gender roles and gender identities both explicitly and implicitly contained.Now, a lot of the time people who do this take the next step; they judge those gender roles and advocate policy. But I'm not here to do that right now, and I think I've made that pretty clear, right? When did it get personal? I'm direct, yes, because otherwise miscommunication happens. (Especially with you. We tend to talk right past each other, for some reason.) If he had actually showed me something, I would have agreed. All I saw in his posts were "you're calling all men rapists" and "take my word for it, you're an idiot" (not, obviously, direct quotes). Most of my conversation with him was actually explaining what my position was. He refuted many, many things, but none of them were the position I was trying to argue.

I'm sorry that I responded so forcefully. I do understand the difference, as I'm sure you must be aware; but sometimes my language is ambiguous. That's party my fault and partly the fault of our culture and language. I mean I think the fact that we've actually had to explain that sex and gender are different things pretty much proves that, right? Well, I agree, of course. Since my goal here is to describe, I would hope that my use of "masculine" or "feminine" would describe the way that they're used by my culture as accurately as possible; we might very well disagree on how accurate yours or my usage might be. I can't imagine how we'd go about proving how "society" views something. At best, we can both support our views from the "text". I think of it that way, certainly. And you could make the argument that many gay men eroticize masculinity - leather, assless chaps (I love to say "assless chaps", don't you?), big hairy guys, all that. I understand those things often stand-in as stereotypes for all gay activity and all gay men, and I don't bring them up in that capability, but this is a fairly common subculture in the gay experience, right? Well, only in the sense that I was doing some, right then. We both were, by viewing a text through the lens of gender.I guess I saw "we" because I used to be an English major, and part of that area of study is the use of critical techniques. But no, I'm not any kind of professional or academic active in the field. I'm just a dude who delivers sandwiches. I don't think that criticism is far from the mark. But there is a sort of "purer" feminist criticism that one can do, where all we do is view texts through the lens of gender roles, and that's pretty much what I was hoping to do.But there's very much an alternate view that focuses on judging and recitifying "society's" views of gender roles, and it employs feminist criticism to identify gender roles that it views as destructive. Whether or not this a legitimate or useful process is up in the air. Clearly the academic feminists we've been talking about view it as worthwhile. I'm of a different opinion, as I predict you are. Well, I'm sorry you felt that way. But I think we've come to a consensus, don't you agree? And even brought it back to the original topic of academic vs. practical feminism.

You don't see that as a fairly effective example of word reclaimation? I mean, if you were to call a woman under 25 a "bitch", she'd probably either laugh in your face and call you something back, or take it as a compliment.Hell it's a term of endearment among women.

I did actually know that. (Assless, and inseam-less as well.) And I do know what they're really for.But isn't that a great phrase to say? I make a point to use it whenever I can.

Well, let me see. Am I the stupidest person on Earth? No? Then yes, I did know that all chaps are assless. But thank you oh so very much for being the second person to correct me on this issue. And thank you so much for being almost entirely, and ludicrously, wrong about the function of chaps. Apparently you didn't see anything unlikely on the face of it when you developed the mental model that a sheet of cowhide worn over your jeans could somehow protect you from the crushing power of the hoof of a 3000-lb bull.Chaps are a protective covering worn originally by cattle ranchers to protect their legs and trousers from the thorns and barbs of the chaparral (from which the name, short for chaparajos, derives, through Spanish) through which they would often have to ride.And, yes, I was able to write all that without looking it up, because, I repeat, I know what fucking chaps are, and what they are for, and whether or not a nominal pair of chaps has an ass.Merciful Christ.

Just to lay this to rest, I propose that everyone, as I did, perform a Google Image search for "assless chaps" (with SafeSearch turned off) and observe that 100% of results are either of fetishists or people mocking fetishists, and that 0% are of real cattlemen or their functional, occupational gear.The term "assless chaps", while certainly pedantically trivial, is the accepted term of art for chaps worn as erotic costume; this usage is in demonstratable wide use. If you Google it I guarantee you'll find some well-squeegeed assless chaps.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-03-2005 01:42 PM