19. & 20.

Women's Literature: The Hours

*Texts/films quoted below are: Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, and Michael Cunningham's adaptation The Hours

Clarissa Dalloway scratches on the wall.

Jasmine Vijh is "a prisoner doing unreal time" (148). 

Offred endures "...long parentheses of nothing. Time as white sound"(79). 

A woman sits alone, overcome by yellow wallpaper. 

In women's literature, the hours tick by terrifyingly. For what ever reason (cultural, historical, or psychological) characters feel trapped, oppressed by passing of time within their respective texts. Frequently at the heart of women's literature is the protagonist's ability to make peace with the passing time. 

In Michael Cunningham's adaptation The Hours (inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway), Richard, a dying AIDS victim, does not want to live. When Clarissa urges him to stay alive, he responds: "But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that..." Time itself is his torture. The "hours" insinuate unending, units of time waiting to be filled, utilized.  The ticking clock, the daily responsibility to fill the hours, is enough to drive him mad. 

In Virginia Woolf's original novel, Clarissa is similarly horrified by life's continuity. She reflects, "Then (she had felt it only this morning) there was the terror; the overwhelming incapacity, one’s parents giving it into one’s hands, this life, to be lived to the end. to be walked with serenity; there was in the depths of her heart an awful fear"(164).  Clarissa is also haunted by the ever-present expectation to, hour by hour, make something of her life. 

While the "the hours" are highly anticipated and then carefully filled by the individual, the passing of human life is universal and mundane in a larger context. After Jasmine kills a man, she reflects, "What a monstrous thing, what an infinitesimal thing, is the taking of a human life..."(119). 

Perhaps this idea itself is what causes Virginia Woolf's characters so much pain: the thought that life is at once meaningful and meaningless. To the individual, one's life is everything, amongst the masses, it is nothing.  In a similar fashion, as evidenced by Woolf's writing style, one moment may bring utter joy or unending despair, but seems inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.  We infuse intense significance into short-term, personal moments, though they are, rationally, only fleeting in the sequence of "hours". This disparity between what captivates individuals emotionally on a small scale and what really “matters” rationally in the events of life seems to torment Woolf's characters. In the midst of a character's deep, existential exploration, Woolf will begin to describe minute details in nature, elements of a street scene or an abstract object. Inversely, while describing excessive details of the party, Woolf writes that Clarissa is reminded of  "how it is certain we must die." This writing style really begs the reader to question what is really more important in Woolf’s narrative: a painstakingly illustrated emotional sensation or a described event.

In moments of reflection, characters ponder what it is that rationalizes death, what makes life meaningful. With the oppressive passing of "the hours," what is to be lived for? As characters develop, they seems to abandon rationality and the filling of the "hours" in favor of a celebration of the extreme emotional fluctuations themselves.

Woolf describes a consolation in the passing of "the hours" is a growing ability to feel. In Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway Peter reflects, "When one was young...one was too much excited to know people. Now that one was old...one could watch, one could understand, and one did not lose the power of feeling, he said. No, that is true, said Sally. She felt more deeply, more passionately, every year" (171). It is the return to these primal instincts - the hunger for emotional sensation - that bring the protagonists back to life, releasing them from the haunting pressure of "the hours."

Similarly, The Handmaid's Tale climaxes with Offred’s eventual indulgence in a real, emotional relationship with Nick. In Jasmine, the protagonist finds peace "greedy with wants and reckless from hope"(241).

As all of these texts draw to a close, it seems that the characters, in pursuit of meaningful lives,  reject rationality in favor of emotion, and begin to rejoice in the pure joy of feeling.  After seeing Clarissa, Peter Walsh reflects that he "...would think her sentimental. So she was. For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying--what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt"(170). Instead of reasoning out the meaning of his life, Peter recognizes the power in the "sentimental." He later poses the question: "what does the brain matter...compared with the heart?"(172).

The novel ends with an epic acceptance and a rejoicing in extreme emotions - a rejection of rational concern for filling the "hours." Peter Walsh remarks: 

What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?

It is Clarissa, he said.

For there she was (172).

Here, Peter recognizes the meaning of his life - the contrast of fear and pleasure. Woolf has laced the novel with countless oppositions of emotional extremes, and here it is realized that life is nothing without them. As Virginia Woolf explains in The Hours that someone must die in the story to provide contrast and a greater appreciation for life, in Mrs Dalloway, one must feel enraptured as well as terrified by life to go on living meaningfully.

In Mrs Dalloway, Woolf makes it clear that once this realization is made, death may come as an “embrace” (163). One may “plunge holding his treasure”(163). After recognizing the goodness of life is about coming to terms with an unbelievable, sensational series of happiness and despair - even if found in the most daily of settings - one may “put death away,” as described by Virginia Woolf in her suicide note in The Hours:

“Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.”

- The Hours, Michael Cunningham

18.

Making the Intangible Concrete

In her poetic writing, Virginia Woolf has the habit of making intangible things or concepts entirely concrete, weighty and real. She attaches feelings to objects, intensely describing their creation or destruction. In Mrs. Dalloway, Peter Walsh attempts to describe the internal psychology of Clarissa and imagines her holding a concrete "life" in her hands:

For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents, and at the same time a grown woman coming to her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, "This is what I have made of it! This!" And what had she made of it? What, indeed? (36).

He describes her growing life, increasing in size and validity by the second, as entirely concrete. As a reader, I imagine a glowing orb of sorts placed in offering before her parents. Here, Virginia Woolf connects the theoretical desire for approval and the physical act of offering seamlessly.  The effect is stunning. 

In another example, Woolf describes Clarissa in contemplation of her role as a hostess. In this internal exploration, she directly addresses "life" much like a person. Woolf writes, "That's what I do it for," she said, speaking aloud, to life" (107). By making it physically real she is addressing "life" head-on, bringing this confrontation into focus amidst the otherwise wandering novel.

Clarissa, in the process of rediscovering the meaning of her parties,  begins to feel the presence of something physical. Woolf articulates the sensation of self-discovery with the description: "Since she was lying on the sofa, cloistered, exempt, the presence of this thing which she felt to be so obvious became physically existent; with robes of sound from the street, sunny with hot breath, whispering, blowing out the blinds"(107).  In rational terms, these suddenly very poignant, seemingly erratic descriptions ("robes of sound," "hot breath," & "whispering") do not make sense, but in a poetic, fragmented way,  they very accurately describe the sensation that something is being realized, that something is becoming real. 

Woolf employs the same technique when articulating Clarissa's attachment to her acquaintances. After meeting, she proceeds throughout her day and the connections she describes as "webs" deteriorate:

And they went further and further from her, being attached to her by a thin thread (since they had lunched with her) which would stretch and stretch, get thinner and thinner as they walked across London; as if one’s friends were attached to one’s body, after lunching with them, by a thin thread, which (as she dozed there) became hazy with the sound of bells, striking the hour or ringing to service, as a single spider’s thread is blotted with rain-drops, and, burdened, sags down (99).

This physical, web description allows the reader to very acutely understand the sensations of intense stretch and eventual separation between individuals in the novel. We can equate something we've physically beheld (the stretching of material) to something that we can emotionally feel (resistance to social separation).

In yet another example, Lady Bruton describes her passion of "emigration," and makes this sensation physical.  She reflects,  "It may be Emigration, it may be Emancipation; but whatever it be, this object round which the essence of her soul is daily secreted, becomes inevitably prismatic, lustrous, half looking-glass, half precious stone; now carefully hidden in case people should sneer at it; now proudly displayed" (96). Here, Lady Bruton describes the meaning of her life, "the essence of her soul," in a concrete way. It leaks from a glass-like prism or stone. Perhaps this is meant to suggest that the meaning of her life is suppressed, secret or restricted, leaking from confines. The stone container is at once hidden and displayed, potentially suggesting her own ability to come to terms with "the essence of her soul." Whatever the meaning, this description is incredibly poetic, an image that begs the reader to her own interpretation.

Woolf employs this descriptive method again when Peter Walsh reflects about his age: "The compensation for getting old was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained - at last! - the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence - the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round slowly, in the light" (69). Here, Woolf makes experience solid, something to be held within one's own hand. She suggests that the aged individual can possess it fully, can see experiences with nuanced understanding, in different shades of light. 

17.

The Meaningful Life

It is common in literature for a protagonist to struggle to lead a meaningful existence. The novels we have read are not solely narratives, but explorations of what it is that makes life valuable. For every character, or author, this investigation is distinct.  In Bharati Mukerjee's Jasmine, Jyoti believes that the meaning of her life resides in the completion of  her "mission." Other characters find purpose, not in completing a divinely-sent task, but in what they will become, or what they will make of themselves.  In Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Peter Walsh reflects upon Clarissa's insistence that value comes from one's ambition to be an accomplished member of he upper class. 

What she would say was that she hated frumps, fogies, failures, like himself presumably; thought people had no right to slouch about with their hands in their pockets; must do something, be something; and these great swells, these Duchesses, these hoary old Countesses one met in her drawing-room, unspeakably remote as he felt them to be from anything that mattered a straw, stood for something real to her (67).

Clarissa sees these class distinctions as real. They are kind of accomplishments that make her life valuable. 

I've also noticed that the idea that life meaning  derives from the approval of one's parents, or oppositely,  the success of one's children is commonly at play in women's literature.

Perhaps this is because women are so inextricably tied to the process of birth. To many women, children are like extensions of one's own life, or one's own purpose. Mothers are sincerely invested in what becomes of their children.  Oppositely, I think that a person's parents can be extremely involved in one's life purpose.  It is natural to feel that we must prove to our parents what we can do with what we've been given, where we will go given where we are from. It seems this approval can validate our own meaning.

In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf explores this tendency when Peter Walsh imagines the mind of Clarissa:

For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents, and at the same time a grown woman coming to her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, "This is what I have made of it! This!" And what had she made of it? What, indeed? (36).

Here, Woolf expresses the human desire to posses a full life and to present this before one's  own parents. In the imagination of Peter Walsh, she carries a life that is full and concrete in a completely physical sense, able to be completely possessed by the individual. Like a product, Clarissa shows it to her parents, hoping for approval. Peter Walsh imagines Clarissa as "child" and as a "young woman," suggesting that the desire for this validation is timeless - a thing that haunts her throughout her entire life. 

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the protagonist struggles to separate her own meaning from the legacy of her mother. In a fight with her mother, Offred heatedly retorts, "I am not your justification for existence"(132). Though her mother is tempted to equate her life's success in the pursuits of her child, her daughter resists. 

I think it is natural to look to family  when assuring that one's life has meaning. Perhaps it is because family are the most direct source,  in the biological sense, of "where we are from." 

In The Hours, loosely influenced by Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf speaks to a child about death. When her niece enquires as to what happens after death, Woolf replies "we go back to where we are from." When the child responds that she has forgotten "where she is from," Woolf replies, "so have I." With life's complexities, it is easy to forget where, exactly "one is from." Relatives are the easiest way to ground an individual because, despite life's events, they are constant figures in a lifetime. They are the people from whom we are born, or to whom we have given life. Genetically, they are the people through which we transcend mortality - as generations pass, characteristics of ourselves float seamlessly through time. 

Maybe it is this sense of being more than an individual, tied to others by heredity, that makes us turn to family for meaning. At the the same time, we often seek separation from family in order to reaffirm our positions as distinct individuals. Perhaps at the root of this issue is the question of whether one needs to be an individual or, rather, a member of a group to live a meaningful life. 

16.

Feminist Art and Culinary Tradition

The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, 1974-1979

http://deepartnature.blogspot.com/2010/09/judy-chicago.html

I seriously love food.  I'm the girl who gushes about Yottam Ottolenghi's latest Soho restaurant and ventures, by herself, food guide in hand, down to Brixton to try a pizza place she's been reading about for weeks. This year, my Studio Art concentration was all about food: its presentation, history, diversity and overall monumentality in our daily lives. To me, it's not just sustenance or an aspect of domesticity, but a multi-sensory art - an avenue through which we exert creativity, cultivate values and instill tradition. I wonder if this characteristic - an obsession with food - is truly a "feminine" phenomenon.

A painting from my Studio Art Portfolio

The preparation of food has conventionally been considered as part of the feminine "sphere." While men have hunted or worked to provide the raw materials, it is women who, historically, with a nuanced knowledge of preparation, transform material into sustenance for others. Perhaps we generally possess superior fine motor skills, or perhaps it's because women are generally characterized with generosity, selflessness and servility. Whatever the cause, culinary skills are deeply associated with female domesticity and have become crucial aspect of the complete "homemaking" process.  While I believe that this expectation has imprisoned unwilling women to the responsibilities of kitchen, it has also allowed an invaluable creative, artistic outlet for females. I've seen this in the texts we've read thus far. 

In Jasmine, Bharati Mukerjee seamlessly integrates casual references to the protagonist's cooking alongside the development of the plot. The author tells us that, in Jasmine's context, food is more than sustenance. She reflects: "A good Hasnapur wife doesn't eat just because she is hungry. Food is a way of granting or with holding love"(216). What Jasmine makes seems intimately wrapped up with what she does and does not give, choses to conceal or reveal. When she lives with Lillian Gordon and her Kanjobal guests, the sharing of culinary practices is a critical form of communication, of cultural exchange.  Jasmine recounts, "They showed me how to pat grainy tortilla dough into shape, and I showed them how to roll the thinnest, roundest chipatis. And Lillian taught us all how to cook hamburgers and roasts" (134). The women in the house adopt a collective, culinary vocabulary, and gain a greater understanding of each other.

Frequently, Jasmine's fusion cooking is reflective of her divided cultural identity. While at first her Indian dishes seem discordant amongst the traditional American fare, her meals do find a place within her environment. She says, "People are getting used to some of my concoctions, even if they make a show of fanning their mouths. They get disappointed if there's not something Indian on the table"(9). While her culinary style may have been "alien," it has become a critical part of her American meal-time experiences. She makes peace with what she has retained as well as adopted in the culinary world. Jasmine explains, "I took gobi aloo to the Lutheran Relief Fund craft fair last week. I am subverting the taste buds of Elsa County. I put some of last night's matar panir in the microwave. It goes well with pork, believe me"(19).

While culinary responsibility is frequently conceived as a chore for women, I believe it can be such a valuable outlet (as it is in Jasmine's case) in crafting one's own identity. In a very fundamental, primal setting, women can pay tribute to where they come from as well as acknowledge new influences with what they put on the table.

I can't help but think of Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party"(pictured above), a feminist art piece centered around the ritual of mealtime. Chicago created a triangular table, with place settings for monumental mythical and historical women in history. The Egyptian queen Hatshepsut is seated at the table along the likes of Sacajawea, Mary Wollestonecraft, Georgia O'Keefe, Elizabeth Blackwell and Virginia Woolf. Chicago includes and elevates other stereotypically "feminine" crafts, like embroidery, in the piece. The  women are all represented collectively at the symbolic "meal," but each is seated at a place entirely her own, adorned with a uniquely designed "plate" and a series of objects relating to her life.

Rather fittingly, in The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf quotes Virginia Wolf, who is known to have said :
 "One cannot think well, sleep well, love well if one has not dined well"(197).

Virginia Wolf's place setting

http://sharonbarfoot.tumblr.com/post/3811932766/virginia-woolf-place-setting-from-the-dinner-party

Mary Wollestonecraft's place setting

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/mary_wollstonecraft.php

15.

First Lines in Women's Literature - The Call to Action

Uncertain as to what I wanted to blog about, I flipped to the beginning of every text that we have read thus far and read each book's first line. I often forget how much can be said with the first line of a story. Whether it is an elaborate description, an abrupt quotation or a simply constructed entrance to the plot, authors have the power to seriously manipulate the initial experience of the reader with their first sentence. The way in which they start, or frame written text, has meaningful repercussions for the body of a piece. In journalism, a lead must be attractive - a quick "grabber" that will get the reader to continue the article. Authors of extended prose use their first statement to entice as well, often lacing the sentence with deeper themes explored later in the novel.

I've found that the books we have read in Women's Literature often start off with simple articulations of female rebellion or defiance, foreshadowing later feminist themes. Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth begins:

"At last, after a long silence, women took to the streets" (9).

With its simple, pleasing construction this primary statement gives the reader the impression that she has jumped into a story, in the midst of things, at a point of serious change. The reader is presented with an "at last"at the start of the novel, suggesting that the narrative is deeply rooted in the time before the book itself. The sentence vaguely mentions the "long silence," referencing the extended pause in women's history after the First Wave of Feminism, and presents a moment of collective awakening - a moment of "taking to the streets". This articulated image, of women walking in "the streets," where the pulse of the human race resides, is representative of a collective entrance, a re-involvement in society at large. Unlike the scores of data ad statistics found later in the book, this opener is entirely vague - and effectively unifies many channels of the women's movement into a solid starting point.

Bharati Mukherjee also presents a moment of female action on the first page of her novel Jasmine. She begins:

"Lifetimes ago, under a banyan tree in the village of Hasnapur, an astrologer cupped his ears -- his satellite dish to the stars -- and foretold my exile. I was only seven then, fast and venturesome, scaborous-armed from leaves and thorns."


To the astrologer's prediction, the female protagonist replies:


"No!...You're a crazy old man. You don't know what my future holds!" (3).


This scene perfectly frames the story of a girl's vigorous battle against her own fate. After contextual information (about setting, the character's age, etc), a prophecy is presented as inevitable and the protagonist vehemently rejects with it with a resounding "No." This powerful rejection is related to Jasmine's exploration of rebellion and choice later in the book, but is also entirely symbolic of the female struggle against male convention so frequently found in women's literature. Possessing the minimal inhibitions that come with youth, Jyoti passionately subordinates what this astrologer names as fate. This powerful "No!," proves to be what Jasmine strives to reclaim in rest of the novel:  the self-awareness and self-confidence to make her own decisions in a male-centric world.


Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway begins with a simple scene of feminine initiative. The novel begins:

"Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself"(1).


Instead of having a paid servant or a male character to fetch the flowers, Mrs. Dalloway quite simply does it herself. Though a very literal, straightforward statement, I think we would be wrong to belittle Woolf's opener. Mrs. Dalloway begins a single day (described entirely in the book) by claiming her own initiative. The simple act (the buying of the flowers) becomes the premise for the self-directed exercise (the walk) described acutely within the novel. This beginning is indicative of themes explored later in the novel, mainly the protagonist's reflection on her own choices throughout life.

These three texts, though distinctly different, begin in a fashion that is incredibly feminine. The first lines respectively frame the reader's introduction to rebellion against societal norms - a theme so frequently found at the core of women's literature.

14.

The Boy and Girl Problem: My response to "Solving the girl problem"

While Benjy Mercer-Golden, in his recent opinions article, makes an earnest attempt to examine an issue facing girls at ASL, he overgeneralizes his own observations, fails to fully comprehend the foundations of the problem, and, consequentially, reaches no legitimate solution. Though the piece is formally an opinions article, with content skewed by whatever personal experiences the writer may have,  I believe his generalization and misdiagnosis of the entire school community is extremely dangerous. While his research may have told him that women feel this way in theory, it appears he has made no contact with actual ASL women. I can only hope that by formally (and incorrectly) defining this "girl problem"  much like a disease, he has taken no part in creating or sustaining it at our school.

Before unpacking my criticisms, I would like to say I fully appreciate the writer's attempts, in his recent article and in his earlier "Standing up for feminism" piece, to explore the status of women and girls. Though I disagree with the idea that being "wanted" or attractive to boys and being academically competitive are mutually exclusive facts (as demonstrated by numerous, obvious counterexamples in our community), some of the social phenomena that Mercer-Golden has addressed, like the "MRS degree," are completely worthy of our investigation. The pressures for females to return to childbearing and domesticity after education can still exist, whether they are subconscious or not. Perhaps as a result, gender discrepancy is still a huge problem in the job market. In her book, The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf cites a glaring statistic from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs: "While women represent 50 percent of the world population, they perform nearly two-thirds of all working hours, receive only one-tenth of the world income and own less than 1 percent of world property"(23).  If this is true in the real world beyond the bubble of ASL, we definitely do need to start addressing it.

I also love Mercer-Golden's proposal to make Gender Studies a requirement at ASL. As a Women's Literature student, I can say that our study of gender issues though textual analysis has been one of the most applicable and enlightening academic experiences I've had in formal education. This said, I think that perhaps if the writer had actually taken a course like Women's Literature himself, his observations about the causation as well as solution to female issues would have been a bit more evolved.

The phrase, "...I think girls need to stop thinking of themselves as objects of desire for their male classmates and start taking themselves seriously" signals, for me, an incredible misunderstanding of what feminism is. I've learned this semester that feminism is not an issue of girls making a "choice" to stop thinking of themselves as objects. It is, in fact, an issue of creating an environment where it is easy, or even possible, to make that choice. Sexism is not a girl problem, but a girl and boy problem. In his call for the support of the community, Mercer-Golden summons "counselors, teachers and parents" while only calling boys "to be a little less predictable," a statement that shelters male teenagers from any direct blame with its incredible ambiguity. The objectification will stop when we (girls and boys included) begin to re-imagine gender relations inside and outside of ASL.

The same concept applies to "real world" scenarios, where, even today, women frequently need to see themselves as objects in order to support themselves. As cited in Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth, in cases like  Miller vs. Bank of America, Barnes vs. Costle, Hopkins vs. Price Waterhouse, Tamini vs. Howard Johnson Company Inc., Andre vs. Bendix Corporation, Diaz vs. Coleman, and M. Schmidt vs. Austicks Bookshops, Ltd, employers have, within our legal system, manipulated contrived "standards" of personal appearance (concerning dress, make-up, hair, and age), to hire or fire female employees(32-40).

Not only has self-objectification become a qualification for many women in the job market, jobs that depend on it pay better. Naomi Wolf cites legal scholar Catherine A. MacKinnon, after conducting a study, found that "while one woman in four earns less than $10,000 a year while working full-time, in 1989, Miss America earned $150,000, a $42,000 scholarship and a $30,000 car"(50). Similarly, fashion, prostitution and modeling are the only industries in which females consistently earn more than men (50).

In this context, with many women struggling to support themselves as well as their families, is self-objectification a gesture of free will, or a measure necessary for survival? With modern societal constructs so engrained and dependent on this objectification, is appearance a private aesthetic or, in the words of Naomi Wolf, "a social concession exacted by our community"(187)?  With power and survival so culturally associated with beauty, can women and girls at ASL simply "stop" objectifying themselves as Mercer-Golden suggests?

At the ASL level, I can tell you that as girls, we are trying. Many of us will be attending elite universities next fall, with intentions to fervently pursue academics. I do feel rewarded everyday at ASL for academic achievements. We do dedicate ourselves to intellectual excellence while retaining social lives. These positive experiences will prepare us for what's to come: a world outside of ASL where gender issues will be more prominent. As for now, the hysteria of response following Mercer-Golden's article is proof in itself of the respect that ASL women currently have for each other and for themselves.

We are trying our best to feel comfortable in a world that systematically objectifies us and, in reality, it doesn't help at all that an article entitled "Tyler interviews hot girls" ran in this year's edition of The Slandered. Isn't this kind of decided, reductive labeling (even if for comedic value) everything that a "feminist" should be against? Can Mercer-Golden really expect girls to transcend labels if he takes part in their bestowal?  This concrete reiteration of social norms can and will propagate the horrifying issue at hand.

Inside as well as outside of ASL, males continually prove to be, quite simply, the critical force in ameliorating female struggles. Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, said in a 2009 interview with Riz Kahn, "90% of the violence done towards women is done by men. We're actually not raping ourselves...It's going to be very hard to stop violence without men participating in the process." Though it seems painstakingly obvious, we must remember that men are elemental in female conflict. While many men will not commit violence, or directly commit objectification, they will remain complacent - a crime as much at the root of gender conflict as female inaction.

Female self-objectification is not a static occurrence (turned "on" or "off" by women) - but an organic, engrained reaction to unquestioned societal norms sustained by both men and women. Until we begin to see females differently, objectification will continue amongst girls and whatever distinction between "popular" and "intelligent" girls that Mercer-Golden observes will continue to be seen by boys. Within the limits of ASL and beyond its walls, one thing is certain: both groups are responsible for continually questioning the power dynamics between sexes.

13.

Feminist Art and the "male gaze" II

In the Art History class at ASL, we've also studied Cindy Sherman, another incredible feminist artist who is known for her extensive project "Untitled Film Stills." In this extended body of work, Sherman captures herself on film in a variety of stereotypically "female" poses. In some shots, she even takes the photo herself, using a camera attached to a long pole. This awkward and inverted process perfectly parodies the state of modern media. It's quite funny to imagine a woman dressing herself up and staging herself in various scenes of domesticity. It's odd to think of a someone so formally objectifying and capturing one's self. I think she really hits at the heart of what modern media is: an awkward re-imagination of what human beings are really like. 

a

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/sherman/sherman6.html

These images remind me of the scene in Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine where she confronts her own reflection in a rearview mirror. She reads, "OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR" on the surface(71). Perhaps, Mukherjee is indirectly presenting a moment of cloudy self-identification in this scene. Though Jasmine's reflection appears to be at a distance, it is really quite immediate.  I think both Sherman and Mukherjee are toying with the idea of seeing one's self at an extended distance. 

12.

Feminist Art and the "male gaze" 

 While revisiting 1960's feminist art pieces in preparation for my final art history exam, I discovered many conceptual links to our course material.  Much of feminist art plays with the idea of the persisting "male gaze"-  the concept that, throughout western history, images of women have been conventionally constructed with a male "lens". Many feminist artists explore the idea that images of women are created without female perspective and that, consequentially, this subjects women to an "out of body" experience when viewing them. This kind of art often reveals that females are accustomed to removing themselves from their bodies and to viewing themselves and their peers as objects. 


Barbara Kruger, who held a position at Mademoiselle magazine, is known for creating images that play with the dictatorial nature of media images and text. Her work below presents a lifeless, stone-cold profile of an "ideal" women. On top of the image, she places the text: "Your / gaze / hits / the / side / of / my / face." As the broken, staccato effect of the message allows each and every word to sink in, the message becomes immediately and concisely powerful. As viewers, we see and take in only her profile. Our line of sight impersonally "hits" the side of the woman's face. Her head is merely a solid form, with which we have visually made contact. No permeation has occurred, no question as to the content of her character has developed. 

http://lookintomyowl.com/barbara-kruger-pre-digital.html

This piece instantly transports me to Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth, in which she cites the art historical analysis of Marina Warner, author of Monuments and Maidens. Warner wonders why "individual men's names and faces are enshrined in monuments, supported by identical, anonymous (and 'beautiful') stone women"(58).  Like in Kruger's piece, women in art are frequently not permitted individuality. Warner goes on to explain what I believe is the core behind Kruger's piece: "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only the relations of men to women, but the relation of women to themselves" (58). The work above very formally presents this "looking" phenomenon. We,  as viewers (female or male), are made acutely aware of the nature of our visual contact, how we refuse to see humanity in the figure. 

11.

 Naked vs. Nude II : The Dangers of Uncertain Bodily Limits

In colloquial speech, a woman may say she knows something "like the back of her hand." Our hands are familiar in a very powerful sense - they perform simple tasks before our eyes, allow us to express ourselves conveniently in gesture, and indicate our age with wrinkles. Always exposed and at arm's length away, they are immediate, optical proof of our own concrete existence. A fingers touch tells us where, relatively, we end and external space begins.

The vagina is not so familiar. In the texts we have read, women are, physically and psychologically, seriously detached form their bodies, specifically their vaginas. This lack of physical self-awareness leads to identity crisis, lack of self-respect and deteriorated mental health. In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf cites multiple health conditions induced by poor body awareness. She says,  "Schizophrenics are characterized by a disturbed sense of body boundaries...Narcissists fee that what happens to their bodies does not happen to them. Surgical expectations and weight fluctuations subject women to weak body boundaries..."(230). Wolf proves that a sense of complete physicality, or wholeness, is so crucial to identity. One must be capable of recognizing the extent of one's own body and its pains in the same way that one must be capable of recognizing one's own emotional status. Wolf argues that the myth causes women to "lose a bit more of our ability to feel for our own bodies and identify with our own pain..."(250). Without distinct body boundaries, one cannot identify one's own pain and recognize one's self as human. For me, this inhumanity is what distinguishes the "naked" from the "nude." While the "naked" individual knows her body as her own, the "nude" individual is numb, impersonal, an outsider to her own body.

With The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler brings attention to how this bodily disconnect has been perpetuated by the stigma of shame surrounding female genitalia. One woman reflects, "I did not know my vagina in practical or biological terms. I did not...see it as a part of my body, something between my legs, attached to me...My vagina existed for me on some abstract plane"(45). Another woman refers to her vagina as an "invaded village" (63). Again, this lack of basic bodily awareness and inability to express the vagina as concrete, proves to be at the heart of the mental and emotional issues of women.

 In The Handmaid's Tale, Offred also experiences multiple sensations of bodily discontinuity. Her oppressively concealing robes and demeaning role in society place her psychologically outside of her own body. She refers to her own body as a "swamp" of "treacherous ground" (83).

When writing about this, I cannot help but incorporate Georgia O'Keeffe, who, in my mind, parallels Eve Ensler in artistic terms by "painting the unpaintable." Her paintings are a monumental elevation of female physicality. In precisionist style, her flowers are concrete, weighty and formally suggest the vulva. The genius of O'Keeffe, for me, comes from the fact that throughout her life, she never officially recognized  her paintings as vaginal. Instead, she kept her audience guessing who, like many of us do today, were unsure of whether or not to articulate the unsayable - to recognize the vagina as concrete. By omitting formal analysis, she left viewers hanging, left to ponder for themselves, their own inability to articulate what they saw.

"...Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and I don't."

 - Georgia O'Keeffe

http://www.artwallpapers.net/paintings/georgia_o_keeffe/02/georgia_o_keeffe02.jpg

10.

Sex = Food

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40868763@N02/3761724457/

I am fascinated by the way in which Naomi Wolf  equates sex with food in The Beauty Myth. She argues that food indulgences are seen in a way that sexual indulgences have been seen in the past - shameful, pleasurable, emotionally tolling. She observes that "while sex for pleasure was a sin; women make the same distinction today between eating to sustain life and eating for pleasure" (98). 

I recently read an article in the New Yorker in which a journalist makes a distinction between a meal and a dessert. A meal is what you need to survive (in keeping with Wolf's parallel, the sort of sex used for procreational purposes), while dessert is superfluous (like sex for pleasure). We indulge in dessert, not because we need to, but because we can. The sugary properties of desserts make them impractical in the long run in terms of sustenance (all we get is a sugar high and then a crash). Instead, they are wild and impulsive, about living in the moment. 

With the woman as the"domestic goddess," cooking being a traditional task, must she balance the menu with food and dessert? Is this not symbolic of the age-old contradiction women are expected to embody - on one hand the stable, fertile mother but also the flirtatious, sexually arousing vixen.


This parallel between food and sexual desire is drawn in The Handmaid's Tale as well. In moments of sensory desolation, Margaret Atwood describes her protagonist as suddenly overwhelmed with hunger, the desire to taste, to consume. Offred's desire to feel alive is associated with her desire to eat.  Oral consumption satisfies the senses in a big way - smell, sight and taste are involved. It seems that exhilarating these senses is a crucial part of being "alive".

Wolf agrees, saying "To be alive is to want to satisfy hunger" (126)


----
By complete coincidence I walked into my sister's room this morning and found her browsing a new website--foodporndaily.com---where drool-worthy images of food are posted daily. Fascinating that such a website exists, but also a bit creepy!

http://foodporndaily.com/pictures/soft-gooey-cinnamon-rolls-drench-in-cream-cheese-icing

9.

The Power of Language II


In Topshop, the words "BUY IT NOW. YOU'LL REGRET IT LATER" are painted on the wall.

I remember wandering through the store sometime last year, glancing at the words, and feeling suddenly offended. I couldn't believe how shameless the advertising was, that a retailer would attempt so decidedly to sway a consumer's opinion with words on a wall. Offense dissolved into disgust when I contemplated how many people the neon motto must have successfully penetrated.

I think I consistently underestimate the power of words. In advertising and media, word choice is critical, a result of meticulous study. In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf lists common beauty company mottos:

"Isn't it obvious what you should do for your skin right now? (Terme di Saturnia)

In this slogan, the choice "obvious" brings a condescending tone to the message, as if it is spoken from an all-knowing, ageless voice. The "right now" adds a sense of urgency. The listener is made to feel belittled, and taking advantage of this self-conscious state, is rushed instantly to do something about it, to correct one's ignorance with a new product.

"Stop damaging your skin"(Elizabeth Arden)

This slogan is spoken in the imperative. The "stop" makes the advertisement a command, not an option. The direct mention of a "you" adds to the effectiveness of the slogan on the individual level.

"Since 1956, there's been no excuse for dry skin" (Revlon)

Here, "since 1956" references the age of the company, and by extension its authority. The "no excuse" is effective in assuming that the reader has been making excuses, or has cheated herself of proper treatment.

(All slogans found on page 96)

In addition to these slogans, magazines today are littered with simple "do's and don'ts" that "scold, insinuate and condescend" (84). They are a limited, yet resolute set of orders.

8.

In Defense of Fashion II

My mom just sent my sister and me this movie via email.  I love how these women - as quirky as they are -  use fashion to their own ends. They use it as a way to exercise creativity, to sustain a certain youthfulness, to communicate whatever they want to the world.

I think the right to dress one's self is powerful and a critical part of feeling "in control." In Margret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, cumbersome uniforms are used to oppress women. Physically heavy and with extensive coverage, the costumes leave the handmaid's deprived of the simple, yet important power of bodily freedom. Certain colors correspond with specific roles in society. A woman's role and rights are insinuated immediately with whatever she wears. Women are not given the right to control their own immediate reality, the initial, visual message sent out to whom ever they encounter.

In this light,  power resides in the right to choosing how you dress. In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf references a number of devastating trials in which the key right withheld from women was the right to dress. In these examples, workplace dress codes are manipulated to fit the needs of the employers and to render female employees helpless. Wolf cites Diaz v. Coleman, in which she says, "a dress code of short skirts was set by an employer who allegedly sexually harassed his female employees because they complied with it"(39). In M. Schmidt v. Austicks Bookshops Ltd., another case was lost by a female employee after the court "ruled that telling a woman how to dress was no more than trivial"(40).

In reality, Wolf observes, "the area of appearance seems to be the one where women feel they can most easily exert some control over how they will be responded to" (43).

I often forget it, but with the process of getting dressed everyday comes the power to communicate.

7.

In Defense of Fashion


I find myself defending fashion all the time. As an Ecology student, well-versed in the crises of consumer culture, and as an teenager exposed to many intelligent people who believe that fashion is a hollow, superficial and materialistic industry, I am constantly attempting to rationalize my love of dress. 


I'm so sick of feeling guilty!


I have to admit, I was unsettled by Mary Wollstonecraft's repeated criticisms of dress in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In one passage on fashion, she remarks, "...calling attention continually to the body, cramps the activity of the mind" (81). 


I've been raised to think the opposite. My mother was a professional buyer for nine years. Working for both Macy's and Cost Plus, she traveled throughout Europe and Asia in search of goods (clothing, furniture, textiles) to sell in the States.  She continually brought Elie and me costumes, embedding in both of us a fervent love of dress. In our attic in the States, we've kept a stash of Indian saris, Scottish kilts, Russian skirts, Thai jackets,  and Chinese silk suits among other items. 


Recently shaken by dramatic documentaries about the perils of consumer-culture in my Ecology class, I asked my mother what she would say if someone were to tell her that her profession depended upon the evils of selfish materialism.  She responded by saying that, as seen throughout history, humans have adorned themselves with material objects for centuries, and that if produced ethically and sustainably, these objects can provide incredibly valuable commentary about what it means to be an individual in this world. Luxury items can be expressive and creative. They are a narrative of the individual human condition as well as a reflection of vast societal trends.


When considered in this light, fashion is unbelievably powerful. Take Yves Saint Laurent for instance, whose work, for me, visually narrates our era's trend towards worldly awareness, a positive effect of globalization. Throughout his career, YSL traveled the world and created collections inspired by African(1967), Russian (1976), and Moroccan (1968) dress. In a world quickly westernizing in every other way, fashion provides an outlet where cultural differences/diversities are celebrated and sustained. What some may consider a superfluous, luxury industry, may be the only place where this kind of cultural celebration is ensured to continue!

1.   2 3. 

1. Africa, http://deyoung.famsf.org/

2. Russia, http://picasaweb.google.com/FAMSF1/YvesSaintLaurent

3. Morocco, http://deyoung.famsf.org/

Fashion can also be scientific, in reference to the natural world. Alexander Mcqueen's Spring/Summer 2011 Plato’s Atlantis collection was the product of an intense study of the environment. Inspired by ecology and the theory of evolution, Mcqueen studied insects, reptiles, and sea creatures, arranging them in mathematical tesselation-like patterns across shift dresses. His unbelievable work no doubt inspires an appreciation of the natural world and its beauty - a crucial message in a time where humans are struggling to empathize with the environment.

1. 

1. http://igossip.com/gossip/alexander_mcqueen_spring_summer_2010_show/980228


Also significant to me, is the revived 1950s femininity of Louis Vuitton's recent fall 2010 collection. This "lady-like" trend has caught hold across the board. Even lower-end retailers are selling stock with defined high waist lines, synching belts, silk scarfs and the like. It is fascinating to me that something like this has come out of the belly-bearing-spice-girls-inspired 90s era.  Our trends are retrospective and I think this says something about our social values. Perhaps we are nostalgic for an era of respectful, dignified womanhood. 

1. 

1. http://www.fashionfame.com/2010/06/louis-vuitton-fall-winter-2010-ad-campaign/

Fashion is not a foolish enterprise, but an art form with the ability to embody crucial themes.  Wollstonecraft believes a concern for dress is a frivolous employment, used solely out of a "savage desire for attention," to occupy one's self "When the mind is not sufficiently opened to take pleasure in reflection" (80 & 120). In contrast, I think that fashion (as seen in the preceding examples) is highly reflective, inquisitive, and intellectual. It is a visual exercise to the greatest extent - visual art, architecture and design all rolled into one. It is not always a means of entrapment for women as Wollstonecraft says, but a critical mode of communication and expression.