5 Things Feminism
stan apps tagged me this 5 things homework; here are my answers:
1. In Chris Kraus' recent novel Torpor, she recounts a scene wherein she and her husband visit the apartment of two german poets, both men, who want to consult with her husband about american poets whose work they might put in their journal. Two things of note happen here. First, the protagonist observes that while the men talk culture in the living room, there are several women in the kitchen with their children. Second, the poets her husband proposes for the jounral are all male, until the protagonist suggests they consider some women artists, and, gaping at her, they find only one: Kathy Acker, who, the narrartor states, has carved out her field of recognition only by severing connections with other women, and going it alone; and that women artists have trouble gaining recognition when working in groups, whereas male groups are, of course, celebrated instruments of high culture in western paradigms. Feminism has helped me to be able to see the a possible center of what's happening in this story to be located, not in the living room, but in the kitchen, physical and metaphorical, where women in groups make cultural filigrees of their own, stories of more interest to themselves and other women. And if you don't come in the kitchen, you won't get a cookie.
2. In relation to one, feminism has helped me to be able to see a group of women walking their babies in strollers, even a group of white women with very buffy strollers, as a center of important cultural happenings.
3. Connectedly, that I am a white woman and must haul this shell around with me my whole life long, feminisms of every sort have helped me to understand. They have taught me never to defend this whiteness nor to attempt to dodge responsibility for what the european peoples, from whom I descend, have wrought here on earth, the men and the women who often bought into the pernicious structures the men created.
4. Thus, surprisingly, feminism has taught me to proceed cautiously and quietly as I am able, so as to enter into the awareness of the greater panoply of being of which I am just a tiny part. Feminism has taught me to live in relation.
5. Finally, feminism has helped me to bleed and smile about it.
tagged: Re, and one thing feminism has not done for me is help me make more friends.
1. In Chris Kraus' recent novel Torpor, she recounts a scene wherein she and her husband visit the apartment of two german poets, both men, who want to consult with her husband about american poets whose work they might put in their journal. Two things of note happen here. First, the protagonist observes that while the men talk culture in the living room, there are several women in the kitchen with their children. Second, the poets her husband proposes for the jounral are all male, until the protagonist suggests they consider some women artists, and, gaping at her, they find only one: Kathy Acker, who, the narrartor states, has carved out her field of recognition only by severing connections with other women, and going it alone; and that women artists have trouble gaining recognition when working in groups, whereas male groups are, of course, celebrated instruments of high culture in western paradigms. Feminism has helped me to be able to see the a possible center of what's happening in this story to be located, not in the living room, but in the kitchen, physical and metaphorical, where women in groups make cultural filigrees of their own, stories of more interest to themselves and other women. And if you don't come in the kitchen, you won't get a cookie.
2. In relation to one, feminism has helped me to be able to see a group of women walking their babies in strollers, even a group of white women with very buffy strollers, as a center of important cultural happenings.
3. Connectedly, that I am a white woman and must haul this shell around with me my whole life long, feminisms of every sort have helped me to understand. They have taught me never to defend this whiteness nor to attempt to dodge responsibility for what the european peoples, from whom I descend, have wrought here on earth, the men and the women who often bought into the pernicious structures the men created.
4. Thus, surprisingly, feminism has taught me to proceed cautiously and quietly as I am able, so as to enter into the awareness of the greater panoply of being of which I am just a tiny part. Feminism has taught me to live in relation.
5. Finally, feminism has helped me to bleed and smile about it.
tagged: Re, and one thing feminism has not done for me is help me make more friends.
posted by tiny-o | 7.10.06
|
0 comments
