Class Wrap Up

So, now that we are entering our last week of class, I thought I would do a review of my impressions of feminist philosophy before and after this class. I view the best way of doing this is through a quick Dialogue between my past self (PS) and my current self (CS).

PS: A woman and philosophy class? Is there even enough material on the subject for there to be a class?

CS: Oh of course past self! Feminist philosophy and thought ranges from ethics to metaphysics, to epistemology even! Feminists have written on old philosophers, new philosophers and have developed their own theories!

PS: Really now? I just find it hard to imagine that the simple idea that 'women are equal with men' to be that influential in a lot of philosophy. For example, how can this idea influence logic?

CS: Although I find problems with calling feminism a 'simple idea,' I can talk about that with you later. TO answer your example about feminism and logic, the first feminist philosopher that comes to my mind is Luce Irigaray. She argued that our entire thought process and interaction in the world was influenced by our concept of patriarchy. That implies that logic itself, as well as everything else we can conceive of has been influenced by patriarchy. Although I have issues with her, this does go to show that feminism can discuss issues like that.

PS: That does sound like an interesting theory. However, don't you think that hearing a bunch of feminist philosophers discuss nothing but patriarchy and the role of women in philosophy a bit repetitive and boring?

CS: Not really. Although feminists do discuss this in depth, claiming that the discussion of  patriarchy and the role of women  is repetitive is a vast mistake. Patriarchy and the role of women is not repetitive at all! It is a very big topic that not only affects the modern world, but has influenced the world up to this point. It is like saying that solely discussing history can be repetitive. It is such a broad topic that one could rarely feel it is repeating itself. One can talk about how Hobbes' patriarchal influences affected his  political philosophy and his contract theory, or one can discuss about the feminist ethics of care."

PS: Alright, I am still a bit hesitant on that, but if you are me from the future, then I better listen to you.

CS: Thank you. I also think you will benefit from the professor. He is a bit corny at times, and he will make you work your ass off, but it will be worth it.

PS: Hrmmm. Alright then, I guess I will give it a shot. Now, as someone who doesn't know much of feminist philosophy, what would you say has been your favorite discussion in the class so far?

CS: That is a very difficult question, because feminist thought we discussed has been very broad and we have discussed so much of it. My favorite part of the class would probably be the analysis of Simone de Beauvoir's section on the role of women in myth and ancient history. I enjoyed reading about the role women have played in religion and read up on the 'mystical feminine.' Perhaps I should pose this to the readers of this blog post as well.

PS: Huh? What are you talking about?

CS: Don't worry about it. I just broke the fourth wall. That's all.

PS: I see. Anyways, thanks for the information. I will see you in a bit!

CS: See you!

Failed attempts for Jokes on Sexism

So, I was wracking my brain all week for jokes that are about sexism and sexists, but somehow I seemed to fail. So here are some of my failed attempts

1. Q:What did the Racist ask the Sexist? A: How's the weather?
2. Q: What do you get when you cross an anti-semite with a sexist. A: Someone who is misinformed.
3. Q: What do you call it when an oyster becomes a sexist? A: a CLAMity.
4. Q: What is the funniest part about sexism? A: There is nothing funny about sexism, you sick bastard

This was harder than I thought it would be, however, I did ponder about how one would go about creating such a joke. I view that it would only be possible through use of anti-humor or absurdity, where one is expecting some kind of sexist joke or retort to the question, but instead, get the opposite or a completely random answer. I found it very difficult to make the sexist the butt of the joke, and instead had to revert to such jokes.

Ryan Gosling and Feminism

I am sure many of my readers are familiar with the actor Ryan Gosling. However what some of my readers might not be aware of (although I bet many are) is the fact that Gosling, or at least his image, is currently part of an internet phenomenon "Feminist Ryan Gosling."
Feminist Ryan Gosling is just what it sounds like. Pictures of Gosling from various films and in various positions (often he is some kind of sexy pose) and there is a caption espousing some kind of feminist idea. I find it quite humorous. Gosling is spreading as well to other kinds of topics, my favorite of which is Neuroscientist Ryan Gosling, where his picture is captioned by neurological and psychiatric references .
Feminist Gosling I think is a fun and light-hearted way to raise awareness of the issue of feminism, and with the internet the way it is, it is quite easy to spread such images around. However, my only problem I might potentially see with such a route is that since this is only a very non-serious idea people might not actually take the message of feminism that it IS trying to send seriously. What does the peanut gallery think?

Am I sexist?

This is just a random query that I thought I would address right now. Whenever I find an article I disagree with in my readings for women and philosophy, I always have a fear that if I disagree with them, I would be sexist. I fear that if I do not accept everything feminism says, then I would be accused of not supporting the theory because she is a woman. Do any other people in this class have this issue?

Self-Othering

The concept of the "other" popped into my mind the other day when I was discussing with him how someone can sometimes feel pushed to the fringes of society even though society is not doing that. I find that in a lot of places, when one is in thee vast minority, they instantly begin to feel alienated from the rest, even when the rest doesn't care. An atheist in a christian society, a man at an all woman's college, a homosexual in a school full of heterosexual people. This difference doesn't even need to be public knowledge. They all feel out of place even if the society is accepting of the difference. We keep on talking in class on how Beauvoir says that society and culture is the being that pushes people to the 'other' category, but I think she should have highlighted even more that society can do this just by being there. It can just passively exist and a person could still feel 'othered' even if he shouldn't.

Go rest, young woman.

So, I stumbled upon an old article I read on a physician who used to send young men suffering from some anxiety or depression out west to work as a cowboy pretty much in order to strengthen their nervous system, give their mind time to relax, and have good ol' male bonding. However while doing that, he sent 'hysteric' (AKA hysteric or anxious) women to their beds for his infamous 'rest therapy.' An excerpt about the rest therapy is below:

"While men and women could experience the same neurasthenic symptoms, the different treatments they received reflected cultural stereotypes of the day. The Rest Cure ensured that women remained in their “proper” sphere: the home. Mitchell and his medical peers discouraged female patients from writing, excessive studying or any attempt to enter the professions. Mitchell told Gilman, who underwent the Rest Cure in 1887 during a bout of postpartum depression, to “live as domestic a life as possible” and “never to touch pen, brush or pencil again.” "

However, something that is making me wonder is if these women, who lived in such an environment would have benefited from 'West therapy' like men in those days. I am not sure of this nowadays as well. I am not saying that this reflects on women as a sex, but simply the fact that  gender roles are still relatively strong to this day and women who have been raised into them would dislike the kind of stuff a cowboy would have to do. Although this is only a rough guess and feel free to prove me wrong Overall, the article is very interesting and is worth taking a look at. 

You can find the article here.

A moment of silence for the 'death' of chivalry

As someone who was raised in an old fashioned fashioned family, I was raised with the rules of chivalry ingrained in my head. "The woman should always order first at a restaurant," "Hold a door open for a woman," and"One should always pay for the lady when out with one" are all examples of some of the rules I have picked up throughout my life. I have always viewed this as showing respect and kindness to a woman and I was shocked when I heard that some people regard chivalry as discriminatory. I understand why some rules are sexist and have adjusted accordingly, but does this mean the entire system of chivalry is flawed? I would love to get some female views on this and their takes on chivalry.

Martin Luther and Mother issues.

      In my Psychology of Religion course, we are reading a book called 'Young Man Luther' by Erik Erikson (Very good book, I highly recommend it). The book is a psychoanalytical approach and interpretation of the man Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheranism and the spark that ignited Protestantism, and his life. One quote made me think of this class. Erikson was talking about Luther's Childhood and how both his father and mother used to beat him and how his father also beat his mother.
      "The Roman concepts of law in [Luther's Father's] time helped to extend the concept of property so that fatherhood took on the connotation of an ownership of wife and children. The double role of mother as one of powerless victim to the father's brutality and also as one of his dutiful assistants in meting out punishment to the children may well account for a peculiar split in the mother image. The mother was perhaps only cruel because she had to be, but the father because he wanted to be." (70)
      This brings up many questions in my mind, such as, should the mother be responsible for beating the child when she might have been forced to in order to preserve her own being? In this role, did the dual nature of mother and servant impact the woman's children in any negative way? What kind of stress might a mother who is in this role be under I really thought that it might be interesting to look at this dual role less from a philosophical standpoint, and more from a psychological standpoint and the kind of harm that not only affects the woman, but the child.

Girls night out.

      So, over spring break I went to visit a friend of mine who goes to Mount Holyoke University, an all girls college out near Amherst, for a couple days. While there, I was probably one of the few non-professors on that gigantic campus with a 'Y' chromosome. It mad me feel out of place, being surrounded by women, like I was in the wrong by being here. This was really one of the only times I have ever experienced being a minority group, and I have to say I disliked it immensely. I started wondering if this is how women feel constantly in a male dominated atmosphere. This was also without anyone actually discriminating on me for being a male. I could not possibly imagine what it is like to be in a place, like in a male centered society, where one is actually discriminated against. It takes a lot to live with that, and to think that women have had to put up with this feeling, and in some cases still do! I imagine the same goes for African Americans, or Asian Americans, or anyone. One feels pressured naturally even if there is no active discrimination occurring. Although I cannot say I enjoyed this experience, I would say that it has influenced how I view other groups now.

The impact of feminism?

So, I just took a look at The Modern Library's 100 most important nonfiction books of the 1900s, and not a single one of them were on feminism (except possibly Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own) . None of the readers chose a book on this topic (And unfortunately seemed to focus on Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard), and neither did any of the judges. This interests me because Professor Silliman once told the class that de Beauvoir's work was one of the most important books of the 1900s. As I contemplate the reason why, I can only come to two possible conclusions on why feminism is so overlooked: The first reason is that the equality, or at least perceived equality of the genders is so obvious to the majority of the individuals that they forget that feminism is a relatively new concept. The other reason I can think of is because of sexism in underestimating the impact feminist authors have made on society.

Masculinism Part 2,3, and 4

Continuing on this masculinism philosophy, I will critique the final three principles:

2:All Men are Good.

All Men are able to practice kindness, respect and love.

All Men are redeemable.

When Men practice kindness, respect love and misandry ends.

I have no issue with the first statement. All men (Could probably be changed to all people), are indeed capable of doing good. I disagree with the second and third points however.Not all men are redeemable. Some men I would say are beyond hope. Not many, but there are some genuine sociopaths out there where they psychologically contain. I would change this to 'Most men are redeemable.' The third statement is a bit unclear. To give the author interpretive charity, I will reword this to be "When men practice kindness, respect and love follows, while misandry ends." This I can see as useful. However, I still don't see how these reasons instantly mean all men are good. I would add a statement "Most men are capable of being kind." Finally, I would change the premise "All men are good," to Men as a group have the capability of being good."

3:All Men are Worthy.

All Men deserve kindness, respect and love.

A Man must recognize that he is worthy.

A Man must recognize that all other Men are worthy.

Overall, I like the beliefs behind this, but I would call them too naive. Not all men deserve kindness, respect, and love. Believing that all men are worthy of this is a nice ideal, but there are just some horrible men out there. Therefore, I would change this entire argument to:

3: Most Men are Worthy.

Man should have kindness, respect, and love, until proof shows otherwise

A man must realise and try to acheive his worth

A PERSON must realize that most men are worthy of Kindness, respect, and love.

4: All Masculinists are Dutiful.

A Masculinist internalizes these truths.

A Masculinist lives these truths.

A Masculinist teaches these truths.

I have no argument with these ideas. I might want to make them less constant, but these are only minor flaws.

Tell me if you have any other ideas on what to do with this philosophy, please tell me.

Masculinism Part 1.

So, we often talk about feminist philosophy, but is there a masculinist philosophy? Curious about what I would find, I typed in "Masculinist Philosophy" on google and discovered an interesting website. Now, I am not saying that all masculine philosophy is like this, since I have had such limited experience with it, but judging from what I read, I am a bit skeptical. On the site I found, it listed "The Four Truths and Twelve Principles of Masculinism." I have a few issues with them. I will discuss their first truth and first three principles in this post, and my criticisms of it.

Truth 1: All Men are Men
Yay Tautology! But anyways, the three principles behind this are:

1. A Man’s self declaration makes him a Man.
2. A Man’s thoughts, feelings, words and deeds are always Manly.
3. Therefore, a Man is always a Man.

What does it exactly mean to declare oneself as a man? And if a self declaration makes him a man, then he was not one before this declaration. Therefore, a man could not self declare himself a man since he was not one beforehand. Also, the second statement: "A Man’s thoughts, feelings, words and deeds are always Manly," I find incredibly wrong. I do not hold the belief that all actions or thoughts have a gendered connotation. Compassion is neither male or female, hitting a baseball is not masculine or feminine, and there is nothing gendered about sleeping, showering, eating, so on and so forth.

Although I wholeheartedly disagree with the second principle, The first principle might still be salvaged? Perhaps what This philosophy was trying to state is that when a man self declares himself as a man, it means to say that when a biological male identifies himself with and takes pride in his masculinity, he becomes an 'ideal' version of a man. I think this would be a slightly more defensible version of the principles. I still find problems with it, but it is much more clear. If anyone has any more ideas on making this idea more defensible or wants to critique this, feel free.

Personality and Gender

So, I happen to be a huge fan of a blog called Phillolzophy, which is a site that is written by two women in their mid twenties with philosophy degrees. They try to make philosophy fun and entertaining, and have often succeeded (Some successes include describing reality TV shows certain philosophers would be on, to  a platonic view of orgasms). They just recently posted up an article  on the confusion of personality traits and gender. The example the author gives is when she was at college, her professor chastised her for not being more outspoken in class. The professor then explained that this occurred because women were taught to be small and nonthreatening in public areas. The authors response to this comment went a little something like this:

The author argues that just because someone didn't like to talk in class did not mean that it was because of a forced gender role. She then goes on a tirade about how feminism is sometimes taken way to seriously by a few people. She acknowledges that feminism is good, but has the potential to be over-applied in society (much like any concept that has the potential to be dogmatized can). Overall I agree with her. I think she might be a bit too harsh on feminism, but it is still a good read, and one really should take a look at other posts on the site. They are really cool authors.

Genders and galas.

So, I went to the valentines day gala last weekend (Quite unwillingly) to celebrate the fact that I have yet again managed to avoid the crushing grip of a relationship. In order to occupy my time there, my mind wandered back to my women and philosophy course and I tried to view the gala from a feminist perspective (Yes, I was that bored). I was curious about gender roles in our society and whether or not women and men were allowed to enjoy them or take pleasure in them despite them being stereotypical. Before the dance, some of the girls I was going with were taking their precious time getting ready and it took them over an hour to finish it. They claimed to do this to look pretty and proper. Now, this is a typical stereotype where women take forever to get ready, and I was wondering whether or not it was socially acceptable to further this kind of stereotype if one honestly enjoyed getting ready.
It was the same with the dancing. Some of the men and women were dancing in a manner that asserted their gender. Some men were dancing with the woman in a clearly masculine and dominant manner, while the women danced in a sensual, submissive manner around the men. And once again, everyone seemed to be having so much fun, despite these stereotypical gender roles. I was just wondering if this was fueling the feminist or egalitarian cause and if it was okay to fall into one's gender role if one enjoys it.

Women and Nerds

As a nerd, I feel that it is my duty to try and see what information I can dig up on women in nerd culture. I remember from a long while an interesting article on male privilege and the role of women in the subgroup that I read and tried to dig it up. You can read it here.
After reading this article, I can completely agree that even though the men are stereotyped in places such as videogames and comic books, they do not experience nearly as many negative stereotypes or are objectified as much as women despite how geeks tend to claim they have an open and non-judgemental atmosphere.
In addition, his point that girls in geek culture are first seen as girls and not geeks points to the fact that there is definitelyu not equality in the mix.
Overall, it is a very amusing and informative read. I highly recommend you read it.

Sexist Jokes Part 4

Now, I do acknowledge that there is a time and place for categorization and stereotype jokes. Telling a black joke to a group of Black Panthers would not be very productive. Neither would telling gay jokes at a gay pride event, or a sexist joke at a feminist rally. There is a time and a place for these things which depend on cultural norms and level of intimacy with the audience. If one is with a comfortable audience who understands one's intentions, the stereotype joke can be very humorous and not at all insulting. Same with when one is a different culture. What is treated as acceptable in one culture can be the taboo of another.
I still promote caution when practicing such jokes, but there are times when they can be used when they are socially acceptable.

On sexist jokes part 3

Humor is experienced when we experience absurdity that our minds cannot handle, which cause us to laugh. I talked a little bit about that in my last post. This post I want to talk about what subjects jokes normally discuss. The short answer is everything. If one tries, one can find humor in or from almost any object or situation (the appropriate time or environment for those jokes will be discussed later.). However, this does not particularly help me when trying to defend jokes at the expense of women, since many people don't agree with this.

Therefore, I will try and take another approach. Many jokes make use of stereotypes in order to be humorous (examples: Women talk all the time, Mexicans are lazy, Asians are smart, etc). However, this joke merely makes use of categorization, and many jokes that people find funny use this. For example, many people find political jokes funny and many friends and professors at my campus have made such jokes which people find hilarious (Note, this is probably because I am at a very liberal college, but the point still stands.). To give an even less controvertial topic, we often make fun of people who like certain things or have certain hobbies. People make fun of sports fans, Actors, Jersey Shore watchers, Gamers, or any other kind of thing that can be fit into a category. And when used in the proper place, these jokes can be hilarious. Why is it okay if we make fun of sports fans for cliche stereotypes that is not true of all of them, but not okay to poke fun at women from time to time?

I acknowledge that there is a time and a place for certain types of jokes. And I will discuss this in my next blog post.

In the mean time, thoughts? Critiques? 

Sexist jokes part 2.

Seeing my responses from other people and their strongly negative views on such humor, I think that another post is in order to further explain my views. This post is about why the sexist joke is made in jest without any seriousness and why people should believe this.

 The humor of these sexist jokes (and any other stereotype jokes) in fact spring from such lack of serious content. The humor resulting from the phrase "women should make me sandwiches," which is often used as a sexist joke by people is from this very lack and in fact points out the absurdity in such a comment, much like how sarcasm can point out a comments absurdity. Humor lies with the absurd and unrealistic. 

If I said this joke in any serious manner, there would actually be no humor in it to me whatsoever, since I would be stating it as a perceived fact. By interpreting the joke as something the speaker seriously believes, consciously or unconsciously, undermines the humor to such a joke.

On sexist jokes.

Why don't women know how to ski? 

Because it doesn't snow between the kitchen and the bedroom.

       This joke (as some may call it), is what many people call sexist, hurtful, and demeaning to women. I, on the other hand call it Hilarious.  I love sexist jokes. Now mind you, I would like to call myself a feminist. I wholeheartedly believe that in the right of women to have equality in all endeavors just like men. However, I often take some flak for using them. Personally, I hold the belief that in the right context and used appropriately, a sexist joke can be a good source of humor. 

        I do not believe that a single blog post can explain why I hold this to be true, so for this post, I am going to list my reasoning and thoughts and explain them throughout other posts. So please, if you criticize or wish to know about any of my points, I will probably address them throughout the semester. 

      Point 1: Jokes are used in a non-serious manner and are not meant to reflect a person's point of view.

      Point 2: A very large portion of humor uses exaggerations and stereotypes about individuals and groups of people.
      Point 3: Jokes that play off of stereotypes and exaggerations do have the capability of hurting someone else's feelings or character. Therefore I only use the jokes with people I think will understand that they are only in jest.

I will discuss these reasons later. However, I am curious to hear others' opinions on the matter.

Intro

So...Once again, I have another blog. This one, unlike the other ones, is about Women and Philosophy. Women as philosophers, women on philosophers, and women and their philosophies will all probably be discussed here. So, in order to get started I think I had better introduce myself. My name is Griffin and I am a philosophy and psychology major at MCLA. I like roast beef sandwiches, dusty old tomes, and am generally a fun guy. My posts should be starting up next week. so expect them soon!