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Class Readings Response Paper #1
Articles by Sen, Zavella & Gonzales, Lorde
(Sen's in particular was quite fascinating)
(back to
Index)
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This week's readings give a global perspective on the
underrepresentation, poor social treatment, and silencing of minorities
(women in particular). Demystification of cultures and societies is a
necessary first step to eliminating this particular form of abuse.
Studies and social concepts that assume on a "traditional" or "natural"
family are actually engaging in discursive manipulation, rather than
examining a universal truth. Our readings examine social assumptions
through the intersectionality of gender and class (or status).
Sen's article represents an international view into the second-class
status of women. She notes a fact (the ratio of women to men in several
countries), then attempts to explain the issue through the
intersectionality of gender and economic status. She first gives
perspective on the usual, "universal" arguments given on the subject
(the greater sexism of Eastern vs. Western cultures, and female
deprivation as a characteristic of economic underdevelopment), then
notes examples of countries or states that disprove these assumptions.
Through this demystifying of the issue she uncovers potential answers in
the statistics she has, noting that even in countries or states with a
higher disparity in the ratio of women to men there are situations that
seem common to the lessening or increasing of this ratio disparity. She
notes countries or states where women are able to earn an outside income
that is recognized as productive, own some economic resources, and are
aware of the possibilities of changing the deprivation of women do seem
to have a slight lessening in the sex ratio disparity. While she does
not claim that these common elements are the reasons behind differences
in the female/male ratio, she does point out they are thought-provoking
and deserve further study.
Zavella & Gonzales' article reviews how working mothers balance
household maintenance with their husbands and family members, using the
intersections of class, ethnicity, and gender ideology. The article
briefly reviews the current lack of studies on the differences between
patterns of housework sharing in working class and middle class
families, and notes the 'naturalized' misconception that working class
families "mindlessly adhere to patriarchal roles (p185)." It goes on to
portray a working class heuristic that seems far more concerned with the
ever-changing nature of male unemployment, unusual job shifts, and the
difficulty of finding day care, than with 'classic' patriarchal roles. I
also noticed the researchers' names were of an ethnic sounding type,
which caused me to notice something similar concerning the first
article. While this was not brought up in either article I found this
interesting to note, due to my attempting to examine the articles
critically and seeing a potential intersectionality of authors'
ethnicity. I note this since this issue (researcher ethnicity)
indirectly pertains to my closing question, which came to mind after
reading Lourde's article.
Lorde's article explores her outrage at the ignoring and silencing of
women of color in the national discourse concerning the
intersectionality of race, sexuality, class, and age upon the experience
of being female in the United States. She notes the marginalization of
women who are not educated, white, heterosexual, and middle class, and
makes what I believe is her strongest argument: "survival is not an
academic skill (p112)." She strongly feels that in order for true social
change there must be a community of women rather than a careful ignoring
of differences, and adds that white women must educate themselves about
women of color. Unfortunately she also seems to feel women of color have
no need to help white women learn.
While this is probably an overstatement of Lourde's case it expresses
a common frustration I often feel in the social sciences. I'd like to
learn more, I'd like to help work for social change, but who do I ask?
Who do I turn to for guidance if I am not permitted to ask women of
color?
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Class Readings Response Paper #2
Articles by Griswold, Zavella & Gonzales, Gramsci, and Hill Collins
(Gramsci is always thought-provoking, as are Hill Collins' articles)
(back to
Index)
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This week's readings explore the various intersectionalities
available to us for study (many of which are not normally considered),
and encourages us to internalize the understanding that social concepts
(such as 'common sense') are not 'natural' or 'universal,' but rather
merely culturally constructed heuristics that advantage the 'normative'
societal standard within the dominant cultural paradigm.
Gramsci, and Collins in her "Towards a New Vision," clearly
demonstrate the ongoing struggle through time to demystify social
expectations. Their writings are especially poignant when one considers
they were/are both suffering under repressive social conditions --
Gramsci was imprisoned by a repressive fascist regime and Collins is a
black woman in the United States. Admittedly, Collins' case is probably
a little less immediately potentially terminal, but as she herself
notes, institutional oppression does not change the nature of oppression
so much as naturalize it -- so that the same discriminatory structures
are still in place within society that existed previously. She uses as a
comparative example quotidian society examined in the context of the
institution of slavery as experienced in the US in the previous century,
and how this has affected current social symbolism in regards to
accepted social gender ideologies. It is this chronological and shifting
nature, both of oppression and of the struggle to redefine the social
paradigm (society's symbolism) under which oppression continues to
flourish, that she invites the reader to change, by adopting a new
vision. Collins further explores the on-going chronological nature of
discursive argument in "The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture" by
examining the changing definitions of motherhood within the
intersectionalities of US race and class across time.
Griswold and Zavella & Gonzales examine, through differing discursive
lenses, the subject of how working class families function through
difficult economic times. Griswold uses the intersections of fatherhood
and chronology to explore how society's changing views on family through
time (1880 - 1930 in the US) affected the social and individual
conceptualization of fatherhood. He also examines how this
intersectionality affected the approved social expression of 'family,'
as interpreted by the middle class and forcefully projected through law
onto the working class. It is interesting to note that the middle class
conception of fatherhood has little or no understanding of or reference
to the very real shifting economic exigencies faced by working class
families. It is also fascinating to track through time the social
creation of the concept of children as economically worthless but
emotionally priceless beings -- especially since this is a
heavily 'naturalized' social 'universality' today.
The reading by Zavella & Gonzales examines the impact a husband or
other male partner has on the efforts of women to forge a stable
economic situation for themselves and their children. This is not to say
that men do not also engage in this struggle (as opposed to being simply
passive pawns of social forces), so much as to note that the sometimes
greater earning power of a man can make a great difference in families
beneficially reclaiming agency through economic means. The practice of
stabilizing family economies is constantly changing, and women occupy
different roles as breadwinners within the familial paradigm, as time
passes. However, the benefits of having two incomes are clearly
demonstrated by Zavella & Gonzales' study; they note that economic
difficulties suffered by one partner are 'smoothed out' for the family
due to having more than one income to depend on.
This week's readings emphasize the shifting nature of categorical and
social definitions, as expressed through history. It is interesting to
speculate that the modern studies will at some point be useful mostly
for comparative purposes, since once again society's paradigm will have
changed due to the continuous struggle to redefine the cultural
paradigm, even as it affects its members.
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Class Readings Response Paper #3
Articles by Ruddick, Rubin, Novosad, Pharr, Stacey, Fujiwara, and Reeves & Campbell
(Reeves & Campbell demonstrated a wonderfully acerbic sense of humor,
while Stacey's article was quite encouraging in regards to children and
tolerance. Ruddick advanced a new use of the word 'mothering' as a role
rather than a gender [which I think is a step in the right direction]
and, to be blunt, I found Novosad's article chilling)
(back to
Index)
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Gramsciian theory postulates that dominant culture imposes itself on
society's members as the norm. However, he believed those that impose
this paradigm (the ruling classes) are not necessarily the largest
segment of the society's population. Furthermore, while a 'dominant
reading' of any particular heuristic would be the suggested
interpretation which most maintains the status quo, he felt strongly
that audiences are not simply passive receptors. They can refuse any
particular reading, or be oppositional or resistant spectators. By their
very opposition, by their struggle with meaning, they help to shape the
dominant paradigm. Our readings are an excellent example of Gramsciian
theory, as applied to the heuristic "the family" as socially contested
meaning, containing articles that delineate the state's efforts to
legislate what family is (and thereby to prop up the dominant social
paradigm), and also articles which demonstrate both oppositional and
resistant readings of this concept of "family."
According to Gramsci, hegemonic culture is created by the ruling
class attempting to impose their dominant social paradigms on the
classes 'below' them. Reeves & Campbell's article "Reaganism & Family
Matters" demonstrates this heuristic clearly, charting the historical
and modern (re)creation, (continued) naturalization and mystification,
and social imposition of the nuclear family, and the linkage of gender
ideology to explanations of class subordination, on US society through
media and legislation. This idealized 'white middle class' ideal must,
in order to maintain itself as the social norm, recreate itself
ideologically, and negate and refuse alternate readings of normative
social life. Gramsci notes this will create what he refers to as "common
sense" culture -- a cultural understanding which realizes the way we
perceive the world is contradictory and confusing. For example, the
societal picture portrayed by the mass media is emphatically not the
reality experienced by the working class in their native subculture, as
is noted in Rubin's article, "Family Values & the Invisible Working
Class." As Rubin demonstrates, when language and media is used both to
deny the reality of economic dislocation and to perpetuate the American
fiction of a classless society, when the dominant social class refuses
to even notice the statistical facts of working class life, a clear
example of attempted ideological domination is shown. However, Rubin's
article differs from Reeves & Campbell's in that where they demonstrate
the creation of the 'desired' dominant social paradigm, Rubin also
portrays the common sense understanding this split between social
ideology and social fact creates in those that do not fit the dominant
paradigm.
In "Whose Welfare?" (Fujiwara's article exploring the shifting
dynamics between state definitions of the desired hegemonic 'norm,' and
the reality experienced by struggling Asian families on welfare) we see
another example of the state refusing those that do not fit the dominant
social paradigm. Unlike Rubin's economic/class-only intersectionality,
Fujiwara attempts to demystify the cultural (re)creation of the Other
through the intersections of ethnicity and class. While she does not
refer to it as such, she notes the creation in these Asian families of a
"contradictory" consciousness; an understanding that governmental
intervention (or other forms of ideological emphasis) does not have
their best interests at heart. Stacey's article "Gay and Lesbian
Families are Here" also exemplifies this contradictory consciousness
through the intersectionality of gender roles and sexual preferences,
where the children of gay and lesbian parents demonstrate understanding
that their differing life experiences are strongly shaping their
worldviews, potentially offering them a social consciousness that is in
their best interests, not in society's. In both articles this
state of Otherness is also influencing how these individuals view
ideology, reflecting their understanding both that they do not fit the
dominant social paradigm -- and also their refusal, opposition, or
contestation of that very paradigm. Stacey and Fujiwara both demonstrate
this contradictory consciousness as one coping strategy (amongst others)
which these 'non-normative' families use in their struggle for social
meaning.
Another oppositional reading of these competing ideologies warring
over meaning re the family is exemplified by the article "The Idea of
Fatherhood," by Ruddick. According to Gramsci, culture, as stated
previously, can be imposed from above, but is also constantly negotiated
and can be changed from below also, through the hegemony absorbing and
co-opting oppositional elements from society, since people are active
creators and consumers. Ruddick offers such an oppositional reading to
the social concept of fatherhood, refusing the current dangerous social
fiction of the 'classic' provision/protection/authority ideology of
'male dominant/female and children submissive' patriarchy even as she
struggles to articulate a new, competing concept of fatherhood as
nothing more threatening than acknowledged sexual difference.
The Promise Keepers exemplify well the 'classic' fatherhood ideology,
using the preferred religion of the state to justify not only
re-establishment of authoritarian patriarchy within the nuclear family,
but also legislative imposition of these values on society as the
(re)new(ed) dominant cultural paradigm. The two articles on the Promise
Keepers offer conflicting interpretations of this social group. In
Pharr's article "A Match Made in Heaven: Lesbian leftie chats with a
Promise Keeper" she speculates on a potential false consciousness on the
part of well-meaning individuals within the Promise Keepers who are
being cynically duped and manipulated by elements of the upper class, in
order to preserve a mythical golden age of family cohesiveness. This
form of consciousness is not in the best interests of anyone but
the upper class, and her article presents a resistant interpretation of
this social movement. Novosad, on the other hand, in the article "The
God Squad: The Promise Keepers fight for a man's world" does not even
allow for the potential of false consciousness. In her refusal of the
desired social role of the Promise Keepers she casts them as
deliberately seeking to negate and ultimately silence thought that is
oppositional to or conflictive with the current status quo. Thus, while
Pharr portrays the Promise Keepers as individuals who are simply
too-passive receptors of social discourse, Novosad sees the Promise
Keepers as a social movement only -- as the newest implementation of the
ruling elite, struggling to maintain both their privilege and the
current dominant social paradigm. Thus Novosad completes the full circle
in the discourse on Gramsciian theory of ideological war and the
constantly shifting, negotiated social meaning of 'family,' with her
portrayal of the Promise Keepers as both participating in the social
struggle to define 'family,' but also threatening to (re)impose their
ideology through readings that are oppositional to plurality and refuse
discourse.
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Presentation Notes on the Previous Readings
(Notes written so we didn't stammer
halfway through our presentation on our readings. Lots of questions to
encourage class discussion participation -- which worked, I'm glad to
say! :-)
(back to
Index)
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This Thursday's readings nicely epitomize Gramsciian theory, which
postulates that dominant culture imposes itself on society's members as
the norm. However, those that impose this paradigm (the ruling classes)
are not necessarily the largest segment of the society's population.
Furthermore, while a dominant reading of any particular heuristic would
be the suggested interpretation which most maintains the status quo,
audiences are not simply passive receptors. They can refuse any
particular reading, or be oppositional or resistant spectators. By their
very opposition, by their struggle with meaning, they help to shape the
dominant paradigm.
"Common sense" culture is one that understands the way we perceive
the world is contradictory and confusing. For example, the societal
picture portrayed by the mass media is emphatically not the reality
experienced by the working class in their native subculture. How does
Rubin's article, "Family Values & the Invisible Working Class,"
exemplify attempted ideological domination by the ruling class? Does
Rubin account for Gramsci's exploration of "common sense" cultural
understanding?
According to Gramsci, hegemonic culture is created by the ruling
class attempting to impose their dominant social paradigms on the
classes 'below' them. In what way does Reeves & Campbell's article
"Reaganism & Family Matters" demonstrate this heuristic? Do Reeves &
Campbell believe this imposition is accepted unquestioningly by the
'masses,' or do they demonstrate a recognition of how the dominant
social hegemony is involved in a constant struggle for meaning?
Gramsci discusses the impact of competing ideologies, and ideological
wars over meaning. Culture, as stated previously, can be imposed from
above, but is also negotiated and can be changed from below, through the
hegemony absorbing and co-opting oppositional elements from society,
since people are active creators and consumers. What oppositional
readings does Ruddick offer in the article "The Idea of Fatherhood"?
A "contradictory" consciousness understands that our experiences
shape our worldviews, potentially offering us a class consciousness that
is in our best interests. It also influences how we view ideology,
reflecting our understanding that mass media (or other forms of
ideological emphasis) does not have our interests at heart. In what ways
does Stacey's article "Gay and Lesbian Families are Here" demonstrate
the contradictory consciousness which these families are experiencing?
How does Fujiwara's article on welfare explore the shifting dynamics
between state definitions of the hegemonic 'norm,' and the reality
experienced by Asian families? What coping strategies do these
'non-normative' families use in their struggle for meaning?
A false consciousness is that possessed by an individual who has been
ideologically duped into believing the status quo. This form of
consciousness is /not/ in our best interests. It can be argued that the
Promise Keepers are made up of well-meaning individuals experiencing
false consciousness. How does Pharr's article "A Match Made in Heaven"
differentiate this false consciousness from the portrayal offered by
Novosad's "The God Squad"? Does Novosad even allow the Promise Keepers
to potentially be duped but well meaning, or is this portrayal of a
social movement more closely linked to Gramsci's interpretation of the
ruling class impositions of dominant social paradigms?
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Midterm
(The midterm was fairly
straightforward -- some 2 to 3 sentence phrase identification, some
short answer/definitions, and a bit of extra credit. I included this
mostly because it might interest someone, and because I'm pleased to
say I got a 99 out of 100 on it! ;-)
(back to Index)
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I: Identification / Interpretation
1) male mothering: In the article "Mamitis and the Traumas
of Development in a Colonia Popular of Mexico City" Gutman
defines "mamitis" as a disease experienced by children when their
mothers are not physically there for their children on a consistent
basis, which is an affliction suffered less by the children themselves
and more by conflicted mothers (and some fathers) regarding shifts in
their obligations concerning child care, due to recent socioeconomic
transformations throughout Mexico. Gutman uses the term "male mothering"
as a direct and demystifying challenge to the unquestioned, naturalized,
internalized view (expressed in both the colonia popular and in a
few other sources he mentions) that only mothers that do not challenge
social roles concerning gender identities and relations can properly
raise and nurture children.
2) missing women: In the article "One Hundred Million
Missing Women" Sen refers to the women and female children that have
died due to the reduced medical care, food, and social services women
receive in some countries as "missing women." She suggests answers as to
how to "find" these "missing women" may exist in the statistics she has,
noting that even in countries or states with a higher disparity in the
ratio of women to men there are situations that seem common to the
lessening or increasing of this ratio disparity, such as women being
able to earn an outside income that is recognized as productive, to own
some economic resources, and being aware of the possibilities of
changing the deprivation of women.
3) breadwinning: While breadwinning is referred to in several
articles, I've chosen Griswold's "Breadwinning on the Margin: Working
Class Fatherhood" as the clearest example of the historical growth
of the now naturalized, internalized view of father as male protector /
sole provider / possessor of the family (emphasis mine). Griswold
notes coping strategies working class fathers used in balancing the
economic needs of the family (e.g. working children), then illustrates
not only how the state imposition of dominant middle class social
paradigms destabilized the working class view of family and fatherhood,
but also demonstrated a profound commitment to the importance of male
breadwinning / dominance and female economic dependence /
subordination.
4) othermothering: Hill Collins, in her article "The
Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture" defines "othermothers" as
women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities, and
notes they have traditionally been central to the institution of Black
motherhood. She suggests racial-ethnic differences in family formation
patterns and parenting, challenging the dominant culture's stereotype of
the nuclear family and illustrating that the family, regardless of
membership or structure, is an institution that primarily socializes
children and stabilizes adults.
II: Short Answer / Definitions
1) Compare the uses of two different methodologies used while
analyzing family and society (in this case Adiele's autobiography and
Stoler's archival analysis).
Both Adiele and Stoler use written texts to inform their exploration
of family and society; Adiele uses letters, magazines, and newspaper
articles, while Stoler examines historical child rearing texts and
psychological examinations of the issue she investigates. However,
Stoler is limited in her capacity to use either personal experience,
discussion, or interviews by the fact that her prospective interviewees
are all deceased. Her methodology is, of necessity, fact-based,
objective, a deeper exploration of the work of another (Foucault), and
depends heavily upon the intersectional view she has chosen (colonialist
racism and classism) to explore the subject of choice (child
masturbation). Adiele, on the other hand, draws heavily on her childhood
experiences, has personally visited Biafra, and discusses conversations
she had with family members (although these could not precisely be
referred to as interviews). This gives us a more individual, symbolic,
and emotional viewpoint, and offers us Adiele's own hopeful exploration
of a possible future cultural paradigm for both family and society.
2) Okin's introductory essay assumes that the "family" is a
possible site of equality, while at the same time problematizing several
past "solutions" offered in pursuit of equality. Name two such
problematic "solutions" and how two of the course readings correspond by
offering depth and reimagining of the "problem."
The two "solutions" which I will explore in Okin's article
"Families and Feminist Theory: Some Past and Present Issues" are
Chodorow's solution -- that more equally shared early child rearing by
men and women would allow children more similar psychologies, a decrease
in misogyny, and more sexual equality -- and Friedan's solution, from
her book The Feminine Mystique, of employing "help" for family
responsibilities, while engaging in some "meaningful work" or
professional career.
The article which reimagines and more deeply examines both the
problem and the "solution" suggested by Chodorow is Stacey's "Gay and
Lesbian Families are Here," where she notes that single-sex
parenting, which tends to both be more cooperative and egalitarian than
among heterosexual parents and have more nurturant child rearing
practices, is not producing children that are inferior, or even
particularly different. Instead these children seem to have a heightened
awareness (when searching out standards of right and wrong) that the
majority isn't always morally correct, that reason and tested knowledge
rather than pop prejudice is a better basis for belief systems, and that
people of integrity do not shrink from bigots.
The article which more deeply examines Friedan's "solution" is Hill
Collins' "The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture." While
simply hiring someone to deal with family responsibility may work for
white middle class two parent families, this is not an option for many
women of color and single mothers -- they are, in fact, most likely the
persons to be hired, which brings up the problematic question of who
cares for their children? However, Hill Collins does reimagine the
possibility of assistance with mothering and family responsibilities
with her exploration of the concept of "othermothers" -- the women,
often part of a shared community, who assist bloodmothers by sharing
mothering responsibilities.
3) Mukerji concurs with findings in the field of child studies
that "children do not simply get born, grow, and learn how to be adults.
First they learn to be kids [...] They may be naturally young, but are
not naturally children in the way we understand them" (SC. 44) Offer two
ideas of childhood that have been elaborated upon by authors in this
course.
Stoler presents a historical view of the child as the site within
which the struggle to define colonial social hegemony is contested: just
as the bodies and minds of European children represented a
susceptibility to a wide 'politics of contamination,' so the European
cultural home was the site of a range of threatening potential cultural
intrusions. She notes racialized Others are invariably compared to and
equated with children, conveniently providing a moral justification for
imperial policies of tutelage, discipline, and specific paternalistic
strategies of custodial control, and also institutionalizing the racist
belief that civilizing attributes were those in which racial and class
"lower orders" did not share.
Mukerji also explores the social view of child as equivalent to
primitive, using the textual metaphor of Muppet 'monster.' However,
where Stoler's study reveals a nationalist, classist, colonialist
intersectionality in the child rearing methods of the time, Mukerji sees
no such racist theme in her chosen texts. Instead she explores the
apparently gendered nature of experienced childhood (unsurprising
considering the puppeteers are all male), and notes the possibility for
truly vile children does not exist in the Muppets; 'bad' children are
merely in a stage they will grow out of, as exemplified by Oscar the
Grouch and Animal. Her study illustrates the modern 'sacralization' of
children; the naturalization of them as inherently priceless and
good.
4) Discuss Hill Collins' question regarding how to reconceptualize
race, class, and gender as categories of analysis with the following
author's arguments: Stoler.
In her article "Domestic Subversions and Children's Sexuality"
Stoler explores, through close examination of historical texts and other
articles, the Foucaultian view that the issue of illicit child sexuality
was an excuse for the state to manufacture systems of power and control;
but finds this viewpoint alone insufficient to explain the issue when
examined through an international lens. In order to further explain the
historical textual outpouring of concern found on child rearing, she
expands Foucault's intersectionalities to include racist creation of
both the desired 'national body,' and the Other. Hill Collins, like
Stoler, discusses the racist institutionalization of oppression.
However, were we to use Stoler's arguments on Hill Collins' question, we
would have to change methodologies, searching for historical texts that
explored the issue of creation of race, class, and gender as
naturalized. Demystification would occur through further study of some
marginally related social issue which was the occasion for a social
upwelling of middle class concern for the maintenance of the hegemonic
norm (as was the case for the issue of child masturbation in the
1800's). Finally, the individual and symbolic aspects of racism as
viewed through theories of oppression based in dichotomous and
hierarchical thought would be of lesser interest than what historically
and/or colonially based actions the state was taking in order to
continue to institutionalize its own power and control.
III: Extra Credit
Name three television shows analyzed in the class movie Color
Adjustments:
"Julia": according to the black reviewer, an example of the
"white Negro" effect.
"Good Times": according to the black reviewer, an example of a
"ghetto" show where any potential social commentary was defused by the
comedic character of JJ.
"Frank's Place": according to the black reviewer, an example
of a show considered by people of color the best and most diverse yet,
which was nonetheless cancelled because it made white people
uncomfortable.
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