Sigmund Freud even constructed an elaborate theory, based on the female’s discovery of her presumed anatomical deficiencies to explain why females manifest a submissive feminine personality. This theory has proven to be one of the most disposable portions of Freud’s work. As Margaret Mead demonstrated in in her 1935, Sex and Temperament, there is no such thing as innate female or male temperaments.
"Spero created an identity through the acts of borrowing and disguise. In early work, texts as well as images were enlisted from a wide range of sources to express alienation, disempowerment and physical pain. Directly quoting the writing of poet and playwright Antonin Artaud, Spero voiced her anger at being exiled as a female artist to the peripheries of the art world. Spero’s often radical work made strong statements against war, male dominance and abuses of power, presenting compelling arguments for tolerance and a non-hierarchical society. Yet her work was never simplistically utopian. ‘Utopia, like heaven,’ she once remarked, ‘is kind of boring.’---Read More:http://museumpublicity.com/2011/03/04/serpentine-gallery-opens-survey-of-work-by-nancy-spero/
Studying three New Guinea societies, Mead discovered that in one, the Arapesh, women did indeed exhibit those temperamental traits of passivity, tenderness, and unaggressiveness that Western society has associated with the innately feminine. On the other hand, so did the men. In a neighboring tribe, the Mundugumor, the males exhibited the traits of egotism, boldness, and aggressivity that we have long associated with the innately male. So, however, did the women. In the third society, the Tchambuli, the masculine traits were exhibited by the women and the feminine traits by the men. Mead drew from this a self-evident conclusion: Standardized personality differences between the sexes are… cultural creations to which each generation, male or female, is trained to conform. Read More:http://homepage.smc.edu/delpiccolo_guido/Soc1/soc1readings/sex%20and%20temperment_final.pdf a
---Between 1973 and 1980 Cosey Fanni Tutti (born Cosey Newby, 51) modelled in over forty pornographic magazines, as a form of performance. Her goal was to ‘become one of the girls’ and appeared on many Z cards making a name for herself within the industry. Her goal was to push the boundaries of feminism by adopting this challenging role. Cosey Fanni Tutti took part in an exhibition for Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and until then remained unknown as a performance artist in the pornography world until the exhibition Prostitution was opened in 1976. Her images are that both of glamour and passion; infiltrating the pornographic industry as a means to assume another identity in the push for equality.---Read More:http://stephnewman.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/page/2/
In addition, the link between mothers and their offspring; the maternal, natural instinct or sense of fulfillment in tending children that explains and justifies the female role within the family can only be described as tenuous. To Mead, there were societies in which hardly a trace of maternal instinct appeared. In one of the New Guinea tribes she studied, the women looked on their maternal role with unconcealed repugnance, and the rare woman who was motherly toward her children was treated with scorn. More striking were the Mbaya, studied by Claude Levi-Strauss. They look with such disfavor on motherhood that they employ a partial substitute for sexual reproduction: Mbaya warriors captured young prisoners and adopt them as children.
Sarkeesian:Tuesday night’s season premiere of Glee may have been one of the most offensive hours of television I’ve watched in a long time. It seemed like every minute or two they would make another sexist, racist or homophobic joke. I was afraid Glee was going in a bad direction after the first few episodes of season one but none-the-less I kept watching. I understand the popularity surrounding Glee because it’s a fun show with silly over the top characters, and I’m kind of a sucker for musicals, however the offensive stereotypes masked in humour as well as continuous tokenizing has taken it’s toll. The season two premiere had me enraged. Glee is a show that stars mainly white characters with a secondary cast of token “minorities” which is illustrated by the fact that only the white cast members were featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. The show is notorious for tokenism. It does so by including a limited number of individuals from oppressed groups to make a TV show (or workplace) “feel” more inclusive while maintaining the status quo. In this case the status quo is white and heterosexual. Token characters are usually relegated to a secondary or sidekick role. In Glee, nearly all the secondary characters are tokenized even as the writers attempt to cover it up by “special episodes about –insert oppression here–”....Read More:http://www.feministfrequency.com/2010/09/top-5-problems-with-glee-season-two-premiere/
There is a universal fact: few human societies have considered the link between females and their offspring so natural or so fulfilling that they have neglected to teach females that motherhood is their duty and their destiny. Indeed, the more civilized and affluent a society becomes, the more insistent this training is likely to become; for the richer the world grows in the range of its activities, the greater is the temptation of females to desert the household sphere.
Cosey Fanni Tutti:It’s an experience and an exploration of what it’s like to be manipulated or what it’s like to have sex with no emotion and make sure the angles are right so the photographs can be taken. And to know that at the end of it someone is going to pick up the magazine or watch the film and masturbate or really get off or just have a good laugh… that whole subject is a minefield of possibilities. I’ve been put in feminist shows which retrospectively I don’t mind because Feminism now has a different definition for me. In the 70s Feminism was basically all about knocking men and I had nothing against men, I adored men – I still do. What I have a thing against are people who try to compartmentalise and separate us all the time. I have a problem with misogyny, sexism – I come across it all the time and that annoys the life out of me the same way the class system does. It’s just another division of people, one-upmanship based on nothing at all. Read More:http://www.wheelmeout.com/4_13.php
There is much basis to conclude that males engage in a concerted effort to maintain their dominance. It was Kate Millet who coined the term “sexual politics” which described different designations and contrivances that males use to keep females subordinate under the phrase, novel at the time, of “patriarchal government” , a form of nominal equality- “reformed patriarchal society”- where the female is often a conduit for the transfer of property and other assets to succeeding generations. At the heart of this is the near sacred taboo of family; promoted tirelessly by religious institutions and secular leadership alike. At issue is the abolishment of the family unit and all its legal and moral distinctions which are oriented as economic levers: issues such as fidelity and adultery would cease to have any meaning. The notion of god, or the belief in god which underlies the all, backed by the Federal Reserve bank would be redefined or discarded. All relationships would be replaced by voluntary associations. The limits of reform are indeed very limited. This concept, cooked up by Warren Buffett of “giving” his money away does not advance anything; the ideal would be to remove his money from circulation. To delete it down some rabbit hole so that it disappears. If the white male patriarchal society was destroyed, replaced by a true equality, the conclusions drawn regarding money, banking and economics would differ widely from current practices.
Obviously,
re are two assumptions which are inconclusive. One is the notion that women must have children. An essential attribute of the human world is permanence. Do women need to sacrifice a portion of their individuality for the sake of the human world’s survival? The result would be deflation and a form of economic contraction and collapse. Is that such a bad idea? What are the limits of duty to the species?
ADDENDUM:
Cosey Fanni Tutti:I don’t recognise any of it, I genuinely don’t see male and female in humanity, I just see humanity and everyone is equal. It confuses me that people can actually think one human being is more worthy than another; I can’t figure that out.
From a personal aspect, my artistic criticism and analysis of [working in the sex industry] could go on for years. I’m engaging with it now in a totally different way because when you’re in there you don’t see it the same way as you do when you’re outside.Read More:http://www.wheelmeout.com/4_13.php a
"And while some people might call looking at nip slips a little mindless fun to drive in the viewers HuffPo desires to influence politically, Amanda isn't having it. The problem is that people really do care about nipples. They care so much about nipples that the Huffington Post devotes pages and pages of photographs to them when women accidentally (or, you know, against their will) reveal them to the public. In that way, there's no difference between the religious conservative who is scandalized by a bare breast popping up in the middle of his football game and a liberal Web site which devotes its resources to naked chicks. A woman's body part is a priority. Real women's issues, not so much. Somehow, "Come for the nipples, stay for the feminism" doesn't seem quite right to us either.---Read More:http://jezebel.com/#!5284828/does-the-huffington-post-use-sexism-to-drive-liberal-page-views
Anita Sarkeesian:Oscar season is a time when members of Hollywood are celebrated and reward for the work that they do. But it is also a time when we see just how male centered the movie industry really is. As Allan G. Johnson points out, “If you want a story about heroism, moral courage, spiritual transformation, endurance, or any of the struggles that give human life its deepest meaning, men and masculinity are usually the terms in which you must see it,” and since the vast majority of Hollywood films are about these narratives then that might explain the overabundance of stories about men’s lives….
---Heather Graham's breasts double as weather report. I like this, because it reminds women that if they ever make a mistake by misjudging the temperature, or not realizing that their dress would go sheer under bright camera lights, or underestimating the power of HuffPo's "NSFW zoom," they will be held accountable for their crimes. In case you're curious, the poll asks, "Who would you most want to be in this picture?" The guy holding her butt is winning.---Read More:http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/06/11/huffington-post-continues-nipple-parade/
…Here are a few simple questions to keep in mind next time you watch a movie, to help you identify whether the story you are watching is male or female centered.
1. Who has the most screen time?
2. Whose perspective do we see the scene from?
3. Whose story arc does the plot revolve around?
4. Do we see them make decisions?
5. Who do we most identify with? Read More: http://www.feministfrequency.com/
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