“The Prism of Gender” by Catherine G. Valentine(2020)
This reading was my favorite and made me think about all the things around me and how our society has basically almost gendered everything. In the reading Catherine mentions the “pink and blue syndrome”, as she says “This syndrome is deeply lodged in our minds and feelings and is reinforced through everyday talk, performance, and experience. It’s everywhere. Any place, object, discourse, or practice can be gendered.”(p.4) She then goes on into mentioning some examples of how the “pink and blue syndrome” appears throughout our life. I can say this is definitely how I was raised. As a kid I definitely didn’t think much of it or cared but at the same time part of me did without me knowing it at the time. I remember growing up hating the color pink because I saw it as oh it’s a “girly” color because that’s what I was told and I just didn’t like the idea of it being a “girls only” color. In reality it’s just a color though but society made it to where we started to categorize everything into feminine and masculine.
The overall article is challenging the idea of what gender is and how “it’s a human invention which how our society organizes itself and allocates resources.”(p.6)
My question that had me thinking when reading this article was Who started to categorize everything into genders and why?
“Androgynous” by The Replacements
I found that this weeks songs message was very similar to “The Prism Of Gender” message. How everyone is equal and the things you wear and how you act shouldn’t be the defining factor as to if you are a male or female because we are all just humans. We are allowed to express ourselves however we however we chose to do so because that’s our business and no one else.
Key Words: gender, woman, human, pink & blue, girly
“Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism” by Maxine Becca Zinn & Bonnie Thornton Dill (1996)
Once we acknowledge that all women are affected by the racial order of society then it becomes clear that the insights of multiracial feminism provide an analytical framework, not solely for understanding the experiences of women of color but for understanding all women, and men, as well.
(p. 330)
I decided to use this quote out of the text because to me it was saying that we are all being affected by the same problem just at different levels when it should be all at one point(if that makes sense). I had a hard time understanding this text but took in the parts that made more sense to me. Women of color have been fighting to have their voice and ideas heard and to be seen as equal as a woman who’s white. Will that ever happen though? Not only does it talk about women of color but also women of a different class because they as well are being challenged and look down upon.
(sorry for making this short but feel free to comment and help me understand more)
I think your takeaway from “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism,” is spot on. What I learned from that reading is that early feminism was predominantly born from efforts by white women (primarily middle-class) and didn’t reflect the experiences of non-white women in lower socioeconomic classes. In response, multiracial feminist theory suggests we must consider the intersection of race, class, and gender.
If accept bell hooks’ definition of feminism as “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression,” multiracial feminist theory suggests we also have to consider the role of race and class in addition to gender in order for feminism to fully accomplish its goal.
Women of color have been, and, in my opinion, always will be, fighting to have their voices and ideas heard. I say this because many people don’t acknowledge their privilege based on their race, class, gender, and sexuality. People want to turn a blind eye, and this only pushes women of color back to the bottom of the hierarchy.
I think that you post is amazing. Honestly I was the same way about the color pink. I was forced to like pink when I had my daughter because that was the only color my mother in law would buy her clothes. Now that is her favorite color and I just have to live with it. Yes the first text was difficult to understand at times, but I just pushed my way through it. You’re right Androgynous was about but equal but I also sensed freedom in the song. And what I mean by freedom is when you’re ok with being who you are then it doesn’t matter what ⁹people think about what you do. You captured what I was saying in my post both texts and the psong were talking about equality. That is what all people want the ability to be who they want and love who they want without judgement.
Reading your outlook on “pink and blue syndrome”, when you were talking about how you grew up, kind of hit home for me. Not so far as growing up but experiencing it now. I remember buying Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews and my sister told me that she feels as though I should buy her daughter some lip gloss or something feminine because she wants her to be more girly. And it was like a “wow” we really don’t understand how lodged into our minds and our everyday lives the “pink and blue syndrome” is! Without thinking I went ahead and bought her some lip gloss and let me tell you, she is not the lip gloss type of chick lol. I should’ve bought her a skateboard because she is always taking mine.
In kind of a response to your question about who started to categorize gender and why, I really think it was just a marketing technique. I mean girls use to be dressed in blue and boys in pink. It seems like there was some sort of flip somewhere and things changed. Pink was then heavily marketed as a girls’ color. Which just goes to prove the point that Valentine was making about gender being a human invention. We decide what color goes with what gender, what toy or food or hobby. Like you said, society caused us to categorize things into different genders. Probably, in my opinion, to later push sales in specific directions and keep things in a sort of artificial binary.