From watching the video game Gone Girl played on Youtube, I really enjoyed watching the video game played as well as the storyline. When I first started watching the video game being played, it kind of gave me a sense of crime solving because of everything being picked up and examined at a closer look and the distressed voicemail left on the answering machine. There was documents, boxes and other items laid out that gave the impression that the house seemed to be abandon at the last minute. As I continued to watch, I started to notice that there was this disconnect between the family that really took a tool on everyone after moving into their new home. However, despite the disconnect and the weird/creepy vibe of the game, Sam journal does offer an interesting yet meaningful depiction of her personal life. The love story between Sam and Lonnie was amazing to watch and see the transformation of their relationship.

Upon reading this week’s reading material, I found one quote that I think really sets the scene when it comes to Sam and Lonnie relationship and the ups and downs they went through. The quote from “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action by Audre Lorde states that “We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definitions, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness the weight of that silence will choke us”. I think this relates to the game because it shows that even though their parents weren’t accepting of their sexuality, their love for each other never stopped growing.

A couple ideas I would like to explore in my research essay would be economics and pay inequity, Reproductive justice and sports. I want to explore the differences and similarities of women and men in these topics and explain ways that we can improve or better society or individuals when it comes to discussing these topics.

Resources:

Lorde, A. (2017). “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” (1977). University of Pittsburgh Press EBooks, 302–305. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt5hjqnj.51

This week’s readings are Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference by Audre Lorde and The Combahee River Collective Statement. In Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, Lorde talks about how different people’s perspective and ideologies on age, race, class and sex and how these different perspectives and ideologies of these topics can create conflict, mis-information and skepticism. Lorde talks about each topic in detail by stating the problem, people’s perception and idea of the problem and how it effects women and women of color. In The Combahee River Collective Statement, the reading talks about four main topics: The genesis of contemporary Black feminism, what we believe, the problems organizing Black feminists, and Black feminist issues and practice. This reading goes into great detail about each topic and how it effects Black feminist and women of color.

One thing that both of these readings have in common is they both highlight the oppression that surrounds women of color. For example, in the reading Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, the reading states that “In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who through systematized oppression can be made to feel surplus to occupy the place of the dehumanized inferior”. The reading continues on to state that “Within this society, that group is made up of Black and Third World people, working-class people, older people and women”. In The Combahee River Collective Statement, the reading states that “The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking”. the reading continues on to state that “As black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face”.
Two quotes I found interesting from Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, are : “Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation”. Another quote is “Racism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance. Sexism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over the other and thereby the right to dominance”. There were also two quotes that were confusing to me as I was understanding this week’s reading material. Those quotes are: “Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people”. The other quote states that “Unacknowledged class differences rob women of each others’ energy and creative insight”.

I think the song Four Women (1966) by Nina Simone relates to Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference by identifying the mis-naming of Black women. In the song, Nina states multiple times what her name is, however each time, she names a different name such as Aunt Sara or Sarah, Sephronah or Saffronia, sweet thing or peaches. in the reading, it talks the mis-naming of black individuals as well as Black women. the reading states that “Those of us who are black must see that the reality of our lives and our struggle does not make us immune to the errors of ignoring and misnaming differences”. The reading continues on to state that “Differences between ourselves as Black women are also being misnamed and used to separate us from one another”.

Key Words: Ageism, Elitism, Purgatoried

Question: How can better inform the next generation of Black feminism?

The Prism of Gender

By: Catherine G. Valentine.

The Prism of Gender is a very detailed and interesting insight into the history of male and female gender and how people’s perceptions of gender, sex and sexuality has essentially become unchanged of how they view gender and sex. I think the overall point Catherine Valentine was trying to make in The Prism of Gender is that gender has always been this stigma of a male/man and female/woman; males present masculine tendencies and have dominant male characteristics such as playing in rough sports, working in dangerous jobs and being the provider for their family; females present feminine tendencies and are looked at as someone who is valued and treated differently and unfairly than a man, someone who can’t do what a man has done for many centuries in this country and their only duty is to take care of the children and do house hold chores.

One important point that stood out to me that Valentine mentions in the Prism of Gender is when she states that “We refer to the American two-and-only-two sex/gender/sexuality system as the pink and blue syndrome (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009). 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. Children’s birthday cards come in pink and blue.” (The Prism of Gender, p.4). This statement Valentine makes made me think of all the birthday’s I had as a child and the toys, objects and other material things I had as a kid and how everything I wanted, I wanted it in the color blue, such as having my entire room painted in blue, the Lego’s I played with were blue, my clothes, shoes, were mostly blue. Now, you may be wondering well that’s no coincidence, you favorite color is blue. Yes it is, but every memory or birthday I can remember as a child has always been the color blue which I think represents the stigma that me being a male or boy in this case, the color blue represents a male gender.

Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism

By: Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill.

Zinn and Dill in Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism talk about how women of color are treated differently not only because of their gender but also because of their race and how that transpires in a male dominated world. I think the overall point that Zinn and Dill were trying to make in Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism is that there are other social factors that have a different influence on females. One of those factors that Zill and Dill list is race.

One of the things that stood out to me was multiracial feminism. Zinn and Dill state in their writing that “Multiracial feminism asserts that gender is constructed by a range of interlocking inequalities what Patricia Hill Collins calls a “matrix of domination.” The idea of a matrix is that several fundamental systems work with and through each other. People experience race, class, gender, and sexuality differently depending upon their social location in the structure of race, class, gender and sexuality. Multiracial feminism also examines the simultaneity of systems in shaping women’s experience and identity. The matrix of domination seeks to account for the multiple ways that women experience themselves as gendered, raced, classed, and sexualized. Multiracial feminism emphasizes the intersectional nature of hierarchies at all levels of social life. Class, race, gender and sexuality are components of both social structure and social interaction.” (Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism, 326, 327).

The connection between The Prism of Gender and Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism is that both readings discuss gender and how males and females are treated differently when it comes to different social outcomes. On one hand, you have gender being discussed in how specifically Americans define gender and the different concepts and tools they use to differentiate males from females. On the other hand, you have gender being looked at from a racial standpoint and how it affects women of color.

Keywords:

Kaleidoscopic, Dichotomy, Transvestism

My Question to You

What is your take on how gender is defined in western countries, specifically in America? Do you think gender is still taught in today’s society?