rshapiro@arris.com (Richard Shapiro) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr8.175404.9017@aero.org> Marc.Ringuette@DAISY.LEARNING.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >jeanne@mica.berkeley.edu (Jeanne Dusseault) writes: >> The role of various representations, i.e. photographs, films, >> advertisements, is constructing what we know as reality. Since >> reality can be known only through the forms that articulate it, there >> can be no reality outside of representation. With its synonyms, truth >> and meaning, it is a fiction produced by its cultural representations, >> a construction solidified through repetition. Representation, hardly >> neutral, acts to regulate and define the subject it addresses, >> positioning them by class or by sex, in active or passive relations to >> meaning. Over time and constant repetitions these positions become >> fixed and acquire the status of identities and of categories. Hence >> the forms of representations are at once forms of definition, means of >> limitation, modes of power. >This is the most opaque paragraph I've read for many months. Please >try to be more clear! Don't hide behind words! I think Ms. Dusseault's paragraph is perfectly clear, though I'll admit it's somewhat densely packed. I'm including it in this response quite deliberately, and for this reason: the general discourse on this particular subject (gender identity, media and representation) has been *incredibly* naive. The group really needs to be reminded periodically of more substantive approaches, as neatly summarized above. No one is "hiding behind words" (whatever that means); but plenty of people are wasting time reworking arguments that were superceded in the literature years ago. If you have never opened a physics book, would you be submitting articles to sci.physics? Would you be annoyed if you *had* read a few books, and all the submissions to the group came from people who had never heard of Newton or Einstein? Well, that's what soc.feminism is like these days. A tremendous of amount of thinking about feminism has already been done, and a lot of it has been published for your benefit. Yet no one on this group can be bothered to read any of it! Soc.feminism could be a very valuable resource for learning. It isn't right now precisely because too few of its contributors bother to study *anything* about the relevant topics. Jeanne Dusseault seems to be an exception to this rule. We need more such "opaqueness" -- much more.
marla@Eng.Sun.COM (Marla Parker) (04/11/91)
In article <1991Apr9.143339.2651@arris.com> rshapiro@arris.com (Richard Shapiro) writes: >Soc.feminism could be a very valuable resource for learning. It isn't >right now precisely because too few of its contributors bother to >study *anything* about the relevant topics. Your point is well taken. It would be more useful though if you included some suggested texts for reading. Everyone keeps saying "this isn't feminism 101!" and I agree, but for those of us who are not planning to go back to school or even take a correspondence course, it would be nice if the reading list for feminism 101 were posted somewhere. -- Marla Parker (415) 336-2538 marla@eng.sun.com
jls@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Jim Showalter) (04/13/91)
>Soc.feminism could be a very valuable resource for learning. It isn't >right now precisely because too few of its contributors bother to >study *anything* about the relevant topics. Jeanne Dusseault seems to >be an exception to this rule. We need more such "opaqueness" -- much >more. Some of us don't bother to quote feminist tracts because we've read enough of them to conclude that they're largely a crock of shit. To wit, I categorically reject Susan Brownmiller's contention that all men are rapists (this is JUST as bigoted and hateful a statement as "all blacks are shiftless"), and Dworkin's contention that all pornography is violence against women. I might start reading feminist stuff again if anyone could convince me that it had improved to the point where it was no longer offensive, bigoted, biased, hateful, defensive, shrill, humorless, unsupportable, gibberish. -- * The opinions expressed herein are my own, except in the realm of software * * engineering, in which case I borrowed them from incredibly smart people. * * * * Rational: cutting-edge software engineering technology and services. *