Star-finding, trailblazing, observing, discovering, learning and most of all, encouraging and urging the female pursuit of traditionally male academic fields of study...and some other things as well.
Random dudes. This may not apply here. Just dudes. It's relevant to the quote.
"Sexism has always been a political stance mediating racial domination, enabling white men and black men to share a common sensibility about sex roles and the importance of male domination. Clearly both groups have equated freedom with manhood, and manhood with the right of men to have indiscriminate access to the bodies of women."
Could this be any more true? This homie-cliquing observed between men of different races may appear subversive on racial terms but only reinforces conservative notions on gender.
Like Public Enemy said, "Can Truss It".
In this patriarchal world, it seems that any woman who hones and focuses on anything more than having sex appeal is dismissed as immature, boring, less female and unattractive. The very basis of this form of female subjugation demands the display of skin for the purpose of enticing a male gaze.
This kind of attitude is not hard to miss and I see poor teenage girls falling prey to this shoddy ideology, dressing in ways that do not fit their age and spending more time being attractive for boys than channeling energy into excelling at sports and academics, thinking about what potential career paths are fitting for their particular personality types.
The world we inhabit encourages girls to grow believing that their worth is measured by their appearance and, of course, ideological state apparatus' such as the media, family, and even religion has women thinking that they should work over-time at improving their looks. Once for wearing loose jeans, I had someone inform me that I was "selling myself short". Imagine that. Really? Not reaching my full potential is not achieving my goals. The last time I checked. My goals did not include wearing life-sapping skinny jeans that cause itching, sweat and blocked follicles that may result in rash for the sake of looking good.
These pressures put on women is one reason I was compelled to read 'The Beauty Myth' by Naomi Wolf last year which, though exaggerated and focused more on the plight of white, middle-class women in North America, struck a major chord in my mind.
The lack of coverage of female sports is, without surprise, also a consequence of this line of thinking. Without a sexist gender binary in place, women's sports would be taken just as seriously as males. This article at Gender Across Borders explains the link between this phenomenon and sexism quite well.
Looking at how minimal the numbers of female graduates and tenured professors in science-related professions may be a discouraging factor for girls who display interest in the field. But there is also a level of socialisation that comes into play. Gender performance expectations sway some women away from fields that encourage the advancement of logical thinking skils such as engineering and the sciences.
The discrimination that women face through micro-aggressions delivered by male colleagues and superiors in the process of climbing the academic ladder sometimes also proves too much for some women and they crack under pressure.
I have to say that I can give personal accounts of shady behaviour from a tenured professor who is being considered for the Head of the Physics department making outright chauvinist remarks in a physics class where men outnumber women to even getting too friendly with female students. Now, there are boundaries that need to be maintained in the academic arena and to me, efforts to point out gender difference in a way that knowingly undermines female ability within a specific course of study is undoubtedly sexist. But this same professor claims that he will "not change" which brings to light another element of why women and girls could find themselves giving up on the pursuit of scientific excellence: run-of-the-mill douchebags that seem to have personal issues with members of the opposite gender.
These attitudes may stem from the common tendency in society to devalue all female qualities that remain disjointed from her physical appearance. Female intelligence is non-physical and for reasons that operate in the interests of a patriarchal value system must be dismissed without further discussion.
In a professor who makes passes at his female students, there is a chauvinist who seeks to strip a woman of any pride she may have at pressing hard at academic pursuits to nothing more than a female body that is or should be desired.
This also leads to the notion of expectations. It's beel long proven that the child that succeeds is most often the child who is expected to succeed. I saw this in my own life. Teachers at my high school, female of course, saw potential in me and on a deeper level, I made it my mission to live up to that greatness that they believed I could reach. When those around you anticipate your inability or failure, you, depending on how thick your skin and how firm your character, may easily lose sight of your goals and slip into the role those around you expect you to play. It takes a conscious reminder to oneself that external expectations are not the ultimate definer. A person incapable of defining themselves will give way to the opinions of others and become a product of their environment. This dynamic may occur with female students in science-related fields. You come into the game as a pariah and get treated as such. Without proper guard, self-doubt can seep in as a result and a downward spiral begins which would not have started had the work environment not been so exclusionary and pessimistic to the presence of a woman in the first place.
Women have made outstanding contrubitions to the science over the span of decades but the dismissal and sexism of our male counterparts has held us back in tremendous ways. Patriarchy breaks down at the point when men acknowledge the fact that their dominance over the lives and bodies of women does not define their worth or power. Until this fallacy breaks, the struggle to recognise female intelligence in male-dominated academic fields will continue.
"Her attacker acted like an animal who wanted to kill, strangling her with barbed wire; “I thought he was going to kill me; he was like an animal. And he kept saying: ‘I know you are a lesbian. You are not a man, you think you are, but I am going to show you, you are a woman. I am going to make you pregnant. I am going to kill you.” The attacker was known To Gaika, a neighbor."
These words spoken to a young lesbian woman while she is being brutally raped by a man who has beef with the fact that she is a woman who is not heterosexual, who does not conform to the so-called prescribed gender roles that society dictates and who is simply expressing the person she truly is. For this she must suffer.
It's obvious, I don't have to call out the blatant misogyny here. This is about power, it's about reifying male dominance in a patriarchal society. Nothing more, nothing less. South Africa and much of Africa is still very far behind when it comes to embracing progressive notions on gender, gender identification and sexual orientation. Most of this nation's citizens still seem to be under the impression that there are set roles that men and women should play which under no circumstances should be violated. Stuck in the Dark Ages and failing to rise to a new level.
Seems Karrine Steffans of Confessions of a Video Vixen fame has a young protege of her own. A young woman called Kat Stacks who has, as did Steffans hersself, entwined herself in numerous broiling sexual encounters with some famous rappers - Nelly, Bow Wow, the Young Money clique including their most successful member, Lil' Wayne and others she refuses to name in the video below in lieu of the imminent release of her very own tell-all book on the ways in intricacies of the life of a hip hop groupie. Whether she is doing it for her own financial gain or for her own personal empowerment is not something I can make proper judgements of. She is entitled to revel in a very basic human right called "freedom of speech" in whatever vernacular and with as many cuss-words as she so wishes.
This violent repurcussion from two of Bow Wow's crew members should come as no surprise. We should expect this sort of ire to emanate from a disgraced young rapper who feels, living in a society steeped in patriarchy, that as a famous and somewhat monied recording artist he has earned the right to as much "hot pussy" as he wishes to get without having to suffer the public humiliation brought forth by the blatant telling of his bedroom antics. All this including an admission of his palpably insufficient girth from any groupie with whom he may have copulated with i.e. Madame Stacks. Rappers of this variety aspire to reach a position in which their status will afford them easy access to submissive and willing women. They know that without the power that fame affords them, they are next to nothing and are relegated to the status of ordinary men who believe they must endure great pains and lengths just to get laid. Yet I feel that it is so much more than this. That this is a power-game and the sex is purely transactional. Groupies are paid for the power that these men are afforded in commanding control over these women sexually. It clearly does not end at that. Some groupies wish to earn a further and more lofty pay-off for their stories through book deals or cash settlements as a way of ensuring silence.
Surely, the boys who approached Kat Stacks in the club should know this by now. There is no keeping a groupie silent in this day and age without ignominy or a collosal decrease in one's bank balance.
I completed my reading of "Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism" by the ever-powerful bell hooks. Brilliant. Okay. In speaking about the Black feminist movement that his its roots in the 19th century with women such as Sojourner truth who gave this gut-wrenching, spirit-lifting speech with this extract:
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Reading it called me to question the underlying message behind images such as these (by the fiercely bold and original David LaChappelle who I admiringly paid tribute to in an earlier post).We have Outkast surrounded by a pool of Black completely naked women lying them in positions of worship and submission to their "male power" in the first one and in full sexual servitude as each of them lies on the floor, on all fours (as an animal) with their asses up to the ceiling.
I have to ask, does it get any more misogynistic than this? This is the worst kind of depiction of black women and it continues to the point that it raises no sufficient protest in the mind's of viewers. We are all accustomed to portrayals of black women as lascivious, wanton, immoral, sexual tools i.e. hoes. No wonder black women clearly encounter problems in their interactions in daily-life. It is difficult to establish yourself as an intellectual and thinker when the media wants to reduce you down to nothing more than your genitalia. Your purpose for breathing - nothing more than to serve men sexually.
Hey, hey, hey with a history like America has in which black women were their to bear the brunt of white European males psychosexual confusion and misogyny through continuous rapes and utilisation of the black woman's womb for the economic gain (slave-labour) which only reinforced the ideas about black women that society currently embraces. I find it tragic that black men have sought to imitate this very exploitation of the black female form as did white men during the era before Reconstruction. Yes, those days are over but have the practices ended. Clearly not. Statistics will tell you that. Some think it's all fun and games. Yey, let's sexualize black women in images - afterall "sex sells" right. Yep - it sells darling. At the expense of other people's dignity. What a rotten system of capitalism we operate under that serves only the interests of the individual crushing the dignity and humanity of those needed to be exploited for the other person's upliftment.
Got my chance to have a say about my opinions on gender-relations in the Varsity Newspaper and here it is online. So I am satisfied about that not for the stimulation of my ego but rather to offer university students a better clarification of feminism so that the stereotypes of angry, under-sexed, done-wrong, hard, butch, man-hating and power-hungry "bitches" will dissolve somewhat.
I attended a panel discussion during last week on the topic of "Masculinity in South Africa". I was glad to hear strong mention of a deeply entrenched white-supremacist (imperialist) patriarchal masculinity by all three of the panelists with one even making mention of the notion that "masculinity is made" i.e. socially constructed and a result of condition. The kind of masculinity she was making reference to of course that which feeds off of conquest, power and domination. The final panelist was also profound in conveying how this same white-supremacist patriarchal masculinity has embedded itself in our history. How we are made to admire the European colonial style of seizing power of weak natives and that this is the model we naturally wish to follow in order to gain a feeling of satisfaction with ourselves. This reminds me of a quote from Nineteen Eighty-Four in which O'Brein tells Winston, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever". That's it..."Power is not a means, it is an end" which is also another quote from the book. It's all its about, that's all it's ever been about. One does not gain power for any other purpose than to satisfy themselves with a sick feeling a contentment. In closing, the panelist left us with the thought that we should continue to think critically about our history and not let history ride over us. If we never question how whites came to dominate the way they do, we'll never understand our the power-structure, economic-system and social-heirarchies. Why some people have it easier than others. History can not be divorced from the present. History has shaped our present and trying to forget about it will not make it's influence on today disappear.
But I still find this one interesting. The Deputy Editor of Varsity in the usual Editor's Comment section writes this:
If someone is against abortion, homosexuality and disagrees with feminism then that is their right and they should not be adversely judged or treated for believing it. The world, indeed liberals need more people who adhere to the bible saying that says “let those who are without sin cast the first stone”.
Now although I agree with the notion of letting people be and not interfering with their personal right for individual expression, I have got to say that underneath Tatenda's self-righteous veil, he is practicing a very common habit patriarchal males struggle with and that is defending male privilege. Anyone who disagrees with feminism is simply defending male privilege and chauvinistic ideas.
Enough about that, during gender week three large boards were placed up at the Jammie Plaza one with the words gender week, another with a female figure and another with a male figure. With this, people were asked to write about their thoughts about gender and as you would expect the boards were cluttered with obscene, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic remarks aplenty. No surprise, are young people expected to have any morsel of maturity in a discussion of this nature. As consumers of highly sexist forms of entertainment what more would you expect aside from the usual sexualized trash when it comes to the topic of the gender-binary.
Yeah, she's dope. Yeah, I love her. Yeah, she inspires me. What upsets me to the core is all of those patriarchal sexist buffoons who feel it necessary to make sniding remarks about the way she looks. There have been many and it will not end. We live in a world that defines a woman's worth based on her looks. Courtesy of a male relative, I was given the information that this notion also has deep roots in the Christian faith. He told me that Jesus was apparently a very unattractive man and that this meant simply nil. His ministry still had great power and anointing because of his charisma and other positive attributes. And that Esther's beauty was her "gift" and that she was the "most beautiful woman to ever live". So these obviously sexist ideas that emanate from the Bible seem to have my brother thinking that there is an obvious Biblical justification for the assertion of a rigidly defined gender-role system. Where it is the male's job to hold power and the woman's job just to sit around looking pretty. And in this, he probably sees no problem with objectifying and sizing a woman's value up based solely on her looks, ignoring other qualities that may not be aesthetically visible.
The Bible is full of patriarchal messages no doubt about that. But the sadness in all of it is that those who believe in the absolute divinity of the Bible follow suit according to the ideas presented and refuse to accept any form of revolt because this kind of thing would yield one as a doubting Thomas. A person "possessed" enough to question the word of God.
Coming back to the First Lady of the United States. Who is an exceptional academic, scholar, mother and human being. These men know that she is lightyears ahead of them intellectually, morally and characteristically. The closest they can get to attempting to satisfy their patriarchal egos is making weak "disses" which are, I imagine, but mere dust beneath this powerful woman's feet.
The ads that are showing up on my page are interesting to say the least. "Ukrainian Wives" up for sale. Mail-order brides are a big deal especially when they come from Russia, Ukraine, the Phillipines and various other countries in the world. Aside from the obvious reasons I can identify that would place a demand on such a woman, the normalization of this trend is profoundly disturbing. Women, of course, being commodified is no big deal. I tried to google the phrase "Ukrainian Husbands" and hardly anything on that topic showed up. In fact, what did show up was a mass of ads for the opposite as well as articles on the topic of mail-order brides. Hmmm. Anyone who tries to argue that our world is no longer sexist needs to open their eyes to small examples such as this one.
The tragedy is that women are all to eager to have themselves objectified because they are trapped in a system that normalizes and condones the sexist treatment of women. As George Orwell portrayed in Nineteen Eighty-Four, when there are no standards of comparison in one's mind, social injustice cannot be seen for what it really is. A dehumanization, a rape of the soul. Unless young girls and boys are shown a better way, they will only perpetuate this rotten system of male domination and female submission in all its forms.
I have always had a latent aversion to this book series. The covers just put me off to begin with. Then their titles. Another thing I may not have noticed, which jump-started my aversion in the first place was the propagation of traditional gender norms upon which every single story line is based.
The books are highly branded and are often in a separate section of bookshops and libraries from the other paperback fiction and romance novels. Common themes are rich, ennobled and initially unattainable males (often of Mediterranean--especially Greek--origin), the desire of a character to have a baby (with this being thwarted by infertility or an unsympathetic husband), and the breakup and mending of a relationship.
Exactly. Why all the brothers have to be of European descent (and moneyed by the way) not only attempts to reinforce a notion that women are mostly in it for the money but also the idea that the heterosexual Caucasian male is the ultimate symbol for status, money and power.
This is why I am so hooked on and thankful for the SWPD blog . The posts are insightful, loaded with truth and universal. The same kind of racism exists almost everywhere. The two most recent posts which address the issue of the stereotype of the Strong and/or Angry Black Woman have brought me so much peace knowing that there are Black women out there who are experience what I do and have just about had enough of being treated in ways that suggest that we are not human like whites are. All I could really say after reading the following comments was "Finally, someone has said it!" And in such a concise, eloquent and dignified way.
For instance, when examining why no one chose to speak up against some of the ironically demonstrative comments toward Black women, Witchsistah notes:
This constant non-defending of BW comes directly from the stereotype of BW not being "real" women as in not being seen as delicate, feminine, worthy of care, affection and protection. We are seen as "mules uh duh worl'" and as rhino-hided, she-beasts utterly incapable of delicate, complex feelings or thoughts. Basically no one defends us because we can "take it." It also leads to the idea that BW cannot ever be harmed (from this comes the view that BW are un-rapeable).
So I'm just going to leave off with words by RVCBard, and then a few more by Witchsistah:
When Black women talk about their experiences as Black women here at SWPD, people (particularly White people, but at times other WoC as well), tend to respond with knee-jerk contradictions (typically betraying a lack of true engagement with the content) or remain silent.
For me, personally, it would be nice to see more comments make a more proactive attempt to engage with Black women in a more constructive way.
How about treating Black women as if we are, first of all, human? Yeah, it goes without saying, but from how we're treated, I'm not always sure people truly assume that from jump street. How about treating Black women like women and not disobedient children? Again, it goes without saying, but from what I've seen, I'm not sure if a lot of you really grasp that. How about treating Black women as though our lives are important to us? Once more, it goes without saying, but the things I've seen make me question whether you genuinely understand that.
IMO, there will be less explosive fireworks and fewer ruffled feathers if more people started showing us that they are operating from these very basic foundational concepts.
In the long run, we find black girls growing up knowing that the face they must present to the world is one of strength and resilience simply because in having nobody care, show remorse of compassion for their struggle they learn that feelings which display vulnerability are to be hidden. Because if you show them...well, nobody will give a shit. You are supposed to be strong. You are supposed to take anything. You are basically supposed to not operate as a human being with emotion does.
Then there is that Angry Black Woman stereotype which annoys me because while anger is a veritably human emotion (something we all experience at some point or another), when a Black woman shows this emotion, this fact is used as justification for the preconceived idea of the Angry Black Woman. You are immediately identified not as a person experiencing anger at that particular moment but are viewed as an angry person in general. Which again, nullifies the fact that you are simply human as everyone else is. If a white person were to express anger, they would not be labelled an angry person but one would only say that they are just angry at that certain moment. So, many Black women find themselves going out of their way to avoid expressing negative emotions due to the fact that any display of these will be used against them (to justify their instrinsic savagery) or will be given as a substantiation for any subsequent abuse the Black woman will face as a result i.e. "She deserved to be hit, she was talking out of her mouth."
Often any display of assertiveness is met with a comment about how much of an "attitude" you have. By not playing out your expected role of "servant", you are in violation and must be reminded of your place. The fact that you are not being submissive makes you a deviant i.e. a woman with a so-called "attitude". Again, denial of humanity. A Black women is not allowed to lay down boundaries and assert herself as whites have the privilege of doing without anyone questioning their choices.
Since many men come with the expectation that Black women are hypersexual (courtesy of rap videos), without saying Black women are expected to act lasciviously and without restraint. Failure to do this again usually ends in some form of insult. The sting of rejection from a Black woman is just too much. We are the ones who are supposed to be down with absolutely anything - the apparent "dregs of humanity". A rejection from one of us surely must be a diss.
Before reading these blog extracts today, the thought came to mind. The behaviours I have observed have often times surprised me. When I thought, "Is this person for real?" Why feel it okay to call me a "bitch" when you have no idea who I am? Or think that I would engage in intimate relations with you when I have no idea who the hell you are? It's failure to recognise the fact that people are individuals and not archetypes. In dismissing individulaity one will assume that they know a complete stranger quite well enough already and will treat them according to those very preconceived ideas borne out of ignorance.
I have heard men speak up about the same psychological process which takes place in their own growing years. When a boy is conditioned into false concepts of manhood, he is taught that it is unlike a man to show vulnerable emotions and act sensitively. This is "sissy" behaviour and mor derogatorily seen as something a "gayboy" would do. I don't think that this is good either. I have said before that I disagree heavily with socially-defined ideas on manhood. That Black women are made to undergo the same process of development can be seen as a masculinization of Black women.
Being a Black woman myself, I know exactly how this proces works. All too well. In encounters I have where people feel they can dump their hatred and anger on me without any kind of remorse for their actions, I identify an inablity on those individual's parts to see me as a person that could potentially take some injury from that level of abuse. I see it in those individuals who acted out verbally or physically because I chose, as I have a right to, to assert my own wishes. They expected obedience from me (again disregarding my humanity) and because I showed no interest in being their puppet, I deserved to be aimed at as a target for scorn or mistreatment. These are men I am talking about mind you. Childish - throwing toys when their wishes are not met. "From the nipple to the bottle never satisfied!"
Essentially, these people also believed in the notion of female servitude. So strongly in fact that it was a cause for concern when a woman did not obey them. CHAUVINISM. So again. When it comes to treatment of Black women - racism and sexism are inextricably linked. Everything I speak of here is my own explanation for what I have experienced. There may be alternative explanations but from the commonality of this kind of treatment as seen at SWPD, it certainly is no co-incidence to me.
According to this article about the song "She'a A B****" by Missy Elliot, the song aimed to somewhat parody the critics who labelled here with the derogatory term as well as empower herself by making light of the word and using it rather as a way of portraying her strong-will. But while she is portraying herself in this light, we must remember that she has other aspects of her that would express a vulnerability and humanity we all have. Missy has spoken about her history of severe emotional and sexual abuse. This affected her as it would anyone else. But she has overcome it and gone on to become arguably the best female rapper in history. An icon in her own right. Yeah, you've got to love her.
When I read essays such as this one, I am reminded of how important it is to view the world through an objective and critical lens. Critique is necessary to avoid internalising fallacies and driving myself into a ditch. Objectivity is required to avoid getting angry.
Yet it makes tons of sense when spoken in light of perplexing encounters that leave you wondering whether or not some people are capable of seeing a fellow human being when looking toward you. Archetypes just annoy the hell out of me. Literally. When the machinations of this collectively racist and sexist consciousness reaches my understanding. My fires cool. Guess I just stop taking it to heart.
Is perhaps one of the most incredible triumphs of human character to note. We don't realise it but recognising the humanity in those that are not like us is a challenge. Especially in a world that is so bent on forming divisions instead of breaking them through empathy and understanding.
These thoughts emanate from an article in the Saturday Star Canvas by Janet Smith. This month we celebrate women's lib or what we have of it. Though much needs to be done to obtain full equality, great strides have already been made. In comparison to women that lived half a century ago, we have many more opportunities to grow and progress as humans and not simply women. Ideas surrounding gender roles are much less rigid. Women can more or less do anything they want to. For that, it is a privilege to be a woman in the 21st century.
But it is a woman's location that makes all the difference. Muslim states in Africa and Asia still practice brutal genital mutilations. A clear act of pure unadultered misogyny which is accompanied by a myriad of other heinous acts. I began this post with some talk about empathy. A recent movie which has struck plenty of controversy mainly owed to a scene in which a woman mutilates herself 'Antichrist' has left me wondering. The European public is so up in arms about this scene which is part of a movie and thus not real but less troubled by the reality of the many thousands of mutilations that take place. It serves to speak of how empathy breaks down almost immediately at the ethnic barrier. The West is somewhat indifferent to the suffering of those is less developed regions of the world because of this business of seeing only the "other" and not a fellow human being similar in a number of ways. Otherization is something we have probably all been guilty of. Recognising that common humanity that binds us is one way forward toward a post-racial and post-sexist society and world.
