Blogs

Feminism for Female Suicide Bombers and The Imagined Community

            Recent American engagements in the Middle East have renewed the spotlight on the role of women in radical Islam, in particular—the seemingly contradictory nature of female suicide bombers. Alissa Ruben’s article, “Despair Drives Suicide Attacks by Iraqi Women,” exemplifies the tendency to portray female suicide bombers as victims, coerced by fathers, husbands, relatives, or other community members. On the other hand, M. Bloom argues that many of these women were just as willing and politically motivated as their male counterparts. As she writes in “Bombshells: Women and Terror,” “violence is an altruistic act, and one of the key ways in which [women] can contribute to the good of the nation” (Bloom, 8).

Before I began this class, I would have said that I am not genre-ist.  As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I read, and have respect for, much-maligned genres such as romance, science-fiction, and comics.  And yet, in some ways I do believe that I am genre-ist: not prejudiced against content, but against form.

In Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud speaks of mistaking the message (content) the messenger (form) (McCloud 6). What I have been doing is similar – not disregarding the message because of the messenger, but rather keeping the messenger locked up in a little cupboard of literary analysis all its own.  While I have thought of comics in terms of prose literature, and used non-comics based terms and ideas to think of comics, I have not done the opposite.  Comics have remained in their cupboard.  I have not used concepts of phrases that specifically come from the world of comics to look at literature in non-comic form.  This impulse sprang, I believe, from a deep-seated belief that one format was inherently better – more literary.  It was genre-ist.

It was also, of course, wrong.

           Describe salt to someone who has never tasted it before. How does it feel on your tongue? How does it feel going down your throat? What does it make you feel? What does it taste like? I can’t do it…no matter what words I use or how I choose to describe it, someone who has never tasted salt will not fully understand what it tastes like. This concept, this shortcoming of language felt really disappointing. I thought that language was supposed to be empowering; having a voice, having words, using them to tell people what I think, what I feel…it’s supposed to make me stronger.

            In class I argued that language is limiting. I felt disappointment in this argument, not because I didn’t believe it, but because I felt powerless within a second of trying the describe salt. Language truly is not enough of a form of description, yet it is the most commonly used method of communication amongst people. Why is this? Why do we use language if it limits us in our communication?

            Have you ever heard of the game Taboo? It’s a card game that uses words. One person is given a word that they are meant to describe to a group of people without using that word, or words that are closely associated that word. So, if we were trying to describe salt to a group of people, we wouldn’t be able to say the word salt, or pepper, or white, or sea etc. This game truly shows the limitations placed on us by words.

Here's a shameless plug for an upcoming event. It's a hilarious and fantastic program, and here is the write-up:

Join us to laugh and learn about the "big O," the most popular topic sex educators Marshall Miller and Rachel Dart teach about! Orgasm aficionados and beginners of all genders are welcome to come learn about everything from multiple orgasms to that mysterious G-spot. Whether you want to learn how to have your first orgasm, how to have better ones, or how to help yourgirlfriend, they cover it all with lots of humor, plenty of honesty, and an underlying message of sexual health and women's empowerment. Are you coming?

Come by yourself, come with a friend, come with all your friends!

Wednesday March 21, 8 PM in BMC's Goodhart Auditorium

This event is un-ticketed, open to Tri-Co plus guests, and open to people of all genders and orientations.

RSVP at: http://www.facebook.com/events/220556264708529/

• Jeffrey Longhofer, Ph.D., LCSW Associate professor from Rutgers school of social work
• April 9th, EEO on LGBT population
• Interactive session.
• Philip Lichtenberg
• Encountering Bigotry
• Cheryl Parks
• White, out lesbian
• Dr. Christine McGinn
• Transgender plastic surgeon
• Queer white man
• Does this affect perspective?
• Anti-LGBT Activism: A Social Movement or Paranoid Fringe?
• A handful of images from Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995, 9:02 AM
• On the first floor of a building was a childcare center. 72 children. By the end of the excavation there were 16. 168 fatalities (bombing)
• When I speak to undergraduates, I find that memory of this is quite distant
• Quite right
• Timothy McVeigh – news media tended to present him as a homosexual
• Estes Park, 1992
• YMCA, 200 or 300 people. National meeting of the …?
• Opposition researcher
• New right, old right, neo vs. paleo
• Can’t mobilize unless you can really grasp the historical significance of divides in American conservatism
• The Rise of the Old Right
• AR Conference
• http://vdare.com/
• Amren.com/conference2012/
• “Ours is an era of fear and self-censorship.

When I was in NYC for my externship, at the public library I saw a talk on this book: Typography Sketchbooks. It contains (amazing) sketches, discarded works, and preliminary ideas by typography artists, who design typeface.

After going over "Lifting Belly" in class (February 16th), I was thinking about language, feminism, font, words... I was thinking (which I tried to convey in class with the help of French feminists) that there's something about the form which makes some things feminist; content is indeed important, but I do not know if I often see anti-feminist (which I recognize as different than non-feminist) sentiments expressed in the same forms I see feminist sentiments  expressed in. Maybe there is something more effective about communicating in these forms rather than trying to speak the language of the patriarchy, or using phallocentric language...rigid formats and rules. I think that feminist thoughts and ideas are most effectively communicated and received when they are in certain forms.