Elettaria

I've been thinking about seeing, and how people with disabilities are part of the social construct of looking and being looked at.

Children look at things and people with unmalicious curiosity, before they're taught by adults not to stare. I think that not staring is primarily about maintaining boundaries and privacy (eye contact is usually taboo on public transport, where you may be pressed so closely to strangers that you can feel the contents of their pockets), but staring is also about wanting to look at something unusual in order to understand it. We don't give real training in how to look at something we find unusual or threatening, and are left with the options of staring invasively or refusing to look. ( Read more... )

I am so very fed up of giving my details over the phone and being asked, "Is it Miss or Mrs?" without the option of Ms, or of being addressed as Mrs by default, regardless of what I've asked them to call me. I rang the Financial Ombudsman today and was greeted with this yet again. I'd actually rung to point out that they'd got my address wrong, but since they added this to having addressed the letter to Mrs even though I'd said firmly on the phone that it was Ms, the guy ended up getting a little lecture on how it's frankly rather offensive to categorise women by their marital status whether they like it or not (and also that if I'm Mrs, then I'm committing adultery and I don't think my partner would be too happy about it all). His excuse was that if he started asking, "Is it Miss, Mrs, Doctor, Reverend..." the list would go on for ever. He just didn't seem to get that Ms should be the default. It's 2009 and this problem occurs more often than not.*

So today I look at the news and encounter Female medics "to outnumber male". ( Ponderings on gender in the medical profession, and a little poll )

It's a few months old, but I just came across this article while browsing the BBC. It's about some research done which allegedly shows that men feel more comfortable with one-night stands, in general, than women do. This I think is probably true. The researchers then go on to say that this is an example of evolution in action. Erm, what? This is an example of the sexual double standard in action via internalised guilt and so forth, and that's a product of social conditioning. There will be biological and evolutionary elements to social conditioning about sexuality, yes, for instance the inescapable fact that it's women who are at risk of pregnancy, but overall we're talking about a cultural construct. To say that this is evolutionary is about as logical as declaring that, say, sexual cruising grounds in cities appear in certain places for ancient geological reasons. Gay men are rambling over Carlton Hill with an eye to a hook-up? Ah yes, that'll be because it's a defunct volcano, and we all know what those do to men's sex drives in that old, primitive way.

The thing I'm wondering, and I'm looking at the scientists on my f-list in particular, is how far such attempts to find biological or evolutionary reasons for something which is actually social/cultural are the norm, particularly where gender is concerned. You know, "women are hard-wired to like pink" and so on. Any thoughts?

Government considers banning free drinks for women. I should mention that I don't drink, never have, and have never even seen the appeal. So I'm having to think my way through this more than most people would, and may miss something obvious.

I see no problem with banning free drinks in general. The British public does not have a constitutional right to freebies. In the area of drinking it probably does cause a lot of trouble, and would reduce drinking a certain amount if it were stopped. I don't think the pubs would lose money - people are more likely to give in and buy the extra drinks than they are to stop going to the pub - so there shouldn't be a problem there.

What I can't understand, and what is left completely unexplained in that article, is the gendering. ( Read more... )

You know how some people will take off their glasses during conversation, most often for emphasis? Has anyone else noticed that this seems to be a predominantly male practice? The only time I've ever noticed a woman do it is President Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, and I can't think of any women I've seen do it in real life, while I've seen umpteen men do this, both in real life and in films. If you wear glasses, do you do it yourself? I don't, but then I'm just about into severe myopia, so I never wander around without my specs on and have no desire to make life suddenly foggy.

[Poll #1266699]

If you haven't heard about the Open Source Boob Project scandal yet, go to the_red_shoes' post here, where you can catch up. Many people have said much of the stuff I'd have said myself and phrased it beautifully - and may I mention in passing how delightful it is to see good quality feminist crit coming from a straight man - so I thought I'd add a few different thoughts.

There's an image from theferrett's original post which keeps nagging at me. It's his description of the first random woman they groped. Obviously he's objectifying her to within an inch of her life, and the sadly common assumption that anyone with her "assets on display" is asking for it is the reason why there are judges who rule that "it can't have been rape, she was wearing jeans", but it's not just that. I think it's the idea of her as some sort of Amazonian figure, striding along with her magnificent bosom proudly on display, a challenge to all red-blooded males and especially the ones who were so awfully traumatised in school because the women they wanted wouldn't sleep with them (something which must be far, far worse than, say, the sexual harrassment which happens with varying frequency to every woman past puberty). The post is generally full of this so-called admiration of women (well, I'm inferring "women", actually he seems to be using "breasts" as a synecdoche for "woman"), even awe, and of course the chap feels that it's a form of respect and can't understand why we're all objecting to it.

Part of the problem is, I think, a kind of pedestalisation. ( Read more... )

I've just finished reading Carol Shields' Happenstance, a novel written in 1980 which features a woman who is attending a quilting conference in Philadelphia during the course of the novel. During this conference, a psychology/art history lecturer who has obviously never picked up a needle in her life gives a Freudian interpretation of quilting which is even funnier than the Freudian analysis of Alice in Wonderland in Atwood's The Edible Woman. Apart from being hilarious, it does give a great example of what happens when academics get too far away from the reality of their topic.

( Quilting Through the Freudian Looking-Glass: A New Interpretation )

Joking apart, I'd be interested to hear what other people think about textiles, gender and meaning. Working with fabric is a sensuous pleasure, and I've seen a few rather sexy quilts, though generally not the traditional geometric patterns discussed above, not to mention that quilts are practical things and often intended for general family use or for children. (My grandmother, on the other hand, made a number of weavings which are quite ridiculously vulval in shape.) I'm keeping an eye open for literature which discusses needlecraft, for example Atwood's Alias Grace which manages to combine quilting and murder, Susan Glaspell's short story "A Jury of her Peers" which combines the two even more strongly, or Donoghue's Slammerkin, this time about dressmaking and, er, murder. (And sex!) There's a lovely Carol Ann Duffy poem I've managed to dig out again (a former tutor ran off with my copy of the volume it's from, The World's Wife) on ( Penelope ).

I occasionally wonder how someone could have done what Penelope reputedly did: promised that she would remarry when she'd finished making a tapestry, sewed in the day, and unpicked her work at night. I can't think of anything more frustrating than constantly destroying your own work, never allowing it to progress - and tapestry is slow, slow work, you might cover a few squares inches in a day. Perhaps she would unpick a part of the tapestry, then sew something different in its place, so that the work was constantly shifting, motifs leading to first one thing then another? A lovely image for multivocality.

cross-posted to my journal, quilting and literary_theory

I'm listening to audiobooks a lot at the moment, and I find that I pick up on things I didn't notice when reading the novel. Jane Eyre is the one I've just finished, noting that St John is even more of a bastard than I remembered, and that Rochester may be a Strong Rugged Man type, but Jane is constantly rescuing him. The bit that really made me sit up is when Rochester says, in the penultimate chapter, "...and since you left your pearl necklace behind I've been wearing it under my clothes ever since you left." I know that Bronte has a penchant for gender-bending and cross-dressing, seen a little with Rochester's gypsy outfit and even more in Villette, but Rochester wearing pearls? What do you make of this? You can get all symbolic about gender and power being represented in jewellery, Jane starts wearing Rochester's watch at this point for example, but I just end up giggling at the idea of Rochester secretly wearing pearls. It also made me want to rewrite a scene as follows. (Paraphrasing from memory.)

"Jane, have you a glittering ornament around your neck?"
I was wearing a gold-watch-chain, and I replied that I had.
"And have you a pale blue dress on?"
Yep.
(shyly) "And do you think it would suit me?"
"No," I said decisively. "Pale colours are no good for a strong character such as yours. A brilliant crimson gown would serve you far better."


In other news, I'm having quite a relapse here, and am getting very bored with being conked out in bed all day and having to feel I've accomplished something if I've managed to crawl into the shower. I won't be online much for a bit, I think, I'm rarely able to manage it, let alone able to talk on the phone, but TLC in whatever form will be much appreciated.

finnygan is having an interesting discussion of motherhood, which sparked off this (poll beneath the cut).

General discussion most welcome. Do you think, for instance, that there are lots of men out there who get broody but feel that they should conceal it as it's Not What Manly Men Do? Any strong opinions on the number of people required to raise a child?

ETA: I just realised that I phrased the "Children?" question ambiguously. The first three options are not for how many children you would like, but how many you have already, so the answers from those three options should add up to 100%. Right now they add up to 55%, which is how I realised that I phrased the question wrong. Would people mind going back and changing that, if they can be bothered?

Generally, if I've left out suitable options, just tick "other" if I've given that and explain in the comments. No offence intended towards anyone, I did this poll fairly fast while relatively sleepy and just didn't think of all the possibilities.

( Thrilling and Deeply Meaningful Poll )

Afternoon, all. Since my paid account expires in two days (and anyone who feels like funding a bit more of it would be much loved!), I'm writing polls while I can. This one's been done in a bit of a rush, I'll edit this post and put More Useful Thoughts in later.

Here's a topic I've been interested in for a while. Are people more likely to read novels written by authors of their own gender, are they more likely to identify with characters of their own gender, and how well do you find authors can write their own and the opposite gender? Jane Austen, for instance, is notoriously weak at writing men, and Dickens' women are even worse. Of course, if you're a woman reading a novel about a man, you can only guess how well he's written as a male character, you can't judge from personal experience, but I'm interested in hearing the guesses anyway.

Yes, I know I've gone for that troublesome binary gender way of looking at things. There are limits in a poll of this size. If you're intersex or feel yourself to be between genders in some way, don't answer the poll, write a good long comment instead. If you're transsexual, up to you but I reckon you're probably best off doing the same, as you'll have had more conflicting gender conditioning than non-trans folks.

I've split it roughly into pre-20th century and 20th/21st century, and by pre-20th I mean the modern period (let's face it, the novel really got going in the 18th century), don't base all of this on a couple of novel fragments from the ancient world such as the Satyricon. Hopefully the poll makes sense, I had to cram a lot into the last question in particular. If you don't understand a question, ask in the comments before answering, and you can always go back and change your answers by clicking on "Fill out poll" again. Obviously I'm not just interested in the stats, I want to hear why people read as they do and why they think these patterns occur.

( The poll itself )