Our Shared Shelf discussion
Jul/Aug-Hunger Makes Me.. (2016)
>
How many examples are needed for the mainstream to stop viewing divergence from the norm as exceptional?
date
newest »
newest »
Completely agree. It's also very frustrating to see things made by women still described as being 'for women', like a TV show where the main characters and writers are female not being seen as something men would want to watch and even enjoy, but it's assumed at a TV show where the main characters are male will have universal appeal.
The using tools part never ceases to amaze me.All these are tools: vacuum, KitchenAid, oven, washing machine, dishwasher, blender, mixer, coffee machine, etc. Notice a pattern yet? Yeah, thought so.
All these are also tools: dvd player, electric toothbrush, computer, etc. These are sort of in between.
Oh, and how about these tools? Sewing machine, crochet hook, knitting needles, scissors, etc.?
Or these? Barbecue grill, lawn mower, screwdriver, paint brush, car and bike tools, etc.
Anyone notice anything? Are you reinforcing stereotypes? Like seriously reinforcing? My dad taught me to do small stuff around the house. I hate the sound of a drill but otherwise I'd quite happily drill away too. I'm not sure my mom would have taught a brother how to use a sewing machine, though, but again we have men at the top of haute couture, just like men are renowned Michelin-level chefs. I no grasp. It's fine to fiddle at top level as long as you stay there, but we still think it's an oddity when men hit the yarn store.
I wish that there were some magic number or formula for "breaking into the mainstream." I think that as far as we can, these small steps that we are taking are slowly breaking down the walls of a society that judges others on every detail from gender to race. Whenever I think about this, I think of Joss Whedon. He says that he writes strong female characters because people keep asking him why he writes strong female characters. Every time an interviewer asks what diet a woman has gone on or about their workout routine is an opportunity to point out the error of their thinking. On the other side, every time a woman puts down another woman for their choices, we are taking a step backwards. Equality cannot be established while there are still people asking such silly questions and judging each other based on societal expectations. We didn't start this journey towards equality, and I am certain that we won't be the ones to finish it, but we should do all that we can to push our way forward. Every single time we deviate from the norm, we are doing our part to chip away at the expectations that are placed upon us. We should be taking every opportunity to fight against bias, but that it is best fought with rationality, and the celebration of every woman.
Haven't had a chance to read the book yet, but...I told my doctor I was adamant about not having children and she said, "Well, you might change your mind later." I just turned twenty-seven and I can't see that happening.
Honestly, having been a gamer since I was a kid I notice the sexism a lot more in gaming culture. I got an Xbox for my birthday, hooked it up excitedly...and then realized my gamertag was overly feminine. Guys in a lot of multiplayer spaces will jump on that right away as an excuse to harass you when my only focus is the game at hand.
Aglaea wrote: "My own conclusion is that all of this falls back on content creators. Earlier it used to be publishers of books and newspapers mostly, but today it's basically anyone with access to people's attention, including the internet."While content creators certainly have power to influence culture as a whole, cultural change happens at a painfully slow pace. I think a lot of the resistance (To any change, really) is a holdover from previous generations, but, today, there is also some serious amplification or reinforcement from echo-chambers, which have never been easier to find.
I think that one of the best things we can do to promote a culture of equality is focus on education policy that emphasizes critical thinking and empathy.
Carrie is extremely interested in mainstream vs punk. In Chapter 11, she comes to the conclusion that punk was "actually highly exclusive, as alienating and ungraspable as many of the clubs and institutions that drove us to the fringes in the first place." I found that acknowledgement to be a big relief, because that's what I've always so disliked about the movement. In the same chapter, she says, "Nowadays... with access to everything, we can dabble without really knowing." With these two comments, the second a defiance of the first, I think she begins to hint at the answer to your (actually likely perennial) question: As the mainstream diffuses and elitism becomes irrelevant, the hard lessons the “fringe” has learned can become subsumed - but they are also incorporated. The fact that we are all reading this book, having likely only a vague understanding of what riot grrrl even is, is evidence of that swirling possibility. The fact that we all know what Portlandia is, also supports the idea that the fringe is incorporated, kicking and screaming, into the Millennial Age. Or in Carrie's case, wearing a shy grin and a baseball cap.
Aglaea wrote: "Hi Hannah, I have yet to read the book, but think I understand what it is you're going for. The topic is very, very important, so I'm jumping in despite not knowing the details of this example.It..."
Couldn't say it better. I would just like to add bits and pieces.
Yes, it's in our hands, and education would be a perfect way to break barriers (isn't it always?)
I do have a blog and although I read mostly fantasy novels, I also review other books. I plan on reading even more diverse as I already do with OSS, also classics like Jane Austen or Shakespeare, but also authors, both male and female from other countries.
I review them and I can see that my followers aren't diverse enough yet, because only "mainstream posts" get a lot of clicks. My wishlist is really diverse, because I follow so many different blogs, but I still think it's not diverse enough.
Any questions? Ask, I don't bite:)
Sabina just hasn't ever experienced ambition stymied. If you're going to shoot yourself in the foot, please do it more quietly, Sabina.
Sure. Sentence by sentence, then:2. I don't think it is a matter of perspective and psychology. Sexism is very real, and touches every person in this world every day. I don't understand how it could possibly be a matter of perspective or psychology.
3. I don't understand this sentence and I would be interested in learning what it means. Who is feeling "he" is better? The strong one or the weak one? If it's the weakest one that's feeling better, how, exactly? Better than what? Better than being weak? I'm pretty sure that the principal at my consulting company is not making me feel "better." I'm pretty sure he shits on me because he knows he can get away with it. Is he a bad example of "the strongest one"? What sort of strongest one would be a better example?
4 & 5. In my opinion (as Carrie Brownstein comments on in the book, actually), nature is chaotic and destructive, ever in flux. Living and dying in nature is part of the cycle. Humanity tames nature and ourselves - we domesticate ourselves, as it were. That said, I believe that your assertion is that "the strongest" makes "the weakest" feel "better," and therefore brings peace to the system, and that this peace is a good thing. Therefore, for example, female genital mutilation is a great idea, because everyone involved is more "peaceful" and less interested in causing trouble. The pain is worth it, for the system's benefit. OK, what about women having the opportunity to direct and/or produce movies? Probably best to keep them out. Otherwise the system would just collapse. Right? Who needs a woman's perspective when we already have plenty of other perspectives?
6. I also don't really understand this sentence. The public opinion of women, or of something else? Maybe you mean, "sexism is right"? Or do you mean that the public opinion is that women have equal opportunities and equal rights, and institutionalized sexism is something different than the public opinion, and that's the thing that's causing all this trouble? Maybe you mean that the public opinion is that peace is better than rocking the boat and causing a stir?
Overall, my response is that maybe you should read "Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl." It's quite a good book and might help bring some other perspectives that would be valuable to your understanding of these systems.
I see what you mean. Probably I would do better professionally if I was a little more passive, too. Thank you for clarifying. I didn't mean to make you feel bad; I just don't see what women get out of bashing feminism. It is literally there to help you.
I think you literally have to create a new stereotype to replace the old one. And put it in a popular film or book. Happened with Rainman and The Curious Incident with the Dog in the Nighttime.
Hannah wrote: "What fields of study deal with this and can they teach us anything that we can use for practical actions?"I think Social Anthropology or Sociology in general would provide the answers you seek.
The best I can find with a quick google scholar search regards Modernization Theory, which seems to involve cultural change but has its share of controversy.
Here is a link to a paper on the persistence of traditional values, that you might find interesting:
http://my.fit.edu/~gabrenya/cultural/...
Matt wrote: "Hannah wrote: "What fields of study deal with this and can they teach us anything that we can use for practical actions?"I think Social Anthropology or Sociology in general would provide the answ..."
So it was a very good decision to start studying sociology in October. I'm very curious about the subject and hope to serve with gained knowledge in the future.
It's also worth remembering (and forgive me if someone else has already previously covered this point) that it's called "the norm" for a reason, and it isn't that some sociologist was particularly fond of the chubby barfly from "Cheers." The vast majority of people are still well-served and well described by those norms. When there's something that properly describes a small subset of people, well, that is an exception to the norm. These are useful terms.
It's popular to ascribe value judgments to terms like "normal" and "abnormal" and "exceptional" (the latter a word almost nobody in America really understands anyway, but that[s another, unrelated can of worms...) but all they really are are very rough measures of similarity to the majority.
"The notion of 'female' should be so sprawling and complex that it becomes divorced from gender itself."Carrie could have said the same for "queer," or any of the other identifiers that people like her (and me) are jammed into or on.
There is no normal. The existence of the word in the English language doesn't justify its use or meaningfulness.
We're all different, and normal is just a way of measuring the majority out of the whole. What I really think is problematic is the fact that "normal" is considered good, and "unnormal" is considered bad.That's a huge problem to begin with.
"What I really think is problematic is the fact that "normal" is considered good, and "unnormal" is considered bad." That's the ENTIRE problem. I'd be deeply insulted if someone thought I was normal. I try to be an odd, thoughtful dreamer of dreams and occasionally acerbic wit. I think that's much more fun than "normalcy" could ever be.
On the other hand, it's useful to know what characteristics one can expect most of the time from most individuals. I like that doctors and nurses have a pretty decent chance of knowing that my body temperature should be 98.6° Fahrenheit. There are reasons why we care about "normal." There's a baby in that bathwater we don't want to throw out.
To broaden the conversation, and ground it in Hannah's original question, "normal" is a white middle-aged man. This is clearly a false "normal" - half of us are women! Her question assumed that we all knew "breaking in" to "normal" means that women/minorities take on some of the roles and abilities considered masculine and white. I would be interested in hearing an example of a case where "normal" is a relevant and useful measure in a social or emotional context. I think focusing on semantics distracts from the topic we are actually discussing.
It's a useful concept, but not a universal one. I'm certainly not saying it's a perfect descriptor of all the world, only that it's a concept that has some value, and it should be used for what it is worth, and not dismissed out of hand.
Jonathan wrote: ""What I really think is problematic is the fact that "normal" is considered good, and "unnormal" is considered bad." That's the ENTIRE problem. I'd be deeply insulted if someone thought I was nor..."
Yes, sometimes it is useful, but in many cases not.
I would even consider "breaking in" behaving like a female, because that's the other part of mainstream, male dominating female dominating the rest.
Jonathan wrote: "It's also worth remembering (and forgive me if someone else has already previously covered this point) that it's called "the norm" for a reason"Isn't the major function of activist movements is to address the flaws in social norms and to try to fix them. I'm not saying that normalcy has no value, but I'm not convinced that inertia is a satisfactory argument -- just because an idea has been deeply-held for a long time doesn't make it any more right or wrong. If we shrug and say, "That's just the way things are." whenever we something wrong with the world, then there isn't much point in advocating for anything.
Matt wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "It's also worth remembering (and forgive me if someone else has already previously covered this point) that it's called "the norm" for a reason"Isn't the major function of activi..."Valid point here. I think every generation has to ask themselves: Is this right what we do? Do we need to do it? Do we have to do it that way, or are we just doing it because we've learned it that way?
I've voluntarily worked in an old-people's home and I learned a lot there, one thing that we do the stuff we do a certain way simply because we are told so. That's a good part of dementia, it brings others to reevaluate their behaviour and thinking patterns.
Hannah wrote: "Normality is usually a denotation of the middle. A child exhibiting normal development is considered good because it isn't having serious issues that need to be addressed. Normal vs abnormal psycho..."
The problem is Hannah, who says what are serious issues. I may be a little bit damaged, but keep in mind that I've grown up in Austria and therefore am a bit cautious with the term serious issues in behaviour, development or psychology. I may be a bit more sensitive than others though, due to the history with the Nazi-regime.
Hannah wrote: "MeerderWörter wrote: "Matt wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "It's also worth remembering (and forgive me if someone else has already previously covered this point) that it's called "the norm" for a reason"I..."Sorry if I wasn't specific. I always ask the question: What is normal? What is serious? Who is deciding what is normal and what not?
I.e. the intersex community say they're normal, but doctors say they're ill. According to you, if I understood you correctly, they would be considered not normal?
Hannah wrote: "The mainstream loves stereotypes, gender-biased interview questions, etc. Women have existed in science, math, athletics, etc. for generations, yet, for some reason, there is a cultural resistance to accepting that women in general are capable and diverse."I haven't read the book, but a question for the author interested me and I thought about giving my personal view on the topic. I didn't wish to disturb the topic with questions for the author with questions for the readers so I decided to talk about it here because it also mentioned this problem of womem not being well accepted in male-dominant areas.
The question was the following: Emma wrote: "You say: "Mostly, I didn't want to be a girl with a guitar. "Girl" felt like an identifier that viewers, especially male ones, saw as a territory upon which an electric guitar was a tourist, an interloper." (pg 101). I experience this same feeling a lot but with engineering. I am a female student studying engineering, which is a male-dominated field, and so often I am labeled as the "girl engineer"; my gender is constantly brought up in relation to my career path by my male counterparts. I just want to be an engineer - why does my gender have to be dragged into it? Do you have any advice for explaining this frustrations to my male engineering coworkers, without seeming like a "sensitive girl" or "crazy feminist"?"
I know it is a very serious problem in a lot of places and that we are not even near to erradicate this kind of gender-biased ideas anywhere, but on the other hand, I confess that I was a little surprised when I understood the dimention of the problem in some countries that I believed to be at least as "modern" as my own regarding how they treat women. I live in Portugal, and because we are a small European country, we kind of have this idea that other European countries and EUA are much more advanced than we are. It was true in the previous generation, but now I think we were able to close or at least reduce the gap, but it never occurred to me that we could have made so much progress that I would be hearing about the problems that women face in the aforementioned countries and realize that the mentality in my own country doesn't have as many prejudicies. That isn't to say that there aren't prejucidies against womem, there are still a lot. While people acknowldge your capacities and your ability and desire to have a career, they still think you should worry about getting married, want to have babies, and put family first, etc, etc. But no one assumes girls and less smart or talented than boys in areas such as sciences. So when I heard about this movement in USA with the goal of engaging girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) because there were less women in these areas than men, my first thought was "Why would they assume that to be a problem?". I believe that is a problem only if women don't go to those areas because they are forbidden or discouraged or if they don't feel welcome if they choose to go, but if there is equality of opportunities I don't see why all areas would have to have 50-50% in termns of genre. People should be free to choose watever they like and if more women or more men choose some areas I don't see that as an issue. I tought this because fortunately neither I nor my colleages surffered much gender-bised pressure when we choose careers. I choose an engeneering career in telecominications and only 20% of students in my courses were womem, but in my 5 years of university I have never suffered any discrimination for beeing female in this area. No one ever made me feel unwelcome, less capable, or underpriviledged. I always knew I was very fortunate for having been born in this time and place and have access to an education and freedom of choice for doing what I choose, but when I went to learn more about why this movement for womem in STEM existed, I realized just how much my experience may be an exception. I read testemonies of womem in well-known and recognized USA universities where professors would ask girls taking their classes what they were doing there because math or physics or watever is not for them, or they might be excluded from job opportunities just for being female and people telling them so, or like Emma that cited above, feel that they are always labeled as the "girl engineer" like the two things must somehow be mutually exclusive.
I think that if my personal experience serves for something is to bring hope that its possible to get there in a near future. It's possible to be a womem in a male-dominated area and not only succeed professionaly but actually you being a womem not getting you labeled and treated as different, making you feel insecure and unwelcome. That doesn't mean that nobody will have pejudicies, just that those people will keep those ideas to themselves if they feel that saying them outloud will make them sound retrograde. If society makes them feel like criticizing someone else will say more about them than about the one they are judging. I have no idea if any of my teachers or collegues thought I didn't belong there, but they certainly didn't act on it and it would NEVER occur to a professor to say openly in a class something that would suggest womem are stupid or less intelligent because that would make them look bad.
I don't know how to answer the question about "How do we convince people to be more rational in their beliefs?" but I believe that if each one of us does that themselves, that will have an impact. If enough people decide to actively stop perpetuating stereotypes, think before jumping to judge others, and appy in the smallest things these beliefs of equality of genres in their everyday lives, then somehow as time goes by that starts to be the norm rather than the exception, because it will spread to the people related to you and it will continue to spread further.
Hannah wrote: "Brownstein notes that Sleater-Kinney owed a debt to bands that carved a space for them, but also noted that as they got closer to the mainstream, this space disappeared. The mainstream loves stereo..."Hannah!
This one is a good question. First of all you should know that people ideas, norms, ideals and perception is this what most people think.
If we go to a individual level, there is a whole different world. You must understand that every individual behaves, as all the surounding people tell them to. So, if some kid, should go to school, this would come from parents, and every other, as this is "normal" accepted norms. But the problem here is that, nobody questions if those normal accepted norms are OK, for our kid. Would he be OK with that? If everyone decides to not go to school, everything will be OK, but, what would be a motive for that??
So, the problem is the same here, to ask, how people would accept women as same - equal? Actually for that we have to go to the roots of women thinking, or better, to the roots of human characters. There is actually not only men who think like women on this planet but also vice-versa! So every individual sense by itself, what are their own capabilites. But because of the system and others, who tell children, what is right and what is wrong, individual starts to deny those inner capabilites. This means that it becomes unsatisfied with his own life. From now on, he or she is exposed to targets from another individual or group or society. As he or she believes, that the right is something how others behave and what others do, this is now only option, to be accepted in this society. Onwards, he or she, tries to please others, which is very high appreciated "value" in this common world, not knowing that this is only deny himself / herself. From now on, the lies are allowed, this individual talk what others want to hear, talk about what is common and important thing, do school because of diploma that everyone is going for, do whatever, to please others, hardly ever noticing, that all of this things, are only masks. Living by its own wishes, is now hard, and when the life way goes so far, those masks also replace our self-esteem, confidence. Diploma can be only hiding of our lack of knowledge, good clothes can be hides our imperfect body, makeup, masks our real face. And everything that just because of our common world. What about our real wishes? Being happy is, to fullfill our real wishes.
And now when you know how people behave, try to spread this to 98% people. 98% people who think like that and who cannot be what they are. And in addition to that, they think that more pleasing and being more than others, would make them happy.
In our slang we call this behaviour being in deny of yourself and being busy with all those false wishes, do you really think, that we can change a individual, to be acceptable to himself, not to mention that we have to accept him as he is his own free will, to respect him, as he is own thinking human and we should not change him, and don't forget to add other 8 billion of people, which everyone should come to the same conclusion? :)
Well, I believe the most people would say, it is impossible. But I will say, there's a formula, theres a way, and I hope I can some day represent this discovery to Mrs. Emma Watson. Then the change will really start! ;)
Matt wrote: "Hannah wrote: "What fields of study deal with this and can they teach us anything that we can use for practical actions?"I think Social Anthropology or Sociology in general would provide the answ..."
If we would like to see some cultural change in society, we would have to have the formula, that equally, describes behaviour of an individual as behaviour of society. There has not exist any of the formula (theory) until today. I hope I can get in touch with Emma, to explain this approach ;)
Su wrote: "So when I heard about this movement in USA with the goal of engaging girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) because there were less women in these areas than men, my first thought was "Why would they assume that to be a problem?". I believe that is a problem only if women don't go to those areas because they are forbidden or discouraged or if they don't feel welcome if they choose to go, but if there is equality of opportunities I don't see why all areas would have to have 50-50% in termns of genre. "Su, I'm so glad to hear of your positive experience in STEM. It really gives me hope that we can continue to improve and make a less prejudiced society.
I'm a graduate student studying Biology in the US and wanted to mention that programs that encourage "Under-represented demographics" to pursue STEM careers are less about solving an equality problem (Although there are some serious problems in academia) and more about improving the flow of ideas into STEM: If everyone has a similar perspective, there aren't going to be as many innovative solutions to interesting problems. So science benefits from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives.
It's like comedians, which we've discussed earlier this year when reading Caitlin Moran. Oh, women can be funny! How about that!? Yeah, hello... Any woman could have told you that.
If you read Jane Austen, she has a very dry type of humour with which she criticises society rather well in my opinion, but somehow she still ends up not being pegged as "humorous", but she's indefinitely chucked in the romance category.
And it's only thanks to Pinterest of all places that I've even heard of a huge number of women scientists, despite having a degree from the field. Sad isn't it?
My own conclusion is that all of this falls back on content creators. Earlier it used to be publishers of books and newspapers mostly, but today it's basically anyone with access to people's attention, including the internet.
So if you're a blogger, who blogs on food and only ever writes about fantastic men chefs, are you perhaps perpetuating the problem? Or if you're a lifestyle blogger, are you only ever picking stock photos with white people in them?
It would be easy to blame the "system", whatever this means, but aren't we all the system? Any and all content we create in everyday life, has the power to cause micro-changes in others, so isn't it up to all of us to create content that includes everyone equally, also on more subtle layers than the obvious? That way there can be more realistic representation of everyone, regardless of context (research field, art, sports,...).