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Dec. 6th, 2006 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm reading bits from "The New Feminist Criticism", which is from 1985 and therefore not exactly new any more.
There's an essay in it that is having a big argue about the definition of lesbian.
I rather thought it involved sex, but apparently not.
I think a lot of the flapping is because they're looking for lesbian texts and I think what they're actually doing is applying lesbian readings. I keep coming back to this, but "can be read as" is one of those things that is hard to argue with and makes a great game. I mean, shared interpretive strategies are building blocks of fandom. Fun.
But if they want to establish a canon of lesbian texts they have to decide what lesbian texts are, is what the essay is saying. Personally I don't quite get why a canon or why texts. Just put on the slash goggles because it is useful and valuable to the reader, you know?
One definition though is
"Lesbian" describes a relationship in which two women's strongest emotions and affections are directed toward each other. Sexual contact may be a part of the relationship toa greater or lesser degree, or it may be entirely absent. By preference the two women spend most of their time together and share most aspects of their lives with each other.
Which, with a few tweaks for gender, describes the relationships as get called slashy. Yet we do not usually call them gay. Because then there is arguing.
I don't know, this essay book seems full of argues I've read before, only with slightly different words on and more specific quoteage.
It's like the thing where some people argue about intent in slashy canon. I'm like, does it matter? We're getting fun out, does it matter if they meant to put fun in?
But I can see how sometimes it matters in a politics sort of way.
Politics is about power. We make it mean our thing, we be the powerful ones.
Much more fun than defering to authority-power. Why they be the boss of my brain? No good reason.
I don't try to be the boss of their text. Everyone can read it their own way. I think some people have arguing because they're a bit binary, think there's only right and wrong ways, and then if someone has a different right in binary thinking it implies calling the others wrong.
I am not that kind of binary. Rainbows everywhere. Plenty of room. Six billion brains, very many worlds therein.
There was one bit though about "does lesbianism belong in the classroom".
Which in no way derailed my train of thought in ways involving cheerleaders. In Sunnydale high school uniforms.
Nope, not at all.
BUT, I get that it is an important question, because the answer is obviously 'yes'. But, less obviously to people-not-me, in that often it isn't there.
I mean, it isn't just reading with slash goggles on. It's asking the teacher about theory stuff like slash goggles and teach not knowing any. Yet in these books on the list there is a bunch. Which is why we get the list, yes, but... I don't know, it's sort of unsatisfactory being the one that brings up the gay readings or the obvious lack of queer where it should be or whatever. It do feel sometimes like pointing out the extreme whiteness or whatever.
But there is a section in the textbook, and a further reading list, and this is progress.
There was another bit, I won't dig out the page to quote, but it was an essay from the 70s that basically said that focusing on negative portrayals of black women was something that had had it's day, that feminism had done plenty there and needed to move on.
I sort of sighed at the naive optimism there.
I mean, I know they probably meant the rest was also important, but the idea that it were a done deal is just... I look at even the things I'm a fan of and they make me *facepalm* sometimes, so, really, no.
Because people forget, or never thought in the first place, that this stuff matters.
My mum is all "why does it matter" about representation. All "just a story". I did point out that this writes off my degree as not-matter. But I don't think I actually conveyed the why.
Essay I'm in the middle of reading reckons that a particular study talks about works where "Lesbians, she points out, appear as monsters, grotesques and freaks", which is pretty depressing.
But then it goes on to say "but she seems to concur in this identification rather than call it into question or explain its historical context", which is *very* depressing.
This stuff matters.
And it feels like such a huge gap sometimes. I mean I'm reading a book where there's a young woman kissing another woman and the little study book thingy calls the behaviour that of a baby and uses it as evidence for the theory the woman is really the baby ghost. Which pisses me off. I mean, there are all sorts of bits about this character that are sexual, some of them rather inappropriately so, so why is nobody reading this as sexual? Because it's two women? Or, in this case, because one of them decides the other is her daughter later. I can see how that sticks extra layers of taboo in the way of the reading.
I'm not saying the baby read is wrong, I'm saying the absence of alternative when it's right there in front of you is *weird*.
And sometimes I'm very glad of the existence of fandom. Because that "am I the only one seeing this" feeling is really uncomfortable. Like that psych experiment where eventually people agree the short line is longest.
But the internet teaches us we're never the only ones.
Is rather wonderful.
The best part is I've actually found a quote that I can usefully apply to my hand it in on Friday essay. Relevant reading, yaays!
There's an essay in it that is having a big argue about the definition of lesbian.
I rather thought it involved sex, but apparently not.
I think a lot of the flapping is because they're looking for lesbian texts and I think what they're actually doing is applying lesbian readings. I keep coming back to this, but "can be read as" is one of those things that is hard to argue with and makes a great game. I mean, shared interpretive strategies are building blocks of fandom. Fun.
But if they want to establish a canon of lesbian texts they have to decide what lesbian texts are, is what the essay is saying. Personally I don't quite get why a canon or why texts. Just put on the slash goggles because it is useful and valuable to the reader, you know?
One definition though is
"Lesbian" describes a relationship in which two women's strongest emotions and affections are directed toward each other. Sexual contact may be a part of the relationship toa greater or lesser degree, or it may be entirely absent. By preference the two women spend most of their time together and share most aspects of their lives with each other.
Which, with a few tweaks for gender, describes the relationships as get called slashy. Yet we do not usually call them gay. Because then there is arguing.
I don't know, this essay book seems full of argues I've read before, only with slightly different words on and more specific quoteage.
It's like the thing where some people argue about intent in slashy canon. I'm like, does it matter? We're getting fun out, does it matter if they meant to put fun in?
But I can see how sometimes it matters in a politics sort of way.
Politics is about power. We make it mean our thing, we be the powerful ones.
Much more fun than defering to authority-power. Why they be the boss of my brain? No good reason.
I don't try to be the boss of their text. Everyone can read it their own way. I think some people have arguing because they're a bit binary, think there's only right and wrong ways, and then if someone has a different right in binary thinking it implies calling the others wrong.
I am not that kind of binary. Rainbows everywhere. Plenty of room. Six billion brains, very many worlds therein.
There was one bit though about "does lesbianism belong in the classroom".
Which in no way derailed my train of thought in ways involving cheerleaders. In Sunnydale high school uniforms.
Nope, not at all.
BUT, I get that it is an important question, because the answer is obviously 'yes'. But, less obviously to people-not-me, in that often it isn't there.
I mean, it isn't just reading with slash goggles on. It's asking the teacher about theory stuff like slash goggles and teach not knowing any. Yet in these books on the list there is a bunch. Which is why we get the list, yes, but... I don't know, it's sort of unsatisfactory being the one that brings up the gay readings or the obvious lack of queer where it should be or whatever. It do feel sometimes like pointing out the extreme whiteness or whatever.
But there is a section in the textbook, and a further reading list, and this is progress.
There was another bit, I won't dig out the page to quote, but it was an essay from the 70s that basically said that focusing on negative portrayals of black women was something that had had it's day, that feminism had done plenty there and needed to move on.
I sort of sighed at the naive optimism there.
I mean, I know they probably meant the rest was also important, but the idea that it were a done deal is just... I look at even the things I'm a fan of and they make me *facepalm* sometimes, so, really, no.
Because people forget, or never thought in the first place, that this stuff matters.
My mum is all "why does it matter" about representation. All "just a story". I did point out that this writes off my degree as not-matter. But I don't think I actually conveyed the why.
Essay I'm in the middle of reading reckons that a particular study talks about works where "Lesbians, she points out, appear as monsters, grotesques and freaks", which is pretty depressing.
But then it goes on to say "but she seems to concur in this identification rather than call it into question or explain its historical context", which is *very* depressing.
This stuff matters.
And it feels like such a huge gap sometimes. I mean I'm reading a book where there's a young woman kissing another woman and the little study book thingy calls the behaviour that of a baby and uses it as evidence for the theory the woman is really the baby ghost. Which pisses me off. I mean, there are all sorts of bits about this character that are sexual, some of them rather inappropriately so, so why is nobody reading this as sexual? Because it's two women? Or, in this case, because one of them decides the other is her daughter later. I can see how that sticks extra layers of taboo in the way of the reading.
I'm not saying the baby read is wrong, I'm saying the absence of alternative when it's right there in front of you is *weird*.
And sometimes I'm very glad of the existence of fandom. Because that "am I the only one seeing this" feeling is really uncomfortable. Like that psych experiment where eventually people agree the short line is longest.
But the internet teaches us we're never the only ones.
Is rather wonderful.
The best part is I've actually found a quote that I can usefully apply to my hand it in on Friday essay. Relevant reading, yaays!