a p roduction of the
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ors
edit letter from the
speak up projec Vicky Comesan
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as
myself censoring Em ily Wu
the teal
ribbon
Kate Hil d
ebrandt
breaking the glass ceiling Olivia Lee
tonight we’re hereArmstrong Kevin
a ghost of
women
Michelle P
ham
ches bioE bitagneja Mehek G
Let
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from
the edit o
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This zine is a collection of thoughts, comments, and research on gender and related topics. It is a continuation of the discussions that are already happening within the Rice community and beyond. The purpose of this zine is to create a platform that consolidates ideas and perspectives to give voice to concerns specific to our Rice community. Our goal is to engage the entire campus by exposing students to conversations on gender and sexuality among other things through a unique lens a lens created by and for our community! Even as mainstream platforms propagate the fallacy that gender inequality is a thing of the past, we recognize that true equality of opportunity is yet to be realized. It’s even more difficult to find identities outside the gender binary of man/woman in popular discourse, but we firmly believe that the representation of diverse identities is essential to any movement towards equality and recognition of all human dignity. It is with this in mind that this zine was created. We hope that this zine will engender discussion among friends, classmates, and colleagues about the many ways in which gender and sexuality shape and are shaped by our culture. We welcome your feedback and contributions - contact us at womenrc@rice.edu or stop by the Rice Women’s Resource Center in the RMC. Thank you for reading, and be on the lookout for future issues of engender!
The following stories are from the first generation of a collection of monologues known as The Speak Up Project. I founded The Speak Up Project with my good friend, Lindsay Bonnen, in September 2014 after we realized that there was no socially acceptable platform particular to Rice that would allow victims of sexual assault and sexual violence to come forward. The ability to share traumatic experiences to a ready and open-minded audience has two benefits: it can ease some of the burden of the trauma, and it challenges the Rice community to think harder about not only how we prevent sexual assault and violence, but how we respond to victims, who are also our friends and peers. Of course it’s difficult to come forward, especially in our small community. The premise of The Speak Up Project sought to fix the “spotlight” problem: we collect anonymous experiences from Rice students written as monologues, then get actors to perform them for an event which would have the dual purpose of raising awareness and providing some healing for the victims. We enlisted the help of Carlos Solis, a Rice staff member,
to put together a web form hosted on a server independent from Rice, to avoid any legal concerns about content ownership. Through this mechanism—in addition to direct email—we collected ten monologues, representing a range of experiences. I took over as director of The Speak Up Project and casted ten talented and hard-working Rice student actors, each of whom brought so much more to their performances than I could have asked for. We had limited time to rehearse, but the cast stepped up to the challenge of representing the stories of real Rice students. In a way, they took on a bit of the burden of the trauma. We were awarded the Bill Wilson Grant for Student Initiatives to fund the performance and discussion event on March 18th, 2015, in Willy’s Pub. We had a great audience for what ended up being an emotional night, and I’m very pleased with the way the project came to fruition. Now, I am looking to take The Speak Up Project further, starting with publishing the monologues as a series in this magazine. There will likely be another performance next year with a new set of stories and a new cast.
ed in erform ost p s e u re alm onolog her m g stories a ortable, t o e h Like t the followin ’re uncomf ome. s ey , March unedited. Th riggering for f the t y l e e ly b mpl o n a entire in s a l t l r a e sm s o nc and ca resent only a of the victim his p r e s r o e tf t nc They experie be noted tha chose f o e rang ould ries, I s. It sh side the se ighter e campu allment of l e h t st on th first in s that were bmissions— s u ie e s r o f a t s o ge m k the um n spectr etters on a pa a e h t h t m l of ncy of iving mediu ing a e n a m rg per lish less fo by pub ep the print a I hope that n a ke e. e, we c im t theatr a t ries a few sto tion going. a s conver
Speak. By Emily Wu.
By Vicky Comesanas
Stories by anonymous students
speaking up “
Two stories from the Speak Up Project So.
I woke up and it was already happening. Her mouth was on me, and her body was holding me down. Afterwards, she said she knew I wanted it, even though I didn’t tell her so. She could just tell. Except I didn’t really want it, and I had no idea what was happening until I realized what was happening, and then it was too late. It was a little funny and a little horrifying. I’m so sorry; it’s easiest for me to talk about it if I also laugh about it. I hope you understand. I remember thinking that she hadn’t known it was my first time, and that I couldn’t really blame her. But there have been lots of times when I’ve wanted it – lots and lots of times – and I didn’t, that first time. I don’t remember whose idea it was for me to sleep over. My room was only a few minutes away, but it was late and I was drunk. It was actually the first time I had ever been drunk, and for a while afterwards, I was scared to drink because I thought I would end up in a stranger’s bed again. And I gained a lot of weight and years later, I thought that maybe feeling fat and undesirable had also made me feel safe. But maybe that’s my excuse for laziness and exhaustion, I don’t really know. I spent a lot of time in her room after that first night. We had sex and did homework and sometimes we watched movies or listened to music. I thought maybe I
loved her and that in - her way- she loved me, too. One time I told her and she said it back to me. But a while later I really loved someone, and it felt very different. Feelings are so weird. The sex felt better after a while. At first it was awkward and foreign but then I learned how to tell her what to do. I was a little bossy. Usually she would tell me I didn’t really know what I wanted and do something else instead, which makes me laugh now! So I learned to fake an orgasm so she would stop before it started to hurt. One time she hurt her wrist and had to go to the hospital?! [Beat.] And I felt like it was my fault for not saying I was done sooner. One time I was trying to get her off, and I sprained a finger. The joint has never been right since, and I think that’s kinda funny. How funny? But it’s not the kind of story you can tell in polite company, and it hurts to remember too suddenly, anyway, so it’s just not worth the trouble to remember most of the time. I would be tired after, but I couldn’t ever fall asleep, not after that first night. I would wait until 3 or 4 AM, and then quietly untangle myself from her and go home. It was like I was never really there. In as many ways as possible, I like to pretend I was never really there, and I’m okay with that. I wasn’t really there while it was happening, anyway – I was roaming campus or playing music with my friends or counting the minutes until I could - finally - just go to sleep.
”
“
It was after a party and we were all just chilling in a room together… me with my friends, and him with his. It wasn’t weird that he was there because I’d seen him plenty of times and introduced myself once or twice, but I didn’t really know anything about him. He walked over, said hi, and started with just simple compliments, comments on my face, my body. We were chatting, so it was fine, talking about school, the party, what we were up to in life. Fine. At the time, I may have even thought, “Wow, that’s refreshing–to have a guy actually talk to you before making a move.” But then he sits next to me, forcefully grabs my hand and puts it on his hard dick, forcing me to stroke him; all the while the conversation still going. Of course I was wrong (in my interpretation?)... apparently conversation is just a tool of distraction these days. It took me far too long to register what was happening and pull my hand away. But when I did, he grabs my hand right back. Maybe he noticed the shock and horror on my face, maybe he realized that was not an okay thing to do because he decides to play thumb war with me. Wrong again. He sticks his hand down my pants and underwear, and grabs my ass. Him: “Wow, you have a nice ass.” [Aside.] I really don’t. [A look of confusion and then disgust.] Me: “Uhm…thanks?” I was done at this point. Pass. I’d rather not. So, I get up, look at my friends and say, “Hey, I need to pee.” I felt a little cliche saying it, but the sentiment was understood and they followed me to the bathroom…so did he.
Him: “I need to pee too; the girls bathroom is closer” Me: “Is it?! The bathroom is right there. Just go use the guys.” Still he followed us in, and we freaked out. I peed at the speed of light, my friends did too, and we ran out of there. Actually and seriously ran out, went into another room, and locked the door behind us. We sat there in the dark, not breathing, not speaking, not moving, just sitting there as he banged on the door, shook the handle and tried to get inside. He left after a couple minutes, and we listened to his footsteps as he walked away from the room. There was a moment of silence and we all took a deep breath and went to bed. [A little angrier, more forceful.] It wasn’t until the next day I found out that he had made advances on multiple other girls. But that wasn’t even the worst part. He had a girlfriend of multiple years that according to Facebook was the love of his life. What the fuck? All I could think was: [In confusion and exasperation.] Why did you...!?! Did you think...?!?!?! That is not okay! That’s worse than “not okay”. That’s wrong. You shouldn’t...AGH. [Beat.] Sometimes I think: why did it take me so long to be weirded out? Why did I let him stick his hand down my pants? Why didn’t I say something? I still don’t know.
”
Censoring Myself By Emily Wu
Identity may be one of the most difficult subjects to both define and express simply because it can instantaneously situate a person in the world. As an artist, the biggest challenge is to express my accumulated emotions and communicate my identity through my artwork. Each and every new viewer will likely come to a different conclusion about the meaning of my work because their interpretations are a reflection of their own senses of self. By meshing the identities of the artist and audience, my artwork embraces multifarious understandings, yet simultaneously expresses my own identity discernibly. In the three pieces included in Engender, I seek to explore themes of the fragmented self, frustration in communication, and censorship. In “Heart”, an individual’s external image, the part constantly presented to society, is broken down
to the basic pulsating veins of life. The internal world is projected into the physical realm. The expression of the women in “Three” is contended, each viewer identifying taking on a different perception of the piece. While some see the women yawning, others see them screaming. Either way, their strained features combined with their violently colorful appearances declare a wish to communicate, despite their grey, unintelligible environment. I painted “Three” at a time when I felt crushed by pressures and felt unable to fully express my unhappiness with the situation. As a result, all the women are actually elongated self portraits. “Speak” (image shown with the Speak Up Project)however, was created in a much less systematic way. I had originally planned on painting a simple portrait, but in the end allowed the painting to evolve into its current form, capturing my friend as the subject. Ironically, this friend is well known for her
outspoken personality and lack of fear when voicing any of her thoughts. The contradiction between the gag and my understanding of her disposition conveys the horrors of censorship. Without the ability to speak, we cannot take ownership of our own identities. Although our understanding of ourselves and other’s perceptions of us are in tension, together they shape our identity. The challenge that I have faced as an artist is to communicate this fragmented self to a larger public audience by balancing censorship and expression.
Three.
Heart.
The Teal Ribbon:
On Sexual Assault Awareness Month By Kate Hildebrandt This month across the United States people are celebrating Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Crisis centers are using teal ribbons and banners to promote awareness, women and men across the country are marching in Take Back the Night rallies, and the White House is stepping up it’s It’s On Us campaign.
Kate is Rice’s Title IX Resource Navigator and Student Wellbeing Specialist
There is nothing truly special about April; sexual violence is endemic in our world year-round. Statistics that show us the true scale can be hard to collect but we do know is that it happens a lot more than it should. According to a 2014 CDC report, about 1 in 5 women and 1 in 50 men have experienced rape in their lifetime. When you broaden that to include rape and non-rape behaviors of sexual violence, the numbers climb closer 1 in 2 women and 1 in 4 men. This scary picture shows us that these things happen a lot more than we’d like to think they do - maybe to someone we know and maybe to us.
When we really think about how frequently we encounter survivors, our gut response should be to compassionately open our arms and provide safe spaces, but historically that has not been true. Instead of supporting victims and survivors, our society has often blamed them. We assume that if people keep experiencing rape, then the victims need to change their behaviors. It would kind of be nice, wouldn’t it, if there were a magic set of rules everyone could follow to avoid sexual and domestic violence? But this is simply not the case.
Because we all want so badly to buy into this easy solution, we created a list of rules for everyone to follow. Don’t dress provocatively, don’t drink too much, don’t be alone with anyone unfamiliar, don’t go out at night or to strange areas. These rules create a world where the range of acceptable behaviors we can engage in without shame dwindles and victims are blamed for not following the rules.
Many of us grow up hearing these rules being thrown in the face of friends or family members; instead of telling victims that it isn’t their fault, we tell them what they did wrong. In 5th grade, my friend was told an adult man at a grocery store had groped her because she was showing too much cleavage. A teenage rape survivor I worked with was berated by her mother that this would never have happened if she had not let her male classmate walk her home after school alone. This blame for “not following the rules” is often thrown at male survivors as well – especially gay men-and so our culture perpetuates this cycle of blame, shame, and guilt.
We have to change a culture that blames survivors for not following the rules when someone sexually assaults them, when the reality is that sexual violence is not the fault of the victim. We have tirelessly work to create a culture of support and love for survivors, not of hostility and further trauma. Don’t just commit to your teal ribbon for 30 days; commit to changing our culture for the better year-round.
Breaking the Glass Ceiling: An Alternative Spring Break By Olivia Lee
Coming back to Rice after participating in an Alternative Spring Break (ASB) in the Spring of 2014, I knew that I had to lead an ASB the next year. I went on an ASB centered around gender inequality, specifically in the realms of intimate partner violence and health care. It had been several years since anyone had lead a trip that focused on gender equality, something I found unacceptable. I had gained so much from my experience on an ASB. The ASB was more than the service and the social issue. From it I gained a sense of community among my fellow participants and I watched them grow and develop during the trip. The young women that went on the trip with me were smart, driven, and passionate. I was so lucky to have had the opportunity to know them. More than anything, I wanted to provide other Rice students with the chance to create a community of passionate, like-minded individuals. As a feminist in a patriarchal world, it is easy to feel isolated. The ASB gave me a sense of belonging that I wanted to provide to others. All of the
I was privileged to watch all of the participants grow and find their place in the feminist movement. participants came in with a different level of knowledge about gender inequality and as the ASB progressed I watched all of us grow and learn. I wanted to give others the chance to grow and discover their passions. These were my goals and vision for the the ASB I planned to lead. I, of course, could not lead it alone, so I recruited my friend, roommate, and partner-in-crime Madhuri Venkateswar. Together we embarked on the stressful and frustrating, but ultimately fulfilling process of planning and leading an ASB. Madhuri and I knew we wanted to focus on policy. Policy is the structure that governs our lives, whether we realize it or not. We wanted our participants to understand that not only does policy affect them, but it also intersects with gender in many, and sometimes unexpected ways.
Before we actually went on the trip, all ASB Site Leaders spend about a year preparing; we spend so long planning that it begins to feel like a hypothetical trip that’s not actually going to happen. Despite the fact that we spend months planning and organizing and preparing, when spring break actually begins you realize how little control you have. You do not control the weather, the bus schedules, the community partners. The actual ASB trip will go down in my memory as the most stressful weeks of my life to date. I watched a trip that I had spent close to a year planning crumble around me as bad weather caused our community partners to shut down. I worried that the participants were not getting a meaningful experience. Despite our unfortunate circumstances, I know I was able to gain an impactful experience on the ASB, and I hope the participants did as well. I learned that an ASB is far more than the service we perform; it is about the people you meet and get to know, both at the community organizations and the other participants. I am happy to say I have added 13 other Rice students to my community of feminists. I learned so much from them during spring break and I have no doubt I
I told them to give a damn and not shy away from their anger and frustration because it meant that they were actually going to do something about the way things are.
will continue to learn from them. For me, the number one most fulfilling aspect of site leading is to watch your participants grow and discover their passions. I was privileged to watch all of the participants grow and find their place in the feminist movement. And I am lucky to call them all my friends. On Sunday night, during our first reflection, I told them to give a damn and not shy away from their anger and frustration because it meant that they were actually going to do something about the way things are. I asked them to find their passion; to find something in the gender equality movement that sparked a fire in them, made them tick. This trip only affirmed my belief in anger and that we can all find a way to do our part in furthering gender equality. And that is the advice I leave the readers with. Find a community that will support and affirm you. Channel your anger and your frustration into positive action. And that no matter what your major is or what career you choose you have a place in the movement! Never stop fighting!
in a display of solidarity against sexual violence, but united in what:
ANGER? SORROW? RESENTMENT, OR FORGIVENESS? What is empowerment? Is it the feeling of community which we’ve developed here today, strength in numbers? Is it the ability to raise our voices in unison and say, with confidence,
THIS SPACE, THIS CAMPUS, THIS COMMUNITY, AND OUR OWN BODIES—THESE BELONG TO NO ONE; THEY EXIST FOR NO ONE. BUT OURSELVES.
If this is empowerment then what of tomorrow? Will these spaces continue to belong to you? Will you still have the power to decide what becomes of your own bodies?
FREEDOM, POWER, INDIVIDUALITY,
these are fickle concepts, defined differently in different social contexts. We are the only creatures burdened with consciousness, and as such we inevitably ascribe meaning to our lives—
love, friendship, happiness, hurt.
We are bound to one another by a consciousness constantly searching for affirmation, looking to one another for connection, constantly reaching out to others and probing: do you feel as I do? Do the worlds we exist in collide, or am I alone?
As social creatures, our identities, the power we possess, and the freedom we experience, are always bound to the people around us and the societies we live in.
As it exists today, our society is one in which men are consistently and systematically given power over women. These power structures are embedded in our national institutions—education, healthcare, politics, the media—but also in our everyday interactions, and
EVEN IN THE WAYS WE THINK OF OUR OWN SELVES.
The ways we stand and sit, the ways we dress, the ways we speak, the ways we talk about sex—as conquests to be boasted about and tallied or as shameful acts of debauchery to be hidden and guarded, as means of bolstering our social status or as things that, if revealed, would lower us to the status of ‘slut,’ ‘loose,’ ‘immoral,’ or ‘unfit for and undeserving of real love.’
Gender differences create gender inequality, create an imbalance of power between the social categories of man and woman and, as such, inherently create an environment that fosters sexual assault.
beyond very moment, must then mean the recognition that men and women think and behave according to social guidelines that give men power over women, that tell men that they are entitled to power over women’s bodies, and tell women to be afraid, because they are constantly vulnerable to the power men hold
Empowerment
over them. Empowerment must then mean more than gathering in one moment to say: sexual assault exists, it exists here as everywhere else, it is not something to be ashamed of, it is not a scar, or relationship baggage, it is an unacceptable act of physical and emotional violence that must be stopped.
Empowermentmust then mean recognizing the thoughts, behaviors, and interactions within our communities that perpetuate gender inequality on a daily basis. Empowerment must mean a consistent effort to elevate femininity, or lower masculinity, to an equal status in society. And ending sexual assault must then mean creating a space in which men and women stand as equals, in which respect for each individual’s autonomy and control over their own bodies is recognized regardless of gender. There’s a common misconception that this campus is somehow a safer environment when it comes to sexual assault, that HAVING A COMMUNITY FULL OF INTELLIGENT PEOPLE SOMEHOW MEANS THAT GENDER INEQUALITY IS LESS PERVASIVE, THAT THE MEN AND WOMEN ON THIS CAMPUS KNOW BETTER. I think a part of this stems from this exaggerated notion of sexual assault as the story where a woman in a dark alleyway is assaulted by a strange man, physically dominated and raped. The reality is that a majority of the sexual assaults on college campuses—and across the nation—are committed by someone the victim or survivor knows closely, and is oftentimes friends with.
Our revised policy on sexual misconduct at Rice states that:
can come in two forms: verbal, or through clear actions that imply a willingness to participate. But is not the notion of “clarity” subjective?
And are not our understandings of each others’ behavior, especially in intimate relations, directly affected by the pressure of conformity to an aggressive masculinity and a compliant femininity?
THE POLICY FURTHER STATES: “CONSENT IS NOT [DEEMED] PRESENT [SIMPLY] BECAUSE THE OTHER PERSON IS SILENT OR DOESN’T RESIST SEXUAL CONTACT…” But if gender norms in our society prescribe that women should not want sex, and that men should be the instigators, the penetrators, and women the passive receptors, then what do we make of the statement that if a woman simply lies silent and unresisting,
she has not given consent? THE PROBLEM THEN LIES IN OUR OF MASCULINITY AND AND WHAT HAS BEEN AS NATURAL IN SEXUAL
DEFINITIONS FEMININITY, PRESCRIBED RELATIONS.
Societal constructions of gender, systematically engrain in us that men do and should hold the power during sex. Thus, according to this definition of consent, the dominant models of masculinity and femininity in society directly prescribe behavior in intimate relations that lead to sexual assault. Regardless of the multitudes of masculinities and femininities that exist in our society, regardless of race, gender, social class or sexuality, all people in our society face the pressure to conform with these dominant, hegemonic forms of masculinity and femininity.
THUS,FOR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US,
Empowerment
MUST MEAN A DAILY DEFIANCE OF THESE SOCIETAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER. FOR ALL OF US, THE FIGHT TO END SEXUAL ASSAULT IS SYNONYMOUS WITH THE FIGHT FOR GENDER EQUALITY. THIS IS WHAT
Empowerment
MEANS TO ME, AND TAKE BACK THE NIGHT IS ONLY ONE SMALL STEP TOWARDS A LARGER GOAL. LEAVE DETERMINED, AND MAKE
Empowerment
A GOAL NOT ONLY FOR TONIGHT, BUT ALSO FOR TOMORROW, THE NEXT DAY, AND EVERY DAY TO COME.
A speech by Kevin Armstrong,
given at the 2015 Take Back the Night Rally
A Ghost of Women:
Living the Body Under Patriarchy By Michelle Pham
Ron Mueck’s hyper-realistic sculpture Ghost is an exaggeration uncomfortably close to reality. When first seen, the sevenfoot height and 3/2 proportions of the young woman places the sculpture in the realm of hyperbole; Ghost appears to be a magnification or even distortion of the human body. But after the initial shock of the size wears off, the adolescent becomes more and more familiar to the spectator’s eye. The distorted physical dimensions of Ghost initially mark the figure as unique and remarkable; however, I contend that the strength of the piece is actually rooted in its familiarity to the spectator and representation of known bodily realities. Here, I engage with Iris Marion Young’s feminist theories regarding the external gaze. By drawing from Young’s discussion of movement and women’s bodies, I argue that Ron Mueck’s Ghost is a static, visual representation of how women live through their bodies beneath the male gaze and patriarchy.
Ron Mueck’s Ghost is a static, visual representation of how women live through their bodies beneath the male gaze and patriarchy.
When first looking at the female subject of Ghost, what is perhaps most apparent is the tilt of her face away from the viewer. As the viewer stands before the teenage girl, there is an expectation that they will meet her eyes. However, the artist Mueck sets her face downwards and to the side, providing the viewers with a quarter-profile view at best. The angle and expression of the young woman’s face cannot be removed from consideration of her outfit, a body skimming black swimsuit. The combination of her
expression and dress signify that her demonstrated discomfort and shyness stem from her consciousness of her adolescent body on display. Rather than meet the gaze of the viewer, Ghost turns away from it. The woman of Ghost may be a sculpture, but her reaction to the gaze of the viewer is all too human. In Iris Marion Young’s essay “Throwing Like a Girl”, Young argues that a certain consciousness arises from the recognition of one’s position as the “object of the gaze of another”; as a result of this awareness, a woman is oriented in the world as an object, contributing to “her bodily selfreference” (Young, “Throwing” 150). This self-reference is an awareness of one’s body image and the possibilities of others’ perceptions of it. In another essay, “Breasted Experience”, Young focuses on the development of breasts as the point in which sexual, male objectification begins. The new gaze a woman’s changing body receives “evaluate[s] her according to standards that she had no part in establishing, and that remain outside her control” (Young, “Breasted” 190). This transitional experience triggered by puberty is one captured in Ghost. With her long, lanky build, small budding breasts and a certain stiffness of her frame, the young woman is a marker for the changes of puberty.The normalized and judgmental objectification through the male gaze that makes the receiver “aware of his admiration or disgust” situates an otherwise autonomous individual as an object as she is “looked at in a different way than before” (190). Ghost depicts the clear discomfort of women in adolescence with being watched. But the gaze of the museum spectators serves as a substitute for the patriarchal gaze of men. With her face tucked nearly into her shoulder and eyes averted, Ghost acts in a manner that, as
Young puts,“ignor[es] the objectifying gaze, retaining nevertheless edges of ambiguity and uncertainty about her body” (190). Meanwhile the male viewer (or museum spectator) “fixes the object in its gaze, mastering and knowing it with unambiguous certainty” (190). The unequal relationship between the male gaze/male subject and the female body/female object is invoked within the confines of the museum, echoed through the interactions of the active spectator/ subject and the passive sculpture/object. The interaction is uncomfortable for the receiver of the gaze because the woman “is passive, inert matter, having no selfmoving capacity” after being situated as the object (191). It is all too fitting then, that the representation of the subjectobject gaze is encapsulated within the stoic confines of sculpture, in which the object is physically unable to react in any manner. For women, this aspect of limited physicality and a subject position become object extends beyond responses to the male gaze; it is a principle characteristic in how women move across the world. Young describes the attempts of theorists to explain the hesitance in women’s physical movements versus men’s confident, bold gestures. Explanations of this sex difference have often been focused on the individual, rather than the “historical, culture, social, and economic limits of her situation” (Young, “Throwing” 142). A focus on situatedness by feminist theorists like Young brings about a new way to understand the body and the significance of how movement is enacted through it. Whereas some theorists tend to explain movements through a biological basis, Young broadens feminist thought to touch on situational context. Some feminist theorists’ reliance on a biological
commonality or some internal feminine “essence” to explain the difference in how men and women live through their bodies obscures the “common basis which underlies every individual female existence in the present state of education and custom” (142). This obscured social context is the phenomenology of the gaze. Foundational gender theorists like Simone de Beauvoir have centered their arguments on “the more evident facts of a woman’s physiology”, rather than examining the social condition of women (142). But Young challenges this biological essentialism within much of feminist theory and finds that beyond similar biology is another shared basis of women’s lives, which is embodied in movement and being moreso than biology. Young argues that it is the “unity” of women’s “given sociohistorical set of circumstances” that have a visible impact in how women hold themselves (142). While the social status of women (as well as feminine presenting individuals) cannot be generalized or examined without utilizing an analysis of other oppressions (such as race, sexuality, class, etc), the oppression of women holds true and takes different forms and complexities across communities. The structures and cultures that comprise and perpetuate this domination of women have reached the individual, socializing women to occupy space and move differently from men. The limited ways in which women take up space are represented by the positioning of the body of female of Ghost. Mueck’s sculpture does not stand up straight; the young woman’s body is leaning against the wall. Her shoulders are slumped and her hands are hidden behind her back. A contradiction exists: Ghost is seven feet tall, yet the young woman appears to minimize her size in any way possible. Whereas Young’s
discussion of the female body centers on movement and accomplishing physical tasks, the occupation of space by women as compared to men is also touched upon. Young writes that women “are not as open with their bodies as are men in their gait and stride”; presumably, women’s static positioning in space is also an extension of this hesitancy to be and to take up space (146). When women “move in sport”, Young describes that “a space surrounds [us] in imagination that we are not free to move beyond; the space available to our movement is a constricted space.” But even when stationary, women, like the young woman in Ghost, do anything possible to contract, minimize, and blend in. The hesitance of women to fully embrace their physical capabilities, occupy space rightfully, and to extend rather than “[remain] rooted in immanence” harkens to what Young theorizes as a learned and cultivated lack of confidence in the body’s abilities, as well as a “fear of getting hurt” (144-146). Contradictions abound in the duality of needing to enact action yet practicing the mindset that one cannot; parallel contradictions are also present within Ghost, as Mueck constructs a seven foot tall sculpture of a teenage girl attempting to shrink herself. Feminine existence is thus a tangle of possibilities shrunken by the realities of institutions and culture that call for a separate embodiment of space according to gender. In conclusion, Ron Mueck’s sculpture Ghost serves as a visible depiction of how women’s bodies are lived and looked at within the patriarchy. By using Iris Marion Young’s separate but related feminist theories regarding the objectifying male gaze and the embodied and lived disparities of women’s status, I have analyzed Ghost as more than a stand-alone work, but a cultural artifact
The structures and cultures that comprise and perpetuate this domination of women have reached the individual, socializing women to occupy space and move differently from men.
of the current sociohistorical conditions regarding women’s status and self. Within the young sculpted woman’s gaze and posture lie universal trends that exist beyond the sculptor and are even partially enacted within the relationship of museum goer/spectator and the art piece. But it is the medium, perhaps, that provokes viewers to make connections to feminist understandings of the body. As a sculpture, Ghost was created by Ron Mueck, subject to his gaze and handwork. As an art piece, Ghost is meant to be looked at, to be the object of the gaze and to rarely if ever be touched by the spectator. But of course, these limitations begin and end at the piece. What meaning we can obtain from Ghost reaches its limit when we turn our examination to the constructed differences of moving through the world. Living, breathing humans with autonomy hold the potential for disrupting the normative embodied status inequality. One’s occupation “between subjectivity and being a mere object” can be shifted and explored We hold the possibility of enacting a new “feminine subjectivity” (Young, “Breasted” 193). Young writes an “epistemology” closer to egalitarianism can be produced through touch (193). Touch is at once, active and passive. Unlike the power relations of gazer and object, the toucher is also touched (193). Ghost is an aesthetic representation, a mechanism for understanding and viewing statically the female embodiment of status inequality. But potential ways of conceiving change require a move beyond the abilities of the visual, perhaps stretching to forms of engagement and knowledgeseeking through touch.
BioE! bitches! By Mehek Gagneja I’m writing this as I look away tabs full of attempts at research on the levels of different hormones and proteins in your saliva during your menstrual cycle. I’m at the RWRC because it’s currently my volunteer shift, and it’s feeling very woman-y up in here. I’m not just trying to learn more about my menstrual cycle for fun, but doing research for a design project for one of my bioengineering classes. This current project is a rather relaxed continuation of those infamous PBLs, that is, problem-based learning projects. This semester something rather strange happened. PBL groups are supposedly created to be diverse, balanced in gender, race, and GPA. However, with a class that was about 65% female, this year there was one group made up entirely of women: my group. We’ve all heard that women are underrepresented in the engineering field, so I played around with some of the data on the Office of Institutional Research to see how gender representation played out at Rice. I focused on the gender divide for those who had received Engineering Bachelor’s degrees from 2010 to 2014. Overall, the Engineering school is about 34% female. Civil & Environmental Engineering and Bioengineering are the most evenly divided, with 48.8% and 46.5% female representation, respectively. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering follows with 37.1% female representation. Computer Science fares worse with 29.2% female representation. The most divided majors are Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering,
with female participation at 21.4% and 18.8%, respectively. The lack of women is STEMrelated fields is troubling. In a field dominated by men we can face two worries: either the problems we solve are overwhelmingly male-related, or the solutions designed for problems don’t take into account women’s unique needs. For example, women are often left out of pharmaceutical testing and clinical trials, leading to the production and sale of drugs that could possibly be harmful for them because the dosage is off or the drug reacts differently or a variety of other reasons. My group is designing a smart phone app that more accurately tracks fertility based on physiological values rather than timing (the latter already exists). We chose the topic because achieving and especially avoiding pregnancy are always hot topics in American politics and culture, but too often cloaked in moralistic rhetoric than any true attempts at problem solving. In speaking to another group, I received a flippant, “Yeah, but you know we have to give an oral presentation, and our presenter couldn’t take the idea of talking about periods up there seriously.” Seriously? This intended joke represents a widespread, if not explicit attitude that considers problems afflicting women as less worthy of attention than those affecting men. People tend to try solving problems that are close to them, so to guarantee that problems affecting women are solved is to have more
women represented in the field and in the companies that decide what challenge they’re going to tackle next.
being a part of my specific PBL group only empowered me to be comfortable in my chosen academic space.
Professors I have spoken to recall from experience that men have higher confidence than women in engineering fields. Whenever my group felt overwhelmed that something wouldn’t work, Dr. Saterbak would tell us to just go for it. I don’t think it’s fair to say that women necessarily felt overlooked in other PBL groups, but by removing men from our group, we essentially were able to remove a socially constructed variable and test the efficacy of the resulting group. And we did pretty well. We paid attention to each other, and we all felt comfortable to speak freely about our ideas. There was almost a social pressure to be kind and supportive, and we had to develop an anonymous constructive communication system when we realized we weren’t willing to criticize each other. I am certain that the validation and shared experience that came from
I think that throughout the process, we were all acutely aware of our womanhood. I’ll let you in on a notreally secret we kept from Dr. Saterbak. On one of our first meetings, we decided that our team name was going to be “BIOE Bitches,”. I mentioned this to a fellow engineering and he asked “Why do you have to put so much focus on being girls? Isn’t that the opposite of equality?”. This question is tinged with the fear of “feminist extremists” and the misconception that women are out to make themselves better than men, as well as if they must achieve equality, they should do so quietly and invisibly. Until an underrepresented achieves full equality, it is still not only productive, but necessary to point out their presence. There are multitudes of intersectional issues involving women in engineering and science fields that I didn’t even touch on in this piece but I do hope that my small personal piece of the entire picture was somehow useful.
People tend to try solving problems that are close to them, so to guarantee that problems affecting women are solved is to have more women represented in the field.
I want to thank the seven remarkable women I’ve had to opportunity to work with for the past year. Anita Alem, Kathleen Francis, Julia Zhang, Allie Porter, Sharon Ghelman, Amy Kupra, and Kylie Balotin, you are all sharp, passionate, uniquely talented women. I’m honored to have shared in our work, and I can’t wait to see what you all will do next.
see you in the next issue of the engender zine! Editor in Chief
June Deng
Guest Editors
Micaela Canales Khadijah Erskine Clara Roberts
Contributing Authors
Kevin Armstrong Vicky Comesanas Mehek Gagneja Kate Hildebrandt Olivia Lee Michelle Pham Emily Wu
Bibliography for A Ghost of Women ”Ron MueckGhost 1998.” ‘Ghost’, Ron Mueck. TATE UK, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. Young, Iris Marion. On Female Body Experience: “Throwing like a Girl” and Other Essays. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
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