In an excerpt from Ways of Seeing, John Berger discusses the idea of the self, and how this "self" is different for women and men. While the male's sense of self is independent of his appearance or behavior, suggesting "what he is capable of doing to you or for you," the female's identity is intertwined with her "image of herself"-- "A woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste-- indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence." If this is what determines how women are seen and whether or not they are taken seriously by others, will it ever be possible to have a society where relations between the sexes are equal? Is there any way to transcend this kind of inequality if it is so ingrained in the ways in which we see ourselves, behave towards ourselves, and exist in the world in general?

Oct. 23rd

In examining "the gaze", John Berger states that this oppressive, male gaze is active, while Laura Mulvey states that it is another manifestation of an "unconscious" patriarchal structure. How active is this "gaze"? I think that determining the answer to this question is crucial in figuring out how to fight it, and answer the answer that Claire poses. In addition, how must women fight off this gaze? Based on my personal account, I feel that I have seen a backlash in the media today, in which women impose a female "gaze" that objectifies men as well. Are women justified in doing so? If not, what other measures can be taken?

Oct 23rd discussion

In "Ways of Seeing," John Berger explains the problem of perspective as the insistence on a single, objective way of seeing.  Berger examines perspective as applied to Renaissance painting. Laura Mulvey raises the same question in film, where "the camera becomes the mechanism for producing an illusion of Renaissance space," ie the illusion of an objective reality that is only based on what the camera sees. Mulvey's solution is to free the camera from this position and acknowledge its subjectivity. This is the same solution that Sarah offered in discussion last week: to acknowledge one's assumptions and social location in order to try to achieve some sense of objectivity. How can we apply this to looking, in order to look without objectifying? 

Nurayan’s discourse of epistemic privilege was at once effective and engaging but also gave reason to pause. While in agreement about the roles of the insider and outsider ( I think the discussion of denial of theory production and taking it a step further, denial of access to models of abstract, conceptual thinking, is a crucial one to have), the problem arises in how to define an insider and how to define an outsider. Who is the oppressed? And who is the one providing comfort? Bringing in Crenshaw’s piece, when there is such intersectionality of experience and people have so many identities, how does one proclaim the identity of the oppressed? And drawing from the beginning section of Wylie’s piece, if the women’s movement is essentially “women in movement” as Wylie, I think, so nicely describes it, and there are so many categories and definitions of feminism, who determines who is an insider and who is an outsider? Can one encompass both positions?

In a different vain, I think it was also incredibly poignant to juxtapose readings about science and emotion, as both concepts, given equal attention and weight, come out seeming equivalently important and crucial to a feminist understanding, when one or both is so often dismissed as irrelevant or antithetical or damaging to feminist ideology. This then begs the question, what other arenas or structure might we too readily dismiss? And thinking about structures, in the beginning analysis put forth by Wylie, she poses the question of “just how important sex/gender structures” are “compared with other structuring principles. So, how important is the gender structure when weighed against other structures? Should there be a hierarchy?

I like the way Narayan explains one of her main ideas on page 37: "the claim to the epistemic privilege of the oppressed does imply that people who are not members of the oppressed group will have to make a great deal of effort to come to grips with the details of lived oppression. Having members of the oppressed groups as friends, sharing in aspects of their lifestyle, fighting alongside them on issues that concern them, sustaining a continuous dialogue with them, etc. can all help non-members develop a more sophisticated understanding of what a form of oppression involves. But 'outsiders' who do none of the above, who simply have an abstract sort of goodwill towards members of the oppressed group, are unlikely to have much of a clear or detailed awareness of the forms in which that oppression is experienced." Furthermore, "concerned outsiders must recognize that their concern carries with it a responsibility to actively seek out and acquire such knowledge, rather than see it as the insider's responsibility ot bring such knowledge to their attention because the oppression is 'the insider's problem." Her proposed solution (for lack of a better word) assumes that the "outsiders" to the oppressed group want to, and are willing to, understand the viewpoint of the oppressed persons. So, in what situations is this solution more effective than others? How do we get people to care enough in the first place to understand others? Do you know men who take these steps toward better understanding women? Finally, is it possible to incorporate Narayan's suggestion into education without using the "tools of a racist patriarchy" as described by Audre Lorde?

I have the same question as Hillary--is it possible for anthropology to be divorced from the cultural presuppositions of the researchers themselves?  Wylie applies Lorde's argument to science, claiming that "the tools themselves [are] part of the problem...either in generating some of the biases that feminists document or...allowing bias to reproduced" (49). Even if anthropologists acknowledge their own biases and presupptions, they do not have the tools--what historian Lawrence Goodwyn calls "conceptual options" and language--to avoid recreating them in their work. 

In addition, Narayn argues that outisders lack the epistemic privilege of insiders necessary to understand their situation (and in her talk at the conference, she spoke about the inabiity of international aid workers to understand the local context without spending a significant amount of time in the society in which they are working), suggesting that even if such tools existed, is extremely difficult to understand another society from an external perspective. 

I have only studied anthropology in this sort of indirect way, and am very interested to hear what some of the anthropology majors in the class have to say. 

Also, in response to Christine, I study physics and I was curious about whether her critiques of the social science methods themselves apply to physics. She references--but does not endorse--feminist critiques of "the whole orientation of mathematics and theoretical physics [as] ideologically masculine," but I am not sure what such are argument would look like (or whether it would be remotely convincing). I also struggled with the recurrence of Wollstonecraft's dilemma in Wylie--can we argue that women both have a right to be scientists because of their intellectual equality and that women need to be scientists because of their uniquely gendered distinct "sensibilities"/interests/approaches (45)?

I enjoyed Audre Lorde's piece, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," because I think her basic point, while seemingly obvious, is not often discussed. As Lorde puts it, "What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable." Lorde seems to be advocating that, as feminists, we must work outside and not within the system to affect meaningful change. How, though, should we go about this? Is she advocating a complete overthrow of the system? Destruction of the state as we know it in order to rebuild society? What are the alternate tools that we can use to build our own house?