In "Worlding Women," it says that "the female and the domestic sphere in which she belongs 'naturally' is obscured, although the female labour and sexual services within it support and allow the male/public/political to function."  When I read that, I can't help but think about the quotation --as cliche and annoying as it can be-- "Behind every great man there is a great woman."  Women are constantly behind men, helping them succeed.   It just fascinates me that, "female labour and sexual services" back men and "allow" them to get anywhere at all.  By acquiescing to the situation of existing in an "obscured" sphere, are many women enabling men?  Are they allowing men to use them?  And in that sense, are they enabling themselves, avoiding a more difficult road of dissent?  Or is this simply a western feminist view that limits the definition of feminism? 

In Worlding Women, on page 9, Pettman says that "the state is the main organizer of the power relations of gender through its legislation and policies." So does this mean that the state is responsible for organizing "men's disembodied political sphere and women's sexualised domestic one, reflect[ing] the saturation of the female but not male body with sex" (8)? Or do you even agree? Pettman also points out that "it is often agents of the state, especially police and military, who are major abusers of women's rights" (10) and that "not all men were admitted to public power, but all men were admitted to sex right, to women's unpaid labour, sexual services and reproductive powers--to women's bodies" (7). How do these two statements relate? Are these truths in our own lives or has the "state" improved any in overcoming the sexualization of women? Finally, how does the relationship between women and the state in Scandinavian countries claim to overcome this? (Pettman mentions this on page 11, and during the Feminist Politics conference, in the "Liberalism and its Others" panel, Hirdman discussed gender equality in Sweden at length, if anyone remembers.)

On J.J. Pettman

Among the many interesting and new topics about which people have posted, Pettman also sheds light on certain concepts we have discussed thus far.
On page 8, she says "Women are then constructed as needing disciplining; for the female passions can ensnare or distract men, or set them up in competition with each other.....she needs to be under the protection/control of a man (to protect her-- or to protect the polis/the man from her?)". I found this to be similar to our discussion about the veil and how it is to protect the men from sinning and giving into their temptations.
Also, on page 10, she mentions, "...equality feminists seek to end state-directed or -sanctioned discrimination against women.......Feminist commentators remark upon the ironies of appealing to a masculinist state for protection against the violence of individual men." The leads us back to a concept introduced in The Second Sex in that women can only stop being the "other" when they stop depending on men.
Finally, Pettman introduces some very interesting questions: "How do women experience citizenship?"(pg 15) and one should ask, "what the citizen is a citizen of". (pg 23)

Lastly, I would like to hear how people responded to Pettman's remark on page 8. "TA failure to 'see' women makes possible the transformation of 'man' into a supposedly neutral and universal being. his repression that excludes female difference can only allow female inclusion at the cost of homologising them--of making women become or be seen as being like men."

Diana Taylor's article reinforced the idea of an "imagined" nation through her examination of the Dirty War in Argentina.  I find it extensively fascinating that the idea of 'citizenship' and 'the nation/nationalism' are so malleable -- we can look within America's past to see examples of this flexibility.  I wonder whether (and why or why not) ideas of "womanhood" and its meaning/practice succumb to changes much like citizenship and nationalism.  I know they altered within the sphere of redefining the nation, yet have definitions of "woman" really run the gamut?  This question is applicable to more than just the US.  Really, I'm looking for an example where 'womanhood' is broader than usual in this redefinition of nation and citizen. 

In "What is in a Rim?" Professor Tadiar explains how the Philippines is "the mistress of the United States" (p.223) and how this relationship between a first-world and third-world country can be so devastatingly destructive, but only on the third-world country's part. I loved this article because it exposed me to so many injustices that not only are still in effect, but are probably getting worse with time. That being said, I wonder if there is something I, in the first world, could actually do. Tadiar writes that we must "realize a more just form of community" by "dreaming other worlds in other ways" (242) but that's not a "real" solution, or at least an immediate solution. Is this, then, another example of how feminism may not be translatable? This article represents why feminism can be so divisive, but I want to believe that there is an effective way of reaching out without imposing western feminist agendas on those of the Philippines. To achieve feminist goals, is it necessary to first leave feminism out of the picture, restructure government/international relations, and then get into issues concerning women, or would that make feminist concerns an afterthought? Should the west stay out of this process, lest it become another example of the west imposing western ideals on foreign countries?

In Professor Kessler-Harris's lecture she paralleled Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Wollstoncraft's idea of a feminist dilemma. In addition, she brought up the idea being a "mother" both symbolically and metaphorically in society. Professor Kessler Harris discussed the different tactics women used to gain their rights; arguing they were so similar to men that they should receive equal rights and/or arguing that they were drastically different and therefore should be given their own rights. All of these ideas are shown through Petman, Taylor, and Tadiar articles. In regard to Petman's article the argument that State sovereignty is based on notions of differences of gender-on exclusion or exclusiveness. How is this paralleled to Professor Harris's lecture about both the past and the future (what we are seeing in this election)? 

In her article, "Worlding Women", Jan Jindy Pettman discusses the gender dichotomy which exists within and is perpetuated by the sovereign state. She argues that this sovereign state is patriarchal and often operates onthe basis of excluding women, resulting in a system based on "men, states, and wars.. not women." This discussion makes me wonder what a female-dominated society would look like-- would "masculine" institutions like violence and war be issues, or are those elements the natural products of a gender-unequal society?