Woman and Philosophy: Another Broken Toy

©2010-2012 ~ZeTrystan---(Picture)

I want to write a short blog about this picture. I stumbled upon it a few months ago while writing my review of Run Lola Run and found it to be a very powerful metaphor.

I knew I wanted to blog about it but did not know exactly what I wanted to say until we read the latest section of Beauvoir. This drawing in a way represents what she was saying especially if we take it as losing one’s virginity. The picture could be about violent rape but it could be losing of virginity and rape—and to Beauvoir they are symbolically the same thing.

 This picture takes the romantic ideal parodied with the same symbols in the well-known film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, that the right guy is the “right fit” or even “the perfect fit”. Literally, we are obviously talking about the penis but if we delve deeper, more meaning can be found—essentially going back to the story of Aristophanes where sex is our search to find our other half—our “soul-mate”. The bloody key in this picture is a match to the key hole in the doll where the genitals normally are however, from the mood of the picture we can see that this was not the romantic “deflowering” she had in mind but painful, confusing, unexpected, and that in the process, this “toy” lost something she cannot get back. Physically this is her virginity but metaphorically, it is also her innocence and things like that.

Also the fact that the artists calls her a toy—the concept men have that women are things for their pleasure and amusement that they can “play” with and that, as with most people and their toys, will outgrow, become bored with, and\or move on to a new toy. Essentially that society (as in media and gender stereotypes) perceive women as disposable things—not people, that are transient and can easily be replaced, as the other part of the title of the piece implies—another broken toy.

What do you think of the drawing? Do you agree that these concepts are still real and present in society?

One beautiful day you will find...

The cute little doll.
A little girl easy to play with.
Beautiful little eyes. Beautiful little lips.
Her little heart beats, again and again.

You only have to use your key.
Find the keyhole and turn, turn.
Turn to hear her little voice.
Turn to hear her crying.

And then, you're bored.
You don't want to play with the little doll.
So you put her in the garbage.
Goodbye little broken toy.

...

And one beautiful day you will find...

©2010-2012 ~ZeTrystan---(Poem)

Women and Philosophy: Miss Piggy

“Forgive me for being so forward, but I'm a liberated pig.”—Frank Oz as Miss Piggy on The Muppet Show Season 1

Starting today, I will be doing a blog entry on everything that pops into my mind relevant to the course each day unless I think of nothing. This will mean shorter blogs but more frequent entries. Today’s theme is Jim Henson, the Muppets, and Miss Piggy.

As most people know the Muppets are quite on the liberal side of the fence (though their intention and function is to be enjoyed by all) and this can be said about sexism and feminism.

Now several of the male characters for most the original show made sexist jokes to her but this was a parody on how stupid sexism is. The Muppets are all about parodies and satire. However, the thing that is interesting is the character of Miss Piggy. Several of the main Muppet characters have fully fleshed out personalities just like any good character in a story and like a story there is growth and character development. What is so wonderful about Piggy is that she is the bridge the bridge between stereotypes, eras, and extremes. She is overly feminine in most of her actions—she loves make-up, fashion, acting sophisticated, and being helplessly in love with the frog of her dreams. However, the other side of her is strong, willful, independent, and determined. She knows how to defend herself and she knows how to get what she wants—and rather than use her looks and her body to get what she wants which is the typical way females in television series manipulate male characters (with sex and sex appeal), she uses her strength and her attitude. This was one of the gender stereotypes we used to hear about: men are more assertive and are more likely to get a job and a higher paying salary because they are driven and want to haggle and negotiate.

This is a wonderful message to send to young girls who watched the show and later the movies: that it is ok to be “girly” and feminine but that there are more traits other than those. People are more complex then stereotypes we all know that. Like one of the message of Citizen Kane, people are defined by their contradiction. Simply put, Miss Piggy taught the young audience, both boys and girls that it is ok for a girl to be strong and smart as well as liking glitz and glamour.

Women and Philosophy: Aristophanes

I would first like to apologize for the lack of any blog activity the last week and even this one I’m getting in right before the deadline. I would like to take this time to apologize for this as well as an appearance of lack of enthusiasm in the classroom and my two absences. I would like to explain this behavior as I am not a slacker or a lazy student and I pride myself in my work and want to do my best for my professors to show them the learning that is taking place. That being said, I do not want to give the impression that I am anything less than a serious student. I am about to explain this recent behavior—not excuse but explain. I have been going thru a rough time recently with a depressive episode and have been doing my very best to cope and to push forward and power thru my homework and classes trying my hardest to focus on my studies. At times, it is difficult to even read as I struggle with every word and feel illiterate. On the days, I have missed classes I was in very bad places and had I gone to class I would have not gotten anything out of it and I probably would have concerned the students around me and may have left in the middle of class anyway. On these days, I also felt I could not go to class, not just mentally, but I felt I physically could not move. Like with any severe illness I have good days and bad days and I am working with an on campus therapist to ease the burden of these feelings. This is mainly to apologize to my fellow students because the class is a discussion-based one, that includes the blogging, and when one person neglects this, the whole class suffers. My professors will receive a separate email explaining the situation in more detail. Thank you all for your understanding and I apologize again.

Now on to the blog:

This week I would like to talk about my SLAP since I did not get a chance to on Wed, however, the conversation that we did have was interesting indeed. I turn to the first paragraph on pg. 23. I disagree with her statement that the Platonic myths “take sexual differentiation for granted without attempting to explain it”. I admit that they may take it for granted but the myth she refers to does explain it in a sense. In addition, one could argue that if people did not really care that there was sexual differentiation, they might be more inclined to see the sexes as equal. The myth she refers to is a story that Aristophanes tells Plato to try to explain sexual intercourse. Beauvoir agrees with this but she feels it is only about sex while I interpret this story as being much more romantic than pure sex. One could interpret Aristophanes story to explain why people “make love” I thought of this when I remembered Robert Rowland Smith’s interpretation of the story in his book Breakfast with Socrates that I highly recommend. Smith gives a beautiful interpretation of the story as follows:

“Ever since [our bodies were cut in two], the severed individuals have been seeking to come back to their other half, defining sex—the gluing of fragments—as deep satisfaction of being once more complete. Aristophanes’s story holds no biological water, of course, but like many myths it makes up for it in psychological insight: it interprets the craving for sex as nostalgia, a desire for return to a lost paradise of wholeness and haleness, a site of familiarity and sameness. In tumbling into the exquisite comfort of a lover’s arms, you are seeking to repair your perforated soul.”

He puts it so poetically but I agree with him fully. I know that Beauvoir has a different agenda here, but she does wave her hand over this story of sex as if it does not do as much as it should or that the philosophers were not focusing on the real issue at hand—which may be true. Do not get me wrong, I agree with pretty much everything she has to say, which makes it difficult to make a SLAP being in such agreement.

However, shouldn’t this class talk at least a little bit about male and female relationships? Especially since most of the complaints of either sex are directed at the opposite one as a direct result of relationship problems. Most of the clichés and stereotypes and genders and sexes are based in the differences that cause problem in log term relationships—most sitcoms that deal with couples focus most of their attention on this subject such as Home Improvement and Everybody Loves Raymond, as well as others. The only problem here is that usually the issues refer back to straight couples, as does Aristophanes story, although he never specifically mentions that when the humans were split one-half looks male and the other female, it is almost certainly implied.

Moreover, since ALL types of relationships and gender\sex differences are equally valid, it may be a waste of time for our class to discuss these issues, which seem to be on a different level than our class. This was all just some food for thought and since that, it was these blogs are for I hope I sparked some thoughts about the nature of intercourse at the very least.

Women and Philosophy: Double Standards

I am extremely off my game today and I apologize in advance—it has been a long and strenuous week. Today I am doing a short post on double standards. Oh, how I hate double standards. Let’s start with the most obvious: sex.

It seems that as long as forever, it is not only no surprise when a man sleeps around but it is also expected and usually encouraged. At the same time however, women are meant to “guard their flower” How do people expect this to work? If all the men are meant to be having sex with as many women as they can while simultaneously, women are supposed to save it for the right one or just for love or just for the one they marry. This is like the statistic about drivers I’m sure most have you have heard esp. if you have been in a statistics class: 80%\of all drivers report that they are better than the average driver—you see how this doesn’t work. Even when safe sex is involved, the stigmas and stereotypes are still there. If someone finds a condom in a guy’s wallet he is just being responsible and prepared, however, if someone find birth control in a girl’s purse, she is a slut. Even worse is when the religion gets involved. In both Christianity and Islam, it is widely considered a sin to have sex before marriage. However, if a guy does it he is just being a guy “boys will be boys”—it is still a sin, society just doesn’t care. If a girl has done it though, parents throw a huge fit. Even worse still in Islamic culture, if a girl has sex before marriage she is used goods and no lager fit to be anyone’s wife. Even if she was raped or she rode horses when she was, young it is still her fault and she is cast out. WTF?!\Logic? None to be seen. As i said it is still a sin for a guy to do it but there is no physical evidence of it afterwards so no one is the wiser, except the girl that he “ruined”. This explains why there is great popularity with one of the latest plastic surgeries: hymen reattachment.

There are many other double standards that affect women but what about the few that affect men? These problems are still technically about women and I was thinking on these today. The first is that whenever there is a couple fighting, usually the guy is always blamed even if the girl is the abusive one in the relationship, which does happen, if people get involved in the argument they usually side with the girl. Another one that people fairly think about is if a guy is watching children play, the first place a lot of people’s minds go is that he is a child-molester. However, a child is equally likely to be stolen by a woman. Woman who are infertile or lost a child may, in the right mind-set, steal someone else’s child and raise them as their own—but no o e ever thinks about that when a woman is watching children somewhere.

Women and Philosophy 2: Self-Reliance

I wouldn’t care if i lost the ability to use my phone. I have never been big into the “nonsense news craze” by this i mean that people are constantly telling other people everything they do of do every minute of every day

When I left class yesterday, I began having several musings, which I plan to put into blog posts in the next several days. I will start with Self-Reliance.

Self-Reliance is a very old concept but really was discussed in detail as an important part of life when R. W. Emerson wrote an essay on it. I really love Emerson and I especially love this essay. Even though he is mostly referred to as an essayist, I see him as a philosopher.

Yes, his language is dated and so when he talks of people in general and humanity as a whole he uses the terms “man”, “men’s”, and “mankind”. However, it is easy to look past this.

Most people know what it means to be self-reliant. For those who do not know, to sum up, it means one must be able to take care of oneself without the help or aid of anyone else. Now for Emerson’s friend Thoreau, he took this literally, believing that everyone should go off on his\her own, which is what he did. However, Emerson was not against relationships as much as Thoreau was. In fact, Emerson believed relationships were important and that it is okay to be co-dependent or interdependent, so long as, that, at the end of the day, if that other person were to disappear, one could still take care of oneself. This philosophy obviously gets rid of the problem of slaves quiet easily. However, what does this all have to do with women?

I believe is self-reliance and its core message and at its core it focuses on egalitarianism (if you really think about what Emerson says). The best way to explain is to focus on marriage.

Even in Emerson’s time (late 19^th-early 20^th century), we all know that marriage was still important and expected—more so in the case of women. Let’s look at a hypothetical:

Let’s say you are a woman, and you have been nurtured to be prissy and ditzy. What happens if you don’t or can’t get married and can’t rely on daddy’s money any more (this scenario is taking place in Emerson’s time just to be clear)? Can you split a log? Provide for yourself? Manage your finances? Etc. Let’s now assume you are a man in this situation. Can you sew your coat or shirt back together? Can you prepare a meal that is not just some camping\cowboy feast of grits and beans? Etc.

I know I am playing with real obvious stereotypes her but you get the point. Take this to the modern world: regardless of your sex or gender, you should be able to (get ready for more stereotypes) fix a flat tire, check the oil in the car, chop wood, mow the lawn, start a fire, and stitch\sew, clean dishes, do laundry, cook\bake a multitude of things, talk to your son and\or daughter about sex and their body changes. You should be able to put up a fight and defend yourself and also be there to comfort and console the people close to you.

In addition, today the best and most obvious examples of people who are in situations in which they are self-reliant in several of these ways are single parents.

The logical conclusion from this experiment is that all the tasks I listed are things one can learn which means they are not gender or sex exclusive one way or another.

Therefore, these stereotypes are fully unfounded and that the sexes and genders are equal obviously. (That is where the egalitarianism comes in).

I know this all seems rather obvious but as I said, I am a big fan of being self-reliant. Ask yourselves if you are self-reliant. I mean this not judgmentally, but that for one reason or another that do not necessarily relate to sex or gender, you may not be skilled in all the areas I listed. For example, I cannot sew and I plan to learn. It is not because I am male that I never learned, I just never needed to because I always had someone to do it for me.

Women and Philosophy: The Beckdale Test

Welcome all to the first edition of a new philosophic category on my blog. Like with music and philosophy, this too is for a class. However, instead of music, I will be discussing women. Anyone who reads my blog knows I am a fan of film and the genre of film is a great medium to discuss not only philosophical points but also women and so today’s blog is about film.

Rather than be a about a particular film, I will be discussing the issue of the Beckdale test. The Beckdale test was first created in a comic called Dykes to Look Out For and the first film they mention that passes it is Aliens although Alien also passes.

Here is how the test works: watch a movie, any movie, or even a particular episode of a television series, and then see if it fits the following criteria:

1)      There are at least two female characters that are credited with actual names so it does not count if they are called “female officer 1” or “girl at diner”.

2)      Any two named female characters must then at some point in the film have a conversation with each other.

3)      This conversation must last at least 45 seconds…

4)      …and it must be on any topic other than boys, men, or males in general.

It is in fact quite scary to discover just how few films pass this test. This test does not prove that a movie is bad or sexist, chauvinistic, or anti-feminist. There are plenty of masterpiece films that do not pass the test simply because the plot never allows for it. However, it is a very each fix. Some films, but not all could easily switch the gender roles of characters and it would be fine. This of course only applies to films where the gender of certain characters really does not matter. Although that raises the question of “should it ever even really matter?” The real problem is not that every film passes this test but that films are made typically centered around male characters and male stories and plots. Even certain films in which the main title character is female and the film for the most part follows her around, fail the test. Take for example Run, Lola, Run (which coincidentally will be the next film I review. I promise I will start doing zombie films again also). RLR is a fantastic masterpiece of existential and empirical bliss. I can honestly say it is in my top-five-favorite-movies-of-all-time-list. However, it fails. Of course, Lola never talks to any character really for more than five minutes and the film is not exactly dialogue driven but the fact still remains. Again, the point is not that these failing the test makes these films bad or anything like that—it simply makes one think a bit more about popular culture. There are dozens of films where this problem could be erased by switching roles of minor characters or just adding an extra character or something and none of this would ruin the feel fo the film. Some films must fail the test simply because of their plot, theme, and message like the film No Country For Old Men—another fantastic film. If a scene or character was added or a role was reversed in this film, it might take away from the films mood. I am not saying that women in films take away from the film—all I am saying is that in a film about middle-aged men that is a work on middle-aged men encountering certain plot points, it would make little sense to change it. You can even watch it and decide. An example of a great film that I love that fails the test but could have passed it if it wanted to is Dawn of the Dead 1978. In one of the opening scenes when Fran is in the television newsroom, she interacts with many characters and none of the dialogue refers to men. The best way to fix it I can think of it when the one of the crew tells Fran they are shutting down later so it is okay if she leaves, the cameraman could easily be changed to a female and then given a name with simple dialogue like Fran responding “You sure Jen?” or “ok Ruth” or something simple like that.

What can we do about this? We can always make a few more female centered films, which would not only solve this problem but the simple bigger problem that not many films still today are female centered.

In addition, I challenge you to:

Go watch your favorite film and see if it passes

If you are a film lover like me, own a ton of DVD’s that you have seen countless times, and think you can remember without re-watching them if they pass, go thru your collection and see how many out of how many pass.

Determine which films that fail, regardless of how great they are, could not be altered to pass the test such as NCFOM.

Feel free to report back with your findings and leave them in your comments.