I commented on thestrenuousbrief's blog earlier today with my own explanation and paraphrasing of one of our articles, and I'm going to post it here so that if there is anything to be gained from it it will be more public:
Privilidged standpoints looks at epistemology (or, metaepistemology which is different). Similar to the discussion we had about discourse, metaepistemology has to do with looking at the ways we know things, or the ways we construct what we know. Epistemology has to do with (what feminist recoil from) the knower and the production of knowledge, and the author is making a complex argument that says standpoint theory and epistemology are not polar opposites, and that maybe they even inform one another. Standpoint theory teaches us that there is no objective reality, and that we have much to learn from looking at an issues from the social standpoints of many groups (like looking at black feminism, global feminism, and power from the bottom up). Epistemology is about the production of knowledge, and because there isn't ONE knowledge, feminists see this as reductive and verging on essentialism, which is our death wish. The author here is saying that epistemology attempts to be as objective as possible, so as to create 'good' and 'true' knowledge. She argues that using standpoint theory, epistemologists can come up with much more 'good' knowledge than by using a white, upper-middle class standpoint only. The author is suggesting that objectivity should not be a dangerous word for feminists, and social location should not scare off the epistemologists.
I hope this helps, or at least creates conversation if I have completely misrepresented the author.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Challenging, yet Refreshing
Two of this weeks readings are somewhat dangerous, because they discuss biology, essentialism, and philosophy... not subjects that are part of our usual interdisciplinary team. Gut Feminism, by Elizabeth A. Wilson refers to Freud in the first line. The piece discusses bulimia though the lens of Freud's writing, and finishes with a connection to feminism. Wilson explains that Freud conceives of physical hysteria, that is organic, as being different from hysteria that is more cognitive. Wilson writes:
"This model of hysteria, and Freud's emerging preference for psychogenic etiologies over biological ones, has been enormously influential on feminist accounts of embodiment. The idea that psychic or cultural conflicts could become somatic events was one of the central organizing principles of feminist work on the body in the 1980s and 1990s. This model allowed feminists to think of bodily transformation ideationally and symbolically, without reference to biological constraints." 69
Biological determinism as feminism's enemy has been written on by many a feminist scholar, so seeing an argument that suggests Freud's contributions to feminism is shocking albeit interesting. Wilson explains this by saying, "...it seems that the very sophistication of feminist accounts of embodiment has been brokered through a repudiation of biological data. Too often, it is only when anatomy or physiology or biochemistry are removed from the analytic scene (or, in what amounts to much the same gesture, these domains are considered to be too reductive be analytically interesting) that it has been possible to generate a recognizably feminist account of the body." (70)
Much feminist work has been done recently concerning the body. Gut Feminism, 2004, is in the midst of that work. One book comes to mind that I read during undergrad. Sexing the Body, by Anne Fausto-Sterling also discusses biology and its relationship to feminism.
Wilson discusses the mistake of line drawing between physical and mental. "Materializations are not the effect of a leap from the mental to the somatic; rather, they are the product of a regression to a protopsychic state. That is, hysteria materializes the protopsychic (ontogenetic and phylogenetic) inclinations native to the body's substrata." (74)
Later in the article we find a discussion of organic becoming a synonym for biological and from this Wilson argues "...these Boolean demarcations among organs and between psyche and soma are intelligible only within a conventional (flat) biological economy... Perhaps the lability of eating and mood - their tendency to align and dissociate under the influences of certain medications - speaks to an ontological organization that is at odds with organic rationality." (83) The way things have been thought of is not whole. The physical is engaged in a dance with the mental and the emotional, and line-drawing does not reduce the entire equation to biological determinism, just as it does not deny the existence of biology.
Another sticky situation is explained by Kourken Michaelian in Privileged Standpoints/ Reliable Processes, where the author looks at standpoint theory in terms of epistemology (or metaepistemology). I have a deep love of existential philosophy, which means that reading this article was a joy. I have been trying to link my interests, and finding that the bridges between philosophy and women's studies are poorly kept.
Both of the articles mentioned tackle subjects that, if they are seen as the sole lenses through which to view the world, would mean the death of feminism. Again arises the question of what to do about the dead white men. Women's Studies reacts to a framework that has always taught and valued the dead white man, and these articles engage with ideas rather than acting against them. I am extremely interested in existential philosophy and its connection to modern day feminism. Because of this, these articles were challengingly refreshing.
"This model of hysteria, and Freud's emerging preference for psychogenic etiologies over biological ones, has been enormously influential on feminist accounts of embodiment. The idea that psychic or cultural conflicts could become somatic events was one of the central organizing principles of feminist work on the body in the 1980s and 1990s. This model allowed feminists to think of bodily transformation ideationally and symbolically, without reference to biological constraints." 69
Biological determinism as feminism's enemy has been written on by many a feminist scholar, so seeing an argument that suggests Freud's contributions to feminism is shocking albeit interesting. Wilson explains this by saying, "...it seems that the very sophistication of feminist accounts of embodiment has been brokered through a repudiation of biological data. Too often, it is only when anatomy or physiology or biochemistry are removed from the analytic scene (or, in what amounts to much the same gesture, these domains are considered to be too reductive be analytically interesting) that it has been possible to generate a recognizably feminist account of the body." (70)
Much feminist work has been done recently concerning the body. Gut Feminism, 2004, is in the midst of that work. One book comes to mind that I read during undergrad. Sexing the Body, by Anne Fausto-Sterling also discusses biology and its relationship to feminism.
Wilson discusses the mistake of line drawing between physical and mental. "Materializations are not the effect of a leap from the mental to the somatic; rather, they are the product of a regression to a protopsychic state. That is, hysteria materializes the protopsychic (ontogenetic and phylogenetic) inclinations native to the body's substrata." (74)
Later in the article we find a discussion of organic becoming a synonym for biological and from this Wilson argues "...these Boolean demarcations among organs and between psyche and soma are intelligible only within a conventional (flat) biological economy... Perhaps the lability of eating and mood - their tendency to align and dissociate under the influences of certain medications - speaks to an ontological organization that is at odds with organic rationality." (83) The way things have been thought of is not whole. The physical is engaged in a dance with the mental and the emotional, and line-drawing does not reduce the entire equation to biological determinism, just as it does not deny the existence of biology.
Another sticky situation is explained by Kourken Michaelian in Privileged Standpoints/ Reliable Processes, where the author looks at standpoint theory in terms of epistemology (or metaepistemology). I have a deep love of existential philosophy, which means that reading this article was a joy. I have been trying to link my interests, and finding that the bridges between philosophy and women's studies are poorly kept.
Both of the articles mentioned tackle subjects that, if they are seen as the sole lenses through which to view the world, would mean the death of feminism. Again arises the question of what to do about the dead white men. Women's Studies reacts to a framework that has always taught and valued the dead white man, and these articles engage with ideas rather than acting against them. I am extremely interested in existential philosophy and its connection to modern day feminism. Because of this, these articles were challengingly refreshing.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Really?
In my last post I noted that Women, Race &: Class by Angela Davis is a fantastic book. One of the chapters in said book addresses the myth of the black rapist. So today, when I stumbled across this, I couldn't help by blog about it.
The story here is that a frat at Yale went to the first years' dorms and chanted "no means yes, yes means anal." I don't think I'd find that a welcoming speech if I were, say, a first year female student at Yale. Welcome to the Ivy league, ladies. There's also a clip where you can hear the actual chanting.
No means different things for different people?
The story here is that a frat at Yale went to the first years' dorms and chanted "no means yes, yes means anal." I don't think I'd find that a welcoming speech if I were, say, a first year female student at Yale. Welcome to the Ivy league, ladies. There's also a clip where you can hear the actual chanting.
No means different things for different people?
Thank you, Lorde and Davis
That the Mothers May soar and the Daughters May Know Their Names: A Retrospective of Black Feminist Literary Criticism, by Farah Jasmine Griffin, offers an exposition of black feminist literature. Barely two pages into this article I found a striking point:
"Today many shcholars and critics continue to contribute to and expand the field. Nonetheless, black feminist criticism ( as well as women's studies and African American studies) has experienced a backlash from both the left and the right. The overall assault on multiculturalism and political correctness as well as those critiques that fault the field for being a bastion of identity politics and essentialism have targeted black feminist criticism and challenged its adequacy as a mode of critical analysis. Interestingly, it i quite likely that the latter critique of essentialism was made possible by the very terms and successes of black feminist literary critics who were among the first to call attention to the constructed nature of racial and gender identity."
ESSENTIALISM!!!! The feminist recoils at the thought! To somewhat contextualize my reaction to this piece, the reader should know that within the week I have read Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde, and Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis, both of whom were mentioned on page 485 of the article. The latter book gives a comprehensive history of the Women's rights movement, as well as the history of slavery. Thusly, when I read "...masculinist bias of the civil rights..." and "...black people were gendered male, and women most often meant white women..." (pg 485), I nodded furiously.
Griffin writes "These writers published in genres as diverse as as the novel, drama, poetry and autobiography; in so doing they openly challenged any notion of the black community as a monolith of like ideologies, politics and standpoints," (486). This is a central point, and one reason that black feminism has been and is so crucial to critical thinking. "From the beginning, black feminist have been committed to the freedom of all people, especially black people."
Griffin's conclusion expresses that black feminism has withstood attacks from within and without, and still survived (502).
Discourse, Discourse Everywhere: Subject "Agency" in Feminist Discourse Methodology, by Carol Bacchi, offers a critique of how feminists use and understand the term 'Discourse.' Bacchi writes, "The identification of discourse(s) as institutionally supported and culturally influenced conceptual and interpretive schemas that influence the understanding of an issue, has as its goal interrogating those premises, and showing how they operate to delimit an issue in specific ways. By contrast, the tendency to use the term discourse as shorthand for ways of talking about and issue like prostitution or quotas is ambiguous in its intent," (202).
A dead white man, Jacques Derrida, warned that language has been around for a long time, and has entrenched meanings, and therefore is a loaded gun as a tool for communication. We can not expect to communicate exactly what we mean by speaking. I found this argument useful for understanding this article and the implications for using the term in question.
In Feminist Reverberations, by Joan Wallach Scott I found two one-liners that were especially impactful:
"don't expect lawful behavior from those who are not allowed to make law," (7)
and "When you save someone...you are saving them from something. You are also saving them to something," (9). Both of the quotes are taken from others and used by the author.
"Today many shcholars and critics continue to contribute to and expand the field. Nonetheless, black feminist criticism ( as well as women's studies and African American studies) has experienced a backlash from both the left and the right. The overall assault on multiculturalism and political correctness as well as those critiques that fault the field for being a bastion of identity politics and essentialism have targeted black feminist criticism and challenged its adequacy as a mode of critical analysis. Interestingly, it i quite likely that the latter critique of essentialism was made possible by the very terms and successes of black feminist literary critics who were among the first to call attention to the constructed nature of racial and gender identity."
ESSENTIALISM!!!! The feminist recoils at the thought! To somewhat contextualize my reaction to this piece, the reader should know that within the week I have read Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde, and Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis, both of whom were mentioned on page 485 of the article. The latter book gives a comprehensive history of the Women's rights movement, as well as the history of slavery. Thusly, when I read "...masculinist bias of the civil rights..." and "...black people were gendered male, and women most often meant white women..." (pg 485), I nodded furiously.
Griffin writes "These writers published in genres as diverse as as the novel, drama, poetry and autobiography; in so doing they openly challenged any notion of the black community as a monolith of like ideologies, politics and standpoints," (486). This is a central point, and one reason that black feminism has been and is so crucial to critical thinking. "From the beginning, black feminist have been committed to the freedom of all people, especially black people."
Griffin's conclusion expresses that black feminism has withstood attacks from within and without, and still survived (502).
Discourse, Discourse Everywhere: Subject "Agency" in Feminist Discourse Methodology, by Carol Bacchi, offers a critique of how feminists use and understand the term 'Discourse.' Bacchi writes, "The identification of discourse(s) as institutionally supported and culturally influenced conceptual and interpretive schemas that influence the understanding of an issue, has as its goal interrogating those premises, and showing how they operate to delimit an issue in specific ways. By contrast, the tendency to use the term discourse as shorthand for ways of talking about and issue like prostitution or quotas is ambiguous in its intent," (202).
A dead white man, Jacques Derrida, warned that language has been around for a long time, and has entrenched meanings, and therefore is a loaded gun as a tool for communication. We can not expect to communicate exactly what we mean by speaking. I found this argument useful for understanding this article and the implications for using the term in question.
In Feminist Reverberations, by Joan Wallach Scott I found two one-liners that were especially impactful:
"don't expect lawful behavior from those who are not allowed to make law," (7)
and "When you save someone...you are saving them from something. You are also saving them to something," (9). Both of the quotes are taken from others and used by the author.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
...And Therefore Revisable
Christine Halse and Anne Honey in Unraveling Ethics: Illuminating the Moral Dilemmas of Research Ethics state "In penning this essay, our aim is to make visible, and therefore revisable, the moral dilemmas embedded in research ethics policy and it's implementation by ethics committees..." (Halse and Honey 2142). Using this framework, the authors discuss the ethical hang-ups they experience at each step of the research process, from getting their work approved by ethics panels, to the consenting of the subjects, and offer critiques for the system at large and themselves as individuals.
Halse and Honey explain that, in order to approach the ethics panel at all, they had to define the group of girls they would be studying, even though they did not feel that there was an easy or useful way to do so. Should they study girls who have been diagnosed as anorexic, even though they don't agree that they have a condition, or should they study a group of girls that self-disclose as anorexic? They write, "To brand a girl anorexic, without consent was to deny her selfhood - one of the very issues the study aimed to address...Further, as researchers familiar with clinical settings, we knew that a medical diagnosis of anorexia nervosa could not create a coherent category of person, " (2146).
While deliberating how to negotiate the title of the target population, the authors were being pressured by funders and colleges to simply pick a title. This, for me, was a very, very important point. We started out this semester talking about quantitative versus qualitative research, and one of the arguments against qualitative had to do with how much time and money was needed to complete it. Resources for research are not always abundant, and the backlash these researchers received because they were not producing results quickly most likely framed what kind of research they produced. They are not the only two who are restricted by time lines and money troubles. This makes me wonder how much ethics is dependent on the climate in which the research is conducted? Does a lack of resources necessitate unethical work? I'm not talking here about work that is reviewed by they ethics panel and given the go ahead. Rather, I mean, do the researchers even have the time and energy to question those panels for being entrenched in the sciences?
I also found the discussion about informed consent compelling and problematic. By the time we read this section, we've just come to the conclusion that ethics panels are not necessarily ethical, and so the reader is all of the sudden struck with the question of whether or not informed consent is a legitimate or useful term, especially when it is restricted by age. What makes a fourteen year old incapable of making her own decisions as opposed to a fifteen or sixteen year old? When we are working with a population that is self-starving, and if they have been labeled medically unsound by professionals, then we have to unpack all of the scientific underpinnings and accusations about the young women. If we see the girls as unable to take care of themselves even physically, how can we assume they know what's best for themselves, and therefore sign an informed consent form? I do NOT mean to suggest that the hard-wiring of the girls in question is somehow inherently flawed and that they are therefore unable to speak for themselves. In fact, I am very very grateful that the authors qualify the term 'normal' when they discuss eating habits, and look at a feminist theory that is critical of the society in which these girls live. Still, the girls who do not self-identify might have different reasons for participating in the research... and all of the girls will have different reasons for participating, whether it be to get the hell out of the facilities they are in, or to piss of their parents, or to have someone listen to them and treat them as human beings. Probably because the institution the research took place in agreed to allow the authors in, we do not see a critical look at what happens to girls that are labeled anorexic within those walls. There has been a great deal of scholarship concerning mental health institutions, and I did not see any of this reflected in the ethical debate.
"Ethics committees grew out of a positivist tradition of biomedical research that evolved in tandem with the theoretical-juridical model of ethics. Positivist research takes for granted the existence of a putative knowable reality, and hat objective, universal truths can be revealed through empirical scientific data collection and explicit, transparent, experimental research operations and procedures .... yet the biomedical model also casts research ethics in a shroud of scientific neutrality..." (2153). The ethics panels are socially situated, as are the researchers, the doctors diagnosing and the reader. Every player here also wants to keep their job. Qualitative research was once seen as experimental, and it was also a thorn in the side of those who did not take it seriously. We should question ethics panels, but does that mean we should dissolve them entirely? Probably not. As women studies teaches us, we have to delve deeper into issues and save the good as well as critique the bad. Questions like these are for figuring out, not giving cause to the idea of slippery slope, where if we can not get exactly what we want to know, we dismiss the issue entirely. The authors want to open up their work for revisions and for others to build off of.. Even if a reader disagrees with the steps they took, it is useful to point out that they are open and willing to be used by the reader.
Halse and Honey explain that, in order to approach the ethics panel at all, they had to define the group of girls they would be studying, even though they did not feel that there was an easy or useful way to do so. Should they study girls who have been diagnosed as anorexic, even though they don't agree that they have a condition, or should they study a group of girls that self-disclose as anorexic? They write, "To brand a girl anorexic, without consent was to deny her selfhood - one of the very issues the study aimed to address...Further, as researchers familiar with clinical settings, we knew that a medical diagnosis of anorexia nervosa could not create a coherent category of person, " (2146).
While deliberating how to negotiate the title of the target population, the authors were being pressured by funders and colleges to simply pick a title. This, for me, was a very, very important point. We started out this semester talking about quantitative versus qualitative research, and one of the arguments against qualitative had to do with how much time and money was needed to complete it. Resources for research are not always abundant, and the backlash these researchers received because they were not producing results quickly most likely framed what kind of research they produced. They are not the only two who are restricted by time lines and money troubles. This makes me wonder how much ethics is dependent on the climate in which the research is conducted? Does a lack of resources necessitate unethical work? I'm not talking here about work that is reviewed by they ethics panel and given the go ahead. Rather, I mean, do the researchers even have the time and energy to question those panels for being entrenched in the sciences?
I also found the discussion about informed consent compelling and problematic. By the time we read this section, we've just come to the conclusion that ethics panels are not necessarily ethical, and so the reader is all of the sudden struck with the question of whether or not informed consent is a legitimate or useful term, especially when it is restricted by age. What makes a fourteen year old incapable of making her own decisions as opposed to a fifteen or sixteen year old? When we are working with a population that is self-starving, and if they have been labeled medically unsound by professionals, then we have to unpack all of the scientific underpinnings and accusations about the young women. If we see the girls as unable to take care of themselves even physically, how can we assume they know what's best for themselves, and therefore sign an informed consent form? I do NOT mean to suggest that the hard-wiring of the girls in question is somehow inherently flawed and that they are therefore unable to speak for themselves. In fact, I am very very grateful that the authors qualify the term 'normal' when they discuss eating habits, and look at a feminist theory that is critical of the society in which these girls live. Still, the girls who do not self-identify might have different reasons for participating in the research... and all of the girls will have different reasons for participating, whether it be to get the hell out of the facilities they are in, or to piss of their parents, or to have someone listen to them and treat them as human beings. Probably because the institution the research took place in agreed to allow the authors in, we do not see a critical look at what happens to girls that are labeled anorexic within those walls. There has been a great deal of scholarship concerning mental health institutions, and I did not see any of this reflected in the ethical debate.
"Ethics committees grew out of a positivist tradition of biomedical research that evolved in tandem with the theoretical-juridical model of ethics. Positivist research takes for granted the existence of a putative knowable reality, and hat objective, universal truths can be revealed through empirical scientific data collection and explicit, transparent, experimental research operations and procedures .... yet the biomedical model also casts research ethics in a shroud of scientific neutrality..." (2153). The ethics panels are socially situated, as are the researchers, the doctors diagnosing and the reader. Every player here also wants to keep their job. Qualitative research was once seen as experimental, and it was also a thorn in the side of those who did not take it seriously. We should question ethics panels, but does that mean we should dissolve them entirely? Probably not. As women studies teaches us, we have to delve deeper into issues and save the good as well as critique the bad. Questions like these are for figuring out, not giving cause to the idea of slippery slope, where if we can not get exactly what we want to know, we dismiss the issue entirely. The authors want to open up their work for revisions and for others to build off of.. Even if a reader disagrees with the steps they took, it is useful to point out that they are open and willing to be used by the reader.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
"No Fat Chicks" and Taking up Space
Feministing.com, a feminist blog, offers me some distraction from the rigidity of graduate reading languages. This past week, I commented on Ole'Lefty's blog about the concept of taking up space. TSB added to the conversation discussing the everyday annoyance of sitting next to men that take up space without considering the people they are next to, on planes or in other public spaces. I contend that American women are coming from a society that disallows them to take up space without repercussion. Women tend more to sit with legs crossed, shoulders slouched, and to speak quietly, only after others have spoken. This is a very polar view, I admit, but I am trying to point something out that seems so commonplace.
So, what takes up more space than being loud, aggressive, or standing up straight? Being a "fat chick" does, especially when the women in question are unapologetic. Feministing.com offers a discussion about this topic here. There are many a bumper sticker and tee shirt touting the line "No Fat Chicks," which makes one wonder what is so threatening about them? Could it be that women who are not easily, literally marginalized because of their size pose more of a threat than small, vulnerable looking women? Is it because they take up more space? Are they less feminine? What allows for verbal and, in many cases, physical and sexual violence to happen to these women with little uproar from society?
Another case of women, taking up space, and not getting praised for doing so.
This is a sign upon entering a nudist beach that I found on a post about fitness here.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Court TV
My sister and I love judge shows. Not only can I multi-task when they are on as background noise, but I never stop being impressed by how many there are, as well as how dramatic. This may seem like a bit of a tangent, as well it is, but it does relate in some way to our reading concepts.
Some judges are black men, some are white women, and some are black women and some are white men (those are the only I've seen so far). These judges are, obviously, in a position of power. They are visibly seated higher than the people they are passing judgment on, they have mallets they can pound to gain attention, and they have the power to kick people out and pass rulings. When I watch these shows I try to pay close attention to how individuals react the the judgments. I have not done quantitative analysis, but I have noticed there is much less backlash from people when they are judged by a man. Also, when judged by judge Judy, men seem to most adverse to the judgment. Very interesting.
Some judges are black men, some are white women, and some are black women and some are white men (those are the only I've seen so far). These judges are, obviously, in a position of power. They are visibly seated higher than the people they are passing judgment on, they have mallets they can pound to gain attention, and they have the power to kick people out and pass rulings. When I watch these shows I try to pay close attention to how individuals react the the judgments. I have not done quantitative analysis, but I have noticed there is much less backlash from people when they are judged by a man. Also, when judged by judge Judy, men seem to most adverse to the judgment. Very interesting.
Symbolic Representations of Power
In the first paragraph of Sabine Grenz's Intersections of Sex and Power in Research on Prostitution: A Female Researcher Interviewing Male Heterosexual Clients, she states "...the only actual power they had was to disguise and the only actual power I had was related to the way I was going to interpret their stories, power relations such as those between men and women and between researchers and participants were present via symbolic representation." Symbolic representation, then, gives a name to the feelings involved in the research. Contradictory feelings of wanting to do research on men as a woman and feeling threatened or unsafe, while also wanting to avoid succumbing to sexism.The idea of symbolic representation can help us make sense of power dynamics that are diluted or that take place outside of rigid institutional frameworks, where one group is obviously in power. Using this idea we can more clearly think about what it means to be, like Grenz, in a position that is simultaneously empowering and disempowering.
Grenz discusses that the role of researcher, especially when conducting interviews, has been/can be labeled as feminine work, because it necessitates good listening and safety building skills that men, in a heteronomative society can not offer (especially to those discussing prostitution). Even though men may feel more comfortable opening up to Grenz, this is perhaps because they do not see her as a threat/take her seriously, or because they do not feel that their power is being undermined by a woman. When grappling with the question of who held the power in conversations, we should discuss that the researcher had concerns about her own safety, whereas the male participants did not.
Grenz states, "I had to take care not to be too friendly and not to have too much rapport, which in other interview settings would be considered a necessary prerequisite for successful research." (2095)
The researcher could not use the technique of sharing personal stories to build trust with the subjects, because to do so might place her in a compromising position, or derail her own feeling of safety. Therefore, the training she has received about how to successfully execute research is turned on its head, especially because she is researching a group to which she does not belong. The author writes, "...while participants were talking and giving information about their sexual identities, I was just listening to them. Many feminist researchers have criticized this methodology because in research on marginalized groups it is a way to establish hierarchy between researchers and researched..." (2096) If she were researching a group she does not identify as a member of, and that group were seen as marginalized, she would have to take care to represent them responsibly and build trust with them, but because Grenz is working with straight, white, men, she is forced to translate her own relationship to them as powerful researcher and woman as a symbol for all other women, including prostitutes.
About halfway through the article, the researcher explains, "I am very skeptical of using the term threatened masculinity, since it gives the impression that masculinity is a stable entity men can rely on, without questioning the existing power relations between men and women." (2097) This statement threw me. Even if masculinity is not universally accessible to all men, at all times as a tool, does it not still function as a framework for situating people? Is it not still a way to see the world that men are deeply entrenched and invested in? If masculinity isn't a stable identity, what is? This definition seems problematic because, though we need to see the participants as individuals before we can assess what is happening in terms of power relations, we need also not ignore the importance of masculinity as a construct for the men or the woman involved. Maybe the participants did have to rethink gender power relations for a little while, but we can not forget that the participation in the research is voluntary, so we are looking at a self selected sample that might have a different view of gendered power relations to begin with, and we also have to keep in mind that one individual male who is in a vulnerable position for an hour does not undo all of masculinity for every male. I am not ready to wash away the entire concept of masculinity that can be threatened.
Homophobia!
I recently read a bumper sticker that said "I don't mind straight people, I just wish they would keep it in their bedrooms."
The article is coming from Germany, where prostitution is not illegal. Grenz suggests that the stories told by her participants are similar to coming out stories. She also explains that it is much more costly for men to come out as gay in this setting, than to admit to engaging in prostitution, because being gay carries with it many more repercussions in that society. Certain sex acts with prostitutes, if found out by the general population, can place a man under a label.
The author suggests that throughout her research she did not necessarily feel empowered, but that she did feel like she was in control. This, as she points to once or twice in her writing, is similar to the experience of some sex workers, who feel that they are in control of their interactions because of the vulnerability of men they encounter. I found that it was interesting that Glenz felt in control of the situation, even though she stated early on in the article that she was uneasy and sometimes feared for her safety when calling back men that applied to the study who were overtly sexual. Constituting her own set of boundaries may have given the researcher more feelings of being in control, while at the same time, not giving her feelings of empowerment.
Did this researcher do her job? Did she write, in detail, every interaction verbal and non? Would a male have done the research more ethically, better, wiser? Is it dependent more on the individual than the group they study? The author suggests in her conclusion that seeing power as a single entity is problematic. "I believe it is necessary to see different strands of power interwoven with one another rather than to theorize power as a unified phenomenon that is owned either by the researcher or the researched." (2111).
Grenz discusses that the role of researcher, especially when conducting interviews, has been/can be labeled as feminine work, because it necessitates good listening and safety building skills that men, in a heteronomative society can not offer (especially to those discussing prostitution). Even though men may feel more comfortable opening up to Grenz, this is perhaps because they do not see her as a threat/take her seriously, or because they do not feel that their power is being undermined by a woman. When grappling with the question of who held the power in conversations, we should discuss that the researcher had concerns about her own safety, whereas the male participants did not.
Grenz states, "I had to take care not to be too friendly and not to have too much rapport, which in other interview settings would be considered a necessary prerequisite for successful research." (2095)
The researcher could not use the technique of sharing personal stories to build trust with the subjects, because to do so might place her in a compromising position, or derail her own feeling of safety. Therefore, the training she has received about how to successfully execute research is turned on its head, especially because she is researching a group to which she does not belong. The author writes, "...while participants were talking and giving information about their sexual identities, I was just listening to them. Many feminist researchers have criticized this methodology because in research on marginalized groups it is a way to establish hierarchy between researchers and researched..." (2096) If she were researching a group she does not identify as a member of, and that group were seen as marginalized, she would have to take care to represent them responsibly and build trust with them, but because Grenz is working with straight, white, men, she is forced to translate her own relationship to them as powerful researcher and woman as a symbol for all other women, including prostitutes.
About halfway through the article, the researcher explains, "I am very skeptical of using the term threatened masculinity, since it gives the impression that masculinity is a stable entity men can rely on, without questioning the existing power relations between men and women." (2097) This statement threw me. Even if masculinity is not universally accessible to all men, at all times as a tool, does it not still function as a framework for situating people? Is it not still a way to see the world that men are deeply entrenched and invested in? If masculinity isn't a stable identity, what is? This definition seems problematic because, though we need to see the participants as individuals before we can assess what is happening in terms of power relations, we need also not ignore the importance of masculinity as a construct for the men or the woman involved. Maybe the participants did have to rethink gender power relations for a little while, but we can not forget that the participation in the research is voluntary, so we are looking at a self selected sample that might have a different view of gendered power relations to begin with, and we also have to keep in mind that one individual male who is in a vulnerable position for an hour does not undo all of masculinity for every male. I am not ready to wash away the entire concept of masculinity that can be threatened.
Homophobia!
I recently read a bumper sticker that said "I don't mind straight people, I just wish they would keep it in their bedrooms."
The article is coming from Germany, where prostitution is not illegal. Grenz suggests that the stories told by her participants are similar to coming out stories. She also explains that it is much more costly for men to come out as gay in this setting, than to admit to engaging in prostitution, because being gay carries with it many more repercussions in that society. Certain sex acts with prostitutes, if found out by the general population, can place a man under a label.
The author suggests that throughout her research she did not necessarily feel empowered, but that she did feel like she was in control. This, as she points to once or twice in her writing, is similar to the experience of some sex workers, who feel that they are in control of their interactions because of the vulnerability of men they encounter. I found that it was interesting that Glenz felt in control of the situation, even though she stated early on in the article that she was uneasy and sometimes feared for her safety when calling back men that applied to the study who were overtly sexual. Constituting her own set of boundaries may have given the researcher more feelings of being in control, while at the same time, not giving her feelings of empowerment.
Did this researcher do her job? Did she write, in detail, every interaction verbal and non? Would a male have done the research more ethically, better, wiser? Is it dependent more on the individual than the group they study? The author suggests in her conclusion that seeing power as a single entity is problematic. "I believe it is necessary to see different strands of power interwoven with one another rather than to theorize power as a unified phenomenon that is owned either by the researcher or the researched." (2111).
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