Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021) » March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality

March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality

Updates

Review Participation expectations: If you aren’t participating, you aren’t fulfilling 25% of the expectations of this course. I need to hear you talk. If you want to make the argument that speaking in (virtual) class is irrelevant, please explain…I’m also open to changing my perspective.

Critical Analysis of Culture Essay: If all went according to plan, I’ve finished commenting on these (so I’m going to be a bit behind on the discussion posts…). If you didn’t wow me, don’t worry, you’ll get another chance on a higher-stakes assignment, the Critical Analysis of Media Essay (due 4/13). Some of you may want to pursue publishing your next essay, and I encourage that. Let me know where you’re thinking of sending it, and I can offer advice: I’ve been rejected from many, many journals, including ones I’ve peer-reviewed, so I have lots of experience. All of you should be thinking about presenting at a future conference. If 3 or 4 of you have related topics, consider submitting as a panel.

What I Referenced Last Week

  • “Where Does Religion Come From? One Researcher Points To ‘Cultural’ Evolution.” Hidden Brain Podcast hosted by Shankar Vedantam.
  • Original Cover of Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Xenogenesis Series)
    • The cover that represents the main character
  • Dynamite Hack’s “Boyz in the Hood”–definitely full of inappropriate language

Judith Butler’s “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution”

Some Definitions for Butler’s Reading

  • Phenomenon: A thing which appears, or which is perceived or observed; a particular (kind of) fact, occurrence, or change as perceived through the senses or known intellectually; esp. a fact or occurrence, the cause or explanation of which is in question.
  • Phenomenology: a. Philos. The metaphysical study or theory of phenomena in general (as distinct from that of being).
    b. gen. The division of any science which is concerned with the description and classification of its phenomena, rather than causal or theoretical explanation.
  • Illocution: An act such as ordering, warning, undertaking, performed in saying something.
  • Epiphenomena: a. Something that appears in addition; a secondary symptom. Also transf.
    b. spec.
    in Psychol. Applied to consciousness regarded as a by-product of the material activities of the brain and nerve-system.
  • Episteme: Scientific knowledge, a system of understanding; spec. Foucault’s term for the body of ideas which shape the perception of knowledge at a particular period.

Quotations to Ponder from Butler

Remember, our conversations aren’t to find the last word. Discussions of gender and media happened before this class and will happen long after this class. We’re really just trying to get a handle on our moment in time (think “episteme” from above). One could immediately come out swinging and claim Butler is misguided and obtuse, but the better approach is to try to understand why she concludes the way she does. This is a tough read, so let’s focus on some key places in the text:

  • Thesis…perhaps…p. 521: “the acts by which gender is constituted bear similarities to performative acts within theatrical contexts”
  • p. 519: “gender…is an identity constituted in time–an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”
    • “…bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self”
  • p. 520: “the possibilities of gender transformation are to be found in the arbitrary relation between…a different sort of repeating, in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style”
  • p. 520: “Feminist theory has often been critical of naturalistic explanations of sex and sexuality that assume that the meaning of women’s social existence can be derived from some fact of their physiology”
  • p. 521: “the body is a historical situation,…a manner of doing dramatizing, and reproducing a historical situation”
  • p. 522: “those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished”
    • How so? Think of examples where women or men appear to perform roles opposite of the gender. Can you think of a situation where one gender is not punished for performing the opposite gender’s prescribed role?
  • pp. 522-523: “The personal is thus political inasmuch as it is conditioned by shared social structures, but the personal has also been immunized against political challenge to the extent that public/private distinctions endure”
    • In the context of this class, consider our discussions on the INDIVIDUAL and how our culture promotes an ideology of individualism.
    • Our culture wants to believe that there’s a private self, in a vacuum, that is simply personal preference.
  • Break with capital-F Feminism…perhaps…p. 523: “one ought to consider the futility of a political program which seeks radically to transform the social situation of women without first determining whether the category of woman is socially constructed in such a way that to be a woman is, by definition, to be in an oppressed situation.”
    • Uh-oh…what is she suggesting? Think about our discussions of feminism not being monolithic.
    • What’s to gain from holding onto the distinction of the binary categories of men and women?
    • Barker & Jane discuss this topic of Butler’s when they bring up her warnings on using labels coined by oppressors: queer, gay, trans, etc. (might) “continue to echo [their] past pejorative usage” (p. 369).
  • p. 524: “one way in which this system of compulsory heterosexuality is reproduced and concealed is through the cultivation of bodies into discrete sexes with ‘natural’ appearances and ‘natural’ heterosexual dispositions”

Visuals for Butler: Butler Explained with Cats and Performance Vs. Performativity video.

More on Butler from Barker & Jane’s Ch. 9

  • p. 366: “‘performativity’ is not as the act by which a subject brings into being…rather ‘as that reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains’.
  • “‘sex’ is produced as a reiteration of hegemonic norms understood as a performativity that is always derivative.”
  • Why don’t hipsters like math?
    –It’s so derivative.
  • “…but an iterable practice, is secured through being repeatedly performed.”
  • p. 367: “Performativity is not a singular act for it is constituted by the reiteration of a set of norms.”
    • “…the performance of sex is compelled by a regulatory apparatus of heterosexuality that reiterates itself through the forcible production of ‘sex’.”
    • “For Butler, identification [or, taking on the normative idealization of sex] is understood as a kind of affiliation and expression of an emotion tie with an idealized fantasized object (person, body part) or normative ideal.”
    • “For Butler psychoanalysis highlights the very instability of identity.”
  • p. 369: “For Butler, all identity categories are necessary fictions which, though we continue to use them should simultaneously be interrogated.

Roland Barthes’s “Novels and Children”

Well, luck for us, I did a presentation that incorporated this, and I have a separate page that provides some more detail. Let’s take a look at the first part of my recent SEACS 2021 Presentation.

Ch. 9 “Sex, Subjectivity, and Representation”

Quite a bit in this chapter is repeated in other places, but repetition is good for us. In fact, it helps reinforce your own ways of analyzing texts, so you must have lots to say, so discuss the gendered nature of texts you’ve consumed.

  • Let’s see if we can watch this video through my sharing the screen. I’m curious how the sound is for you. It’s a 30-secound commercial for, well, just check it out:
    • 30-sec Mantality commercial
  • What do cyborgs, Barbie dolls, G.I. Joe Action Figures, and this product say about gender? What does it say about 1980s America…white America…very white America?
  • Oh, I’m just a girl, take a good look at me
    Just your typical prototype
    —Who is typical about the “girl” Gwen Stefani/No Doubt reference?
  • Modern Family discussion from another class

Still can’t think of what media texts to relate to discussions of sex/sexuality? How about these:

  • The L-Word (2004-2009)
  • The Real L-Word (2010-2012)
  • Queer as Folk (2000-2005)
  • Hollywood (Netflix miniseries [2020])

So Many Feminisms, so Little Time

There’s no way to capture all of this in a class or, more accurately, the second-half of class. I want to stimulate your thinking, so you have ideas for analysis for your next essay, so how can you use the arguments from the chapter to critique media you consume? If no one talks, I’m just going to bash romantic comedies for the rest of the class. In fact, I’ll start with mentioning how a friend of mine blocked Lifetime using the TV’s parental control option. This functionality was new at the time, and we were about to watch “the game” (obviously football, and no need to qualify it with “American football” because there’s no other kind), and he showed us the features. We all laughed when he blocked the channel. I think we also had a bachelor party that night, which might be why I don’t remember anything else…

  • pp. 343: Feminisms: liberal, difference, socialist, radical,* poststructuralist, black, postcolonial, postfeminism.
    • “radical feminism” is on p. 347, but deserves to go here
    • p. 347: postfeminism claims “the most significant and systematic institutional barriers to women’s participation in politics and culture have been removed in the West.”
    • pp. 347-348: “The performance of victim identity reinforces the myth that women are the ‘weaker sex’…risk[ing] perpetuating the power dynamic inherent between victim and perpetrator (or victim and voyeur).
  • p. 350: “poststructuralist feminists and other writers reject the sex-gender split.”
  • p. 351: “many so-called biological ‘facts’ about women and men are not supported by empirical evidence. Indeed, many of the classic differences between women and men are exaggerated or non-existent.”
  • p. 352: “the 1990s period of science exaggerated difference, underplayed similarity, and glossed over the complex ways that brains, hormones, genes, and culture actually work.”
    • So what can we say about people who graduated college in the 1990s and stopped learning about the revisions to gender(ed) science?
  • p. 353: “Reproductive anatomy is just one measure used by biological scientists to describe a person’s sex.”
  • p. 356: “It is likely that many differences are learned and shaped by culture rather than being something we are born with.”
  • “…human culture and human biology have co-evolved and are indivisible.”
  • p. 357: Luce Irigaray (Loos) argues that male-dominated culture is phallocentric and unable to describe the “feminine”; therefore, her representation is a “symbolic” discursive attempt that “lacks a grammar that could articulate the mother-daughter relationship, [and] the feminine…can only return in its regulated form as man’s ‘Other’.”
    • To make the psychoanalytic argument reductive for our purposes, consider that women have a discursive space incomprehensible to men.
    • p. 358: Western philosophy–written by, for, and about men–is the language and basis for knowledge “guaranteeing the masculine order and its claims to self-origination.”
    • “Irigaray…critique[s] philosophy for its exclusions while using the very language of that philosophy.
    • See bell hooks’s discussion on speaking in the language of the oppressor.
  • p. 359: “Catharine MacKinnon….argues that women’s subordination is a matter of social power founded on men’s dominance of institutionalized heterosexuality.”
    • Reading Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” essay in FYW…that went over really well.
  • p, 359: “sex and gender are infinitely malleable…they are moulded and regulated into specific forms under particular historical and cultural conditions.”
  • p. 361: From Foucault, “…the discourses of modern science….produced women as hysterical and nervous subjects while reducing them to their reproductive system.”
  • p. 365: From Julia Kristeva:
    • “We may identify with gendered identities but one cannot be a woman in an essentialist ontological sense.
    • “Sexual identity is not an essence but a matter of representation.”
    • “…degrees of masculinity and femininity are said to exist in biological men and women.”
  • p. 370: Coming out narratives have been important for visibility, but they’ve been critiqued for their often rigid, linear progression from ‘in’ to ‘out’.
  • I’ve been told “coming out narratives are heteronormative…the most heteronormative clichés in the media.

What about TERF Wars?

We discussed Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF) briefly earlier this semester, and here Barker & Jane bring it up, providing a “balance” of sorts. I usually don’t offer my biases, but I’ll mention this:

Feminism is broad enough to include a variety of perspectives, from radical feminism to Sarah Palin,* so it makes sense that some self-described feminists might exclude transgendered individuals–it’s not a monolithic movement, consciousness, or theoretical perspective. However, one cannot claim to be a gender/sexuality scholar and believe transgender, non-binary, questioning, etc. identities aren’t worth discussion. Such exclusion is the apex of ignorance.

* Ok…maybe not Palin, but many 2nd Wave feminists pointed out that the female-misogynist activist Phyllis Schlafly was more liberated than they were.
  • If you’re interested in a somewhat-contemporary text on TERF wars, check out the “Man on the Land” episode from Transparent (2014-2019). It’s fascinating.
  • p. 371: Quoting Michelle Goldberg “‘…what’s determinative isn’t people’s chromosomes or their genitals or the way they were brought up but how they see themselves’ (2014).”
  • p. 371: TERF feminists “insist transgender women should not be allowed to use women’s public bathrooms or to participate in women-only events.”
  • p. 373: From Judith Butler…”we may not need the language of innateness or genetics to understand that we are all ethically bound to recognize another person’s declared or enacted sense of sex and/or gender.”

Men and Masculinity(ies)

We may need a “typical” male to help us define masculinity, but Barker & Jane identify how we might study masculinity/ies.

  • p. 374: Giddens, “In Western culture at least, today is the first period in which men are finding themselves to be men, that is, as possessing a problematic ‘masculinity.'”
  • p. 375: “The modernist division of labour gave men the role of providing wages of survival and women the domestic duties of child-rearing and housekeeping.”
    • “…hyper-individualism, competitiveness, and separation from the relational….These traditional values of masculinity may no longer be serving men well.”
  • p. 376: “according to Steve Biddulph….loneliness, compulsive competition, and lifelong emotional timidity–are rooted in the adoption of impossible images of masculinity that men try, but fail to live up to.”
    • “…low self-esteem (itself an outcome of family life), along with the self-perceived failure to meet cultural expectations of achievement, lies at the root of depression and drug abuse amongst men.”
  • p. 377: “Downsizing, unemployment, the Vietnam and Korean Wars, feminism, and the decline in public concern with space travel all undermined the confidence and security of post-war American men.”
    • Susan Faludi…”Ornamental culture is a culture of celebrity, image, entertainment, and marketing, all underpinned by consumerism….masculinity becomes a performance game to be won in the marketplace.”

As someone who loves the 1990s, I’m surprised I was able to avoid referencing Salt-N-Pepa’s “Let’s Talk about Sex.” Many used it as an intro to any discussion of sexuality. While I’m at it, how do we define “sexuality.”?


How to Argue in a Rhetorical Analysis

Based on some of the essays I read, I think a discussion on preparing a topic and using sound, logical arguments is warranted. Now, I’m someone who wants airtight arguments weaved throughout your essays. I don’t want to work to find the argument, I need you to make it crystal clear. Don’t worry, you’ll never be able to completely please me and craft a fully coherent argument, but you certainly should try. There is no finishing your thoughts on a topic: there are only deadlines that make you stop. Below is an example of a rhetorical analysis that you can model for your next essay. Notice how it’s structured and what evidence you’d want to supply if your were writing this as an essay.

Role of Women in Media

Maybe I read too much into things, but I see so many romantic comedies ending the same way–marriage and/or children. In fact, it’s not even just romantic comedies: there are countless shows and films that follow the “boy meets girl” format. What do we think about this romantic pattern?

For instance, what’s the rhetoric behind Hollywood movies that end in marriage and/or babies? Well, getting married and having children is a major cultural practice, so that gets “played out” in films. Additionally, women are often consider babymakers in search of a man to donate the necessary ingredient, so female characters in Hollywood films have traditionally not been *complete* until they marry and have children or somehow fulfill a woman’s socially constructed “proper” role according to prevailing attitudes. Because our culture (remember, this is a generalization) favors families as opposed to singles, the rhetoric of our entertainment–the power behind acceptance or enjoyment of a film–conforms to the cultural value of privileging families.

Double Standards…(Time permitting)

Right about now is when we start talking about double standards. The authors we’ve read recently (as well as Jean Kilbourne) point out that men don’t have the same stigmas attached to them or the same expectations:

  • Things to think about as you contemplate our gender analysis discussions:
    • What are some roles and expectations that women have but men don’t or, at least, don’t have to the same extent?
    • Where do these roles or expectations show up? Be specific. Don’t just say “the media”–that’s a given in this class.
  • Let’s review a discussion on Language and Hegemony.
    • Have you ever thought about language and how it replicates hegemonic practices? What’s the word for a promiscuous female?
    • How about a male?
    • Check out the definition for the word ‘slut’ (if you’re on campus, check out the OED’s expanded definition). What’s the double standard in that word?
  • Where else do ideal(ized) images get reproduced?

Here’s an interesting look at Breastaurants, but the video no longer plays. Of course, you could watch these:

  • Twin Peaks Orlando
  • 30-sec Mantality commercial
  • Tailgate Rivals Hot Spot (I doubt you’ll finish this one).

There’s even an NPR story on Breastaurants.–brings new meaning to economic “bust” (by the way, that’s not my clever joke; it’s in the article). And, if you want even more discussion and a legal perspective, this article’s for you: “The Battle of the ‘Breastaurants’”.

Next Class

Keep up with the reading. We’re not just getting real next week–we’re getting hyperreal with Umberto Eco. We’ll also check out Barker & Jane’s Ch. 10: “Television, Texts, and Audiences.”

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