Power and Control, I'm gonna make you fall...

The title to this post is from a song by Marina and the Diamonds. If you haven't heard of them, GO... YOUTUBE... RIGHT NOW. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a fan.

Natasha from Avengers said it best,

"Regimes fall everyday, I'm Russian, I tend not to weep for that."

Power changes. It is no solid foundation, but rather a liquid element that can be transferred from one person to another in the blink of an eye. The reason I quote the song is because it is about the power in a relationship.

The speaker is in a relationship in which she is the submissive personality, but she recognizes her dislike for such. So, she plans to make the other person "fall" as in, she plans to take their power through her femininity. I'm gonna get a little vulgar here and say, I have a vagina, so I'm all about female empowerment. Especially in the world we live in.

A week ago or so, I saw a post on Tumblr and I wish I could find it again.
A survey was done on middle school students in which they were asked what their reactions would be if they woke up to find that they had changed genders overnight.

The girls responded that they would be upset at first, but after a little bit they would be excited about exploring the possibilities of the world as a boy/man.

More than 90% of the boys replied that they would kill themselves.

If you can't figure out that that is screwed up, you should probably leave now.

Males have the power. Not always, but most of the time. In fact, the popular Facebook page titled, "I Fucking Love Science" (which I happen to follow, because the posts are really educational) has recently come into spotlight because the admin for the page is female.

Any sane person says so what? The general public says, "WHAAAT FEMALES CAN BE SCIENTIFIC AND SMART? NOOOOOO!"

I kid you not. The link is below.

http://hellogiggles.com/i-f-ing-love-science-facebook-run-by-a-girl-many-idiots-are-surprised

Also, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the media shitstorm that surrounded the Steubenville rape case and this years election has raised a response from women everywhere. Below is a link to a post from the twitter hashtag #safetytipsforladies. It parodies the ridiculous advice that is given to women these days in order to avoid rape. Not to get off topic here, but how about instead of focusing on how to avoid rape we focus on teaching our children that rape in any way or fashion IS WRONG.

End Rape Culture.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/c605d11a21c325bd6c2c763050a57517/tumblr_mjy0aj2ZoA1qcri9fo1_500.jpg

Okay. I'm done with my soap box for now.

The Disciplining Gaze

           Foucault introduces the interesting concept of the disciplining gaze and the way surveillance causes the body to act in particular ways.  I find this idea fascinating and very true – when we are with certain groups, we tend to do or say certain things that we wouldn’t otherwise.  An example that comes to mind when considering the disciplining gaze is peer pressure.  As a teen, I often succumbed to my friends and what they were doing.  If they behaved a certain way, I followed suit, even if I wouldn’t have done those things in other situations.  The knowledge that someone watched me caused me to act in a way I wouldn’t have when I was alone.

A Man Called Peter

In the movie “A Man called Peter”, Catherine Woods gives the following speech:

Catherine Woods, Speech ("A Man Called Peter" Film)

This is a speech from one of my few, favorite movies on earth... it's SO raw and honest. And true.

And no, it's not chauvinistic.

(Catherine Woods gets up to speak at a rowdy youth rally and is met by claps and cheers from the boys….)

“If that’s because I’m a girl, thank you boys.

“And now, if you’ll let me, I’d like to talk as a girl, to the girls here this afternoon. I know if you boys will listen, they’ll listen too. And I’m just as sure that the reason they’ve been just as rude and silly as you’ve been, is because they had the mistaken idea that you wanted them to be.

“I’d never thought much about being a girl until two years ago, when I learned from a man what a wonderful thing it is to be a woman. Until that Sunday morning, I considered myself lucky to be living in the 19th century. The century of progress and emancipation. The century when, supposedly, we women came into our own. But I’d forgotten that the emancipation of woman really began with Christianity. When a girl, a very young girl, received the greatest honor in history. She was chosen to be the mother of the savior of the world. And when her son grew up and began to teach His way of life, He ushered woman into a new place in human relations. He accorded her a dignity she’d never known before, and crowned her with such glory, that down through the ages, she was revered, protected and loved. Men wanted to think of her as different from themselves. Better… made of finer, more delicate clay.

“It remained for the 20th century, the century of progress, to pull her down from her thrown. She wanted equality. For 1900 years, she had not been equal. She had been superior. To stand equal with men, naturally she had to step down. Now, being equal with men, she has won all their “rights and privileges.” The right to get drunk. The right to swear. The right to smoke. The right to work like a man. To think like a man. To act like a man. We’ve won all this, but how can we feel so triumphant, when men no longer feel as romantic about us, as they did about our grandmothers? When we’ve lost something sweet and mysterious? Something as, as hard to describe as the haunting wistful fragrance of violets?

“Of course, these aren’t my original thoughts. They’re the thoughts I heard that Sunday morning. But from them, some thought of my own were born. And the conclusion reached, that somewhere along the line, we women got off the track.

“Poets have become immortal by remembering on paper a girl’s smile. But I’ve never read a poem rhapsodizing over a girl’s giggles at a smutty joke. Or I’ve never heard a man brag that his sweetheart or his wife could drink just as much as he, and become just as intoxicated. I’ve never heard a man say that a girl’s mouth was prettier with a cigarette hanging out of it, or that her hair smelled divinely of stale tobacco.

I’m afraid that’s all I have to say… I’ve never made a speech before.”

(Catherine Exits; youth rally clapping)

(http://emilybethbond.blogspot.com/2010/09/catherine-woods-speech-man-called-peter.html)

(This isn’t a popular movie, so I could not find a clip. The only source I could find is another blog.)

This speech is an interesting address of gender roles because she says that the equality women achieved was a step-down rather than a step-up for women. I like the way she uses virtue to regard women as superior to men. However, at the same time she seems to be saying that women should fulfill a role of “prim and proper.” 

I enjoyed viewing this movie's depiction of gender roles- especially because it takes place during the 1900s.

Under Surveillance

Foucault gives us the notion of the disciplining gaze, the idea that if we believe someone is always watching us, we will behave differently. As children, we are told that no matter where we are or what we do, God is watching us. He knows everything there is to know about us. For some people, the fact that we cannot see God with our own eyes may be enough to make them not care about His judgement. For others, it may.

In today's society, whether we realize it or not, we are being watched most hours of the day. There is video surveillance in almost every store, elevator, business and other places that we may not even know. The truth of the matter is, we are being watched, but does that really change people's behavior? It comes down to the type of character a person holds and what morality means to them. Simply put, some people don't care if they are being watched.

As You Like It

The character Rosalind from Shakespeare's As You Like It is an example of a female disguising herself as a male. According to Focoult and Showalter, the place women hold in the world has been questioned for centuries. There was a male-dominated society during the time Shakespeare wrote, and women had little power and few rights. Therefore, Rosalind dressing and behaving as a man was a social experiment, changing her interactions with other males and females and her overall significance to the world.

White Chicks

The movie White Chicks is cross dressing at it's finest.  How much different can you change yourself from not only changing from male to female, but black to white.  People can also be confused on race and not only gender.  Excepting who you are can be difficult if you live in society that expects people to hold up to a general standard.

Power

When looking at the theories of feminism and sexuality it is impossible to see them outside the context of power. According to Faucault power is not something that an individual owns but is rather someone to be wielded or exercised. In the opening chapter of the History of Sexuality Faucault discusses the actions of the Catholic Church to limit the influence of sex and desire by requiring its member to give confession of such intimate detail. However, instead of curtailing desires of the flesh it opened them up to greater discussion. In developing this discussion, power has moved from institutions of authority to individuals. 

Today we can see by the hundreds of examples around us from youtube videos, chick flicks, rom coms, literature, artwork and Disney that the discussion is alive and well. It had exploded across the world to become a major part of our identity in how we reflect with ourselves, with our gender, and with society as a whole. It is no longer something to be hidden away and ashamed of which has fundamentally changed the discourse of sexuality.