Blog #15

Research Question: Is intersectionality essential to the success of feminism? And if it is, then why don't more feminists incorporate that intersectionality into their feminist ideologies?

My interviewee is a friend of mine who is a feminist herself and has, for a number of years, been involved in learning more about feminism and the institution of sexism. The kind of information I'm looking to get from her is some insight into the feminist community, as well as her personal experiences with racism, sexism, classism, etc. and how she fits into the matrix of intersectional feminism, being a lower-middle class, bisexual ciswoman of color. I want to get an idea of how she identifies herself and get a measure of the weight of its importance. And from that, I think that that, along with my research, can help me draw a few conclusions on whether intersectionality is important, and that information will help me to determine reasons why I don't see a better number of feminists including that idea into their theories, as well as what type of people they might be.

Blog #13 & #14

               

Violence is present in even the most innocuous forms of entertainment. We are introduced very early on to the concept of violence through cartoons and children’s story books. Fictional violence is normalized, and we are unfazed when a cartoon cat accidentally eats a bomb in the guise of a pie and explodes on the screen, or when an animated Disney character is hit on the head with a ten-ton hammer. So it’s not simply fictional violence that we accept, it is the caricature of it. So when we come across violence in jokes and stories, we are not disturbed nor are we disgusted when a bear eats a person whole in what is otherwise a gruesome image. That said, there are several forms of violence that we not only find acceptable, we find it to be funny.

                Shaggy dog stories are one of the many forms of humor, often presented following a distinct pattern or ending with a sentence that is a play on words related to the story as well as a common phrase in culture. The success of these stories is often based on the familiarity of these phrases in order for them to be witty and clever. But a lot of the success, it would seem, also stems from the portrayal of violence within a shaggy dog story. And the success of the humor found in that violence is based on exactly who (or what) is the perpetrator of violence, and who the victim happens to be. There is a wide variety of types of violence that can be found in shaggy dog stories. The ones I found are as follows: gun violence, “natural disaster” type violence, and indirect violence. There are also a variety of victim-perpetrator relationships as well: animal vs. nature, human vs. nature, human vs. non-human.

                The element of absurdity in the set of shaggy dog stories is often set in violence, and that element of absurdity is often a large piece of the key to success. For example, the humanization of an animal falls under this element. And often, the perpetrators of the shaggy dog story are animals. An example of a situation where the perpetrator was non-human and the victims were human, is the Giant Panda shaggy dog story. It was a story in which a panda with the ability to talk and use a gun shoots several human patrons in a restaurant and leaves.  That sentence alone isn’t inherently humorous for most; in fact it’s rather morbid. However, within the frame of a shaggy dog story, it was incredibly successful in its delivery.

                Human vs. Human conflicts were also found to be popular. In the story about friars, the friars are attempting to raise money by selling flowers. Their business becomes so successful that the other flower shop resorts to hiring a hit man to beat the friars until they stop selling flowers. Again, we have violence that, in real life, would make headlines. And yet for some reason, most people really liked the story. They laughed and chuckled at it. I think the fact that it’s fictional makes it safe for people to laugh, but there is also the fact that the rival flower shop’s efforts to stop the friars were so over-the-top that it was comical.

                Shaggy dog stories sometimes make a joke of “natural disasters”, forms of violence in which neither human nor animal are involved in the perpetration of violence. In “ Nate the Snake”, another popular story, the element of violence comes not from a living thing, but a freak boulder on the verge of squashing the snake, who has taken it upon himself to guard a lever within a desert that has the ability to destroy the world if moved. In the end, the boulder does not push the lever, for the body of Nate the snake had run it off its course. Explaining the story plainly and without the pattern or build-up of a shaggy dog story, this tale isn’t very funny. It is out of the ordinary, just as many shaggy dog stories are, and yet  if I told someone the story the way I just told it, I am almost positive they wouldn’t even giggle. So there is more than just violence that a shaggy dog story needs for it to be successful. The comical exaggeration of violence works in cartoons due to the visual effects. In a shaggy dog story, it takes the entire rhythm of the story for it to work.

                I found that among these popular shaggy dog stories, it isn’t the element of violence alone that makes it a success. The forms of violence, in the real world, would be considered tragic.  But in the frame of the shaggy dog story, it is somehow entertaining and even hilarious to some people. Part of it is due to the unrealistic characters (i.e. talking animals) but even in conflicts among humans, where it might be plausible for it to happen in real life (even the smallest chance), the story was popular and received high scores from many of the people who read it. Absurdity is an important part of shaggy dog stories, and of many jokes in general, and a lot of that revolves around violence in some shape or form. But it isn’t simply violence that the success relies on. It’s the type of violence that we’re so accustomed to, that we grew up watching for years, it’s our common sense that stops us from finishing any of these stories and saying, “Wow that was horrific, what did I just read?” In the end, it is the caricature of violence that we appreciate, not violence in and of itself.

Blog #12

I am going to examine the shaggy dog stories for my short analysis essay and I plan on asking and finding answers for the following questions: What types of violence are used in a "successful" shaggy dog story and why? I am going to do some examining for each shaggy dog story available on the blog that has some form of violence and take all the notes available from class and hopefully draw a conclusion. I will also consider the overall popularity of each story. Is the violence bloody? Or is it unrealistic, like a cartoon? And who is the victim here? What kind of character is the perpetrator? These are a few subquestions that will help me answer the main question.

Blog #10

I have yet to take out of the library or buy/rent most books for my topic but I am most definitely sticking with intersectional feminism and building a list of all of the sources that I'm planning on using. This is a long shot but my goal is to read the majority of the books but I'll probably end up just looking through them using the index to find what I need.

I was given even more sources after the meeting which is always a good thing, and then hopefully I can interview at least one woman in my family. The more I think about it the more I think that it's a good idea to pick someone from my family cus except for me, everyone was born and raised in a different country and so coming here, there's a good chance that they have a much more vivid recollection of the way they were treated and the behaviors of those around them. And being not only women but women of color I think I'll be able to get a lot of insight as to how this all relates back to intersectionality. Hopefully from that I'll be able to draw some conclusions about just how necessary the theory is in order for feminism to be a success. And I always have truckload of articles that I've already read through. All I need to do is take notes.

Fortunately for this project, my family is big and I have a number of subjects to choose from so hopefully I'll have at least one or two interviews for primary data and a whole load of secondary sources but I don't think more general collections of data like surveys would properly serve my purpose but I'm looking for very subjective answers and personal experiences that cannot be properly conveyed through questionnaires but I could be wrong. We'll see.

Blog #9 (incomplete)

Brian, Arlene, Jaylecia and I all took our time looking at the different drafts and their comments but when we discussed it we focused mostly on the narrative draft.

We agreed that a lot, if not most, of the comments were really lengthy and a lot of those comments were questions directed to the author as a way to give them direction for how they can improve their paper. For example, in comment LT3 the teacher is asking about how the author uses bullet points as a way to help them organize their writing. The teacher was asking if they used bullet points for the entire essay, what kind of information was in those bullet points, etc. But it didn't seem necessary to try to pull more information about the bullet points because the author had already gotten their point across: they use bullet points. Sometimes the comments try to ask questions too often and in my opinion if I were to keep getting comment after comment with like three questions in a single comment, I would just pick and choose which ones I would rather adhere to cus it's too much sometimes. It's great that the teacher is attempting to provide direction and that's what a lot of students want but maybe they need to cut back on asking soo many questions.

We also noted that in a lot of the comments, it starts off with the teacher pointing out what was good about the author's paper, followed by a criticism. This is likely a way to "soften the blow" so to speak. For example, in LT6, it says:

"Good - but again - discriminating among the different kinds of thinking you do would strengthen this."

So there is one commenting pattern goes like this (in a nutshell): Good comment, the "but", and then the critique.

The teacher also left some standalone "good comments" as well, highlighting areas of the paper that they thought were interesting, cool, etc. This is a good thing. Students like to hear that from teachers so they know what they should put into their next papers and also what they should keep and it's good that the teacher didn't just go "good, BUT..." for every single comment, they also thought to add some simple positive feedback as well.

Blog #8

1. Familiarize yourself with your topic

From Wikipedia:

Intersectionality is a sociological theory suggesting that—and seeking to examine how—various socially and culturally constructed categories of discrimination interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels, contributing to systematic social inequality. Intersectionality holds that the classical models of oppression within society, such as those based on race/ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, class, or disability do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate creating a system of oppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.

From Intersektionalitet:

The concept of intersectionality point to the importance of having a multidimensional analysis of power structures. That is to take into account all the dimensions of power. To Civis that means to take into consideration all the social categories that power and oppression rest upon. Among others, these categories are: gender, class, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation etc.

From African-American Policy Forum:

Intersectionality is a concept that enables us to recognize the fact that perceived group membership can make people vulnerable to various forms of bias, yet because we are simultaneously members of many groups, our complex identities can shape the specific way we each experience that bias. For example, men and women can often experience racism differently, just as women of different races can experience sexism differently, and so on. As a result, an intersectional approach goes beyond conventional analysis in order to focus our attention on injuries that we otherwise might not recognize.

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Intersectionality is a feminist theory pertaining to a matrix of oppression. Each and every indivual is affected by varying forms, levels and degrees of oppression that come with their identity. Different forms of oppression do not necessarily stand alone from each other. Rather, they interact with each other on different levels. Sex, gender, ability, race, class, wealth and weight are all examples of the categories with which we identify ourselves. And our identity can define our advantages and disadvantages in society. Many feminists appear to ignore that.

2. Identify a research question

Why is intersectionality is crucial to the success of the feminist movement and why is it so often ignored?

Why is Intersectionality so important?
Why is it being ignored and forgotten?
How does this affect Feminism as a whole?
What will happen if we do not address the inclusion of Intersectionality?

3. Decide what you need to know to answer your research question

What is intersectionality?
What are its origins?
Demographic of those who adhere to this theory and why
Demographic of those who do not adhere to this theory and why

4. Formulate a research plan that includes:

Purpose: To understand intersectional feminism and why some people don't include it into their feminist ideologies.

Detailed Thesis Statement:

Necessary Information:

List of Preliminary Sources:

Method of Information Gathering:

Blog #7

I have a lot of ideas of what it is I want to research. In my first blog post I mentioned that I had a growing interest with racism, intersectional feminism, ableism and so on. Growing up I was fortunate enough not to be exposed to as much racism as an Asian-American as other fellow Asian-Americans that I've come across. Either that or I was so ignorant that what they were doing was racist that I wasn't even phazed by it. So as much as I want my main focus to be about racism, I think I want to go for a topic that I have way more personal experience with, which is sexism, and to go with that, intersectional feminism. What it is, how it works, and why we need it in order for feminism to work and adhere to the issues of ALL women: White women, women of color, trans* women, cisgender women, able-bodied and disabled women.

Intersectionality is a sociological theory that some self-proclaimed feminists do not always incorporate into their ideologies. The idea is that different categories that people identify with- sex, gender, ethnicity, wealth, class, etc.- interact with each other on multiple levels simultaneously. Forms of privilege and oppression are not always independent of one another- rather, they interlap and affect individuals in different ways.

I'm thinking that the intersectionality theory is going to be my main focus but I also want to go into the absence of this theory and how it affects people. I mentioned in my first blog that I don't associate myself as a feminist and it's because of this very absence that I do so but I haven't stopped concerning myself with women's issues. One particular incident that stands out as the main reason for this is from a SlutWalk protest in 2011 where a White SlutWalk participant held up a sign featuring the "n" word. I don't know what was worse, the fact that she paraded around with this sign thinking it was okay and no one said anything until one black woman- an organizer of the protest I believe- told her to take it down, or the overwhelming responses that were DEFENDING this woman's use of a hateful racial slur. I want my research paper to observe and reflect the varying attitudes and beliefs of feminism and intersectionality more than anything.

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My other option is to do a research paper on privilege. Male privilege, White privilege, thin privilege, able-bodied privilege, wealthy privilege, cisgender privilege, all of that.