gender studies

Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea

admin — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

I was first introduced to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s famous 1988 essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” during a graduate seminar that focused on postcolonial and feminist literature. While I read many works by various important and transformative authors during that semester, Spivak’s discussion of the subaltern stood out to me as being more important and more transformative than the others. To be honest, there are portions of the essay that I still don’t understand; there are analogies and culturally based references that elude me.

However, the ideas that I took away from Spivak’s essay were powerful and thought-provoking because they allowed me to think about a group of women, whom Spivak calls the “subproletariat subaltern,” in a manner that allowed me to connect with these women. Specifically, Spivak’s interwoven application of Marxist, deconstructionist, feminist, and postcolonial theories allowed me to understand the capitalist system in which I—a middle class, white, woman born and raised in America—navigate, at times successfully and at others with great disappointment.

To an ever greater extent, Spivak’s assertions in “Can the Subaltern Speak?” made it clear to me that this is the same system which has worked to imprison a certain global class of women, specifically in formerly colonized nations. While women of all socioeconomic statuses and ethnic backgrounds have suffered under the cruel grasp of capitalism, Spivak’s detailed analysis of the international division of labor and the global market-based economy shows that subproletariat women have suffered the most. As a subaltern group, they have had few to no opportunities to be heard, much less to speak.

In this newest anthology, Can the Subaltern Speak?, various scholars and authors have written essays in response to Spivak’s essay. The topics of these essays include research and pedagogy, the human rights of indigenous women in Guatemala and Mexico, slavery in the United States, and the interpretation of World War I in a postcolonial context. The diversity of these responsive essays shows the impact and far-reaching implications of Spviak’s original essay. Also included in this anthology is an Introduction by Rosalind C. Morris and an Afterword by Spivak, in which the author discusses the original essay’s past and future.

This is a not a light summer read. If you are interested in postcolonial theory and found Spviak’s original essay to be of value, as I and many others have, then this collection of essays is worth reading. Scholars and teachers of critical theory would find no shortage of material to discuss, evaluate, and consider. This text is not one that you sit down and read in an entire afternoon. Instead, it is a collection of ideas that you can revisit time and again. The sentiments discussed by Spivak and the other authors are especially poignant now because of the strife in the global economy, international warring, and the increased stratification of the classes. I suspect, sadly, that these sentiments will be relevant for years to come.

Written by: Rachel Scheib, July 4th 2010

The Edge of Change: Women in the 21st Century Press

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Edited by June O. Nicholson, Pamela J. Creedon, Wanda S. Lloyd, Pamela J. Johnson

University of Illinois Press

My bias as a journalist and editor made me want to love The Edge of Change, but the stubborn remnants of the journalistic outlook into which I was indoctrinated gave bias a real beating. So, in the end, I just liked some parts and hated others.

The concept was great, but the construction was lacking. Many of the book’s chapters, which range from personal essays to academic discussions to interviews, deal with many of the relevant issues well enough to be important counterpoints to the often male-centered nature of modern media criticism. Any journalist, male or female, who wants to make it in this rapidly-changing field, to improve how the media functions, or to preserve what is best about the press would do well to consider the issues the book raises about the need to adapt, the value of diversity, and the responsibility of representing the communities in which we work.

However, the book’s organization, shifting formats, and lack of focus often distract from the book’s theme. For instance, some of the essays and interviews focus so intently on the individual that the context is lost and we learn little about how these individual experiences relate to or illustrate the major trends affecting women in the press. On the other hand, some chapters deal with the state of the press in general and skip discussions of gender altogether. Scattered throughout the book, these chapters would probably have made more sense as an introductory section. These are just two examples of an organizational logic that seems to defy intelligibility as its eight major parts shift from a temporal perspective to women’s affect on the press to women’s professional roles to issues of diversity to the choices women make in their careers, with each category popping up in the “wrong” section here and there.

Yet, these problems are minor compared to the book’s two glaring flaws: the complete avoidance of class issues and a beginning chapter comprised of worn-out gender stereotypes and pseudo-scientific claptrap. Over the last few decades, journalism has become increasingly exclusive in terms of class, a fact that has garnered much criticism and has played a major role in the development of a modern press that is less reflective of the race, class, and gender composition of the general population and the pool of potential journalists than it was thirty years ago. Yet, this disturbing trend and its effect on the future of the press garner not a single mention. The second major flaw deserves its own essay, but I’ll have to settle for giving it its own paragraph.

In a chapter titled “The Female Mind: Biology of the Twenty-First Century Woman,” Helen E. Fisher, biological anthropologist and Chief Scientific Advisor to the online dating site chemistry.com, peddles the usual pseudo-scientific theories on innate sex differences that describe a natural order in which men and women somehow miraculously evolved 1950’s U.S. gender roles on the African Savannah in the Pleistocene. Fisher, like so many other purveyors of pseudoscience, ignores the actual scientific evidence concerning sex differences, the tremendous overlap between the sexes, and the variations across time and space that make it impossible for many of these traits to be innate products of human evolution. The inclusion of this chapter, with its bad science and worse logic, is downright insulting to intelligent readers specifically and women in general. For that fact alone, I’d suggest skipping this book.

Written by: Melinda Barton, January 22nd 2010

Sexualities Special issue: "Researching and Teaching the Sexually Explicit: Ethics, Methodology and Pedagogy"

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Edited by Feona Attwood, I.Q. Hunter

Sage Publications

I am just about to begin teaching a new course in Human Sexuality, so I was excited to review this special issue of Sexualities, the UK-published journal that features new and different voices from sexology, gender studies, and cultural studies. Each of the eight original essays provides teachers, activists and researchers with much-needed breathing space. As Attwood and Hunter point out, “The emergence of ‘porn studies’ in academic institutions has been met with widespread ethical and political opposition, even more so than the study of horror films. Sex media, rather like horror films in fact, are often seen as intrinsically obscene and harmful, effecting real changes in behaviour and attitude, and therefore potentially damaging to researchers and students.” Not so, say the contributors, at least not necessarily so. Porn appears now to be as central to our culture as its study has become prominent to academia.

The collection brings together theorists, educators, and activists from or working in the U.S. (Dennis Waskul), Finland (Susanna Paasonen), Hong Kong (Katrien Jacobs), Australia (Alan McKee, Kath Albury), and the U.K. (Brian McNair, Clarissa Smith, Steve Jones, Sharif Mowlabocus, Feona Attwood, and I.Q. Hunter).

The essays of Waskul, Smith, and McNair will embolden teachers to embrace new media technologies and push the envelope of eroticism in the classroom. Jones and Mowlabocus remind readers that punishing those who enjoy violent depictions of sexuality and/or who sexualize depictions of violence “does not eradicate or significantly hinder the production of such material” but does complicate things for scholars and teachers.

Katrien Jacobs examines the Hong Kong celebrity entertainer Edison Chen, whose DIY pornography made with other Chinese celebrities was inadvertently leaked to the press (darn those computer repairmen!) and led to mass hand-wringing. Paasonen details “something of a porn renaissance” that occurred in late 1990s Finland. Depictions of human sexuality had been regulated since the 1920s until this shift which enabled a wholesale mainstreaming of porn in Finland and other Nordic countries.

Kath Albury trades on her experiences from 2001 to 2003 as the Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council-funded project, “Understanding Pornography in Australia.” Albury’s first-rate critical reading of porn debates (in this case, in feminist circles) shows that few voices, however radical or conservative, manage to escape the restraints of moralism.

Alan McKee’s “Social Scientists Don’t Say ‘Titwank’” looks at how referees for journals in the humanities and social sciences have responded to his manuscripts about sex. He concludes that “in the humanities there is no longer a problem with the use of vulgar language.” Nevertheless, his essay reveals sharp differences in method, theory, and work-style between practitioners of cultural studies and anthropology. One statement really rankled me: “We surveyed over 1000 consumers of pornography as part of our research. In the correct social science manner, I will now claim this [sic] data as objective.” Other statements in this and other essays, such as “Older respondents had worse attitudes towards women . . . Christians had worse attitudes towards women . . . Those who lived in rural areas had worse attitudes . . .” made me long for the more fine-grained nuances of ethnographic writing about sex, sexuality, and sexual networking. Then again, few ethnographers are doing porn studies or pushing the erotic envelope in the classroom, so readers will find much else of great merit in McKee’s essay and the others.

Given the brevity and accessibility of these eight exciting contributions (not forgetting the six fine book reviews), this newest issue of Sexualities is an especially welcome resource for educators.

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., January 18th 2010