Floating Forum #3: Outside Talks and Events

i apologise for posting this so late but imy computer was spazzing and well now i can.

the one thing about kate borenstein that really struck me was when she said 'do whatever it takes, to make this life worth living... just, dont be mean to anyone' - basically, she said that we should/could do anything at all to find a reason to stay alive. be it self harm, be it escaping be it anything, if it gives us reason to stay alive, its worth it.

and this made me think - what would make my life worth living? and, is it worth it to keep searching, pushing, struggling to find that one thing?

i love that kate is so comfortable with  the fact that she is constantly reinventing herself, because, lets be honest, all of us are. we might not be defining and redefining our gender and sexuality but we're all changing. every day. and with that change in thought, opinion or emotion, we're constantly reinventing ourselves. and that change is growth, it doesnt need to be positive or negative. theres no need to hide it or mask it. we can still be who we are whilst we change. there can be solidity and unity of character expressed through fluctualtion and fragmentation.

i liked the fact taht the talk was at villanova. it was comfortable despite that. the only time my mind woke up and realised that we werent at bryn mawr was when she asked how any people in the audience were gender variant and only a few hands went up. i think that this wasnt because they werent gender variant people in the audience but maybe because not as many people were comfortable in their gender/sexuality. i thanked bryn mawr a little at this moment, because it made me appreciate the openess and comfort that is readily available at bmc.

all in all, i really enjoyed her talk. i think there were times when she tried too hard to get a message across/to connect with the audience and that at these times her message got dissolved in her effort. however, the rest of her performance was empowering and striking enough that it could afford to lose that tiny bit.

This past weekend I attended the Roland Altherr Memorial Symposium in Philosophy at Haverford.  This year's talk was given by Professor Jay Bernstein from The New School for Social Research in NYC.  Below are some notes that I took during Professor Bernstein's talk:

-people not principals are morally wrong

-rape puts the victim in a state of existential helplessness 

-the rape survivor develops PTSD due to a lost of trust in the world (1/3-1/2 of female rape victims develop PTSD)

-the body serves as a necessary vehicle/image to the soul

-the intrinsic value of a person is destroyed via rape- we value ourselves according to how others view us- therefore, we are dependent on the social recognition of others

-a master/slave dichotomy develops during rape

I personally was very disturbed by Professor Berstein's focus on women as the only victims of rape.  When I asked Professor Bernstein about men as rape victims he replied by stating that men become feminized once they are raped.  Feminization in these terms is very problematic.  By arguing that men become more like women after being raped, Bernstein is in actuality assigning femininity an inferior value.   

Like ebock, I realized I never posted about seeing that film, "Slippery Slope," so I'm going to do so now. Sorry!

To me, the film was mainly a source of entertainment. I felt like it didn't really have a strong message about the porn industry- or at least whatever message the director was trying to convey was hidden under lots of humour so it was hard to take seriously. If there was a positive message that the film enforced it would be that not all porn stars are these helpless beings that lack agency. Some (if not many) are in control of their selves and embrace their sexuality. Coming from a class where we talked about sex work a lot, none of this was new to me so perhaps this is why the film had less of an effect.

That said, I did really enjoy it. I liked the way it was filmed and the quirky relationships between characters. I just wish it delved more into sex work issues than merely providing a humorous film that skimmed the surface of those issues.

One of the parts I enjoyed most about Kate Bornstein's performance was how she blatantly stated that she is neither man, nor woman. Often times when we talk about transgender issues, I feel like we always fall into the same gender binary that we seem to always be fighting. You know, with language such as m to f and f to m. It was nice to finally have someone be completely comfortable with not defining themselves through one gender- or rather, feeling like they had to transition from one gender to another.

I was also intrigued by the performance being at villanova. I'll try not to stereotype too much here, but i wonder how the villanova students reacted to Kate's performance. If they were not comfortable with her directly asking them if they were part of the GLBTQ group, what did they think of her being so blatant about it? I wonder if it's one of those things where its ok for YOU to be this way but not for me...

Also, did anyone notice that Kate Bornstein's performance at Villanova was brought by the "women's studies" program there? I wonder how their syllabus and courses offered differ/are similar to ours.

Lastly, I loved how honest Kate was, especially when she was listing all her "problems": alcoholic, anorexic, depressed, cutter, suicidal, etc. Surprisingly, I was not uncomfortable when she was talking about it- even when she went into great detail. The only thing that really bothered me was when she was talking about the alternatives to suicide and she said it was better to starve yourself, than be suicidal. To me any type of self-harm shouldn't be promoted and there shouldn't be ones that are more tolerated than others. I don't know...just a thought. Overall though, i really enjoyed the performance! And it was nice to observe a campus other than in the tri-co for once.

I also realized I hadn't done a posting for the Lynda Barry talk so... here we go!

Her idea of "deep play" is very interesting to me -- the concept of tapping into the creative resources that are unique to each person.

I work with Mary DiLullo, the filmmaker that was working with Lynda to record her experiences leading her writing workshops in different settings: here at Haverford, in ESL classes in Philadelphia, and in detention centers/prisons in Philadelphia.

I was commenting to Mary after she was telling me about how the classes went in the prisons and in the ESL class that it seems like Lynda taps into something that exists for everyone and really breaks down so many different types of barriers... She said the energy that Lynda had unleashed at all three workshops was incredible despite language barriers, socio/cultural barriers, etc.

I'm hoping we can revisit this when we get to What It Is... Maybe part of making a change for the better for the world is getting everyone to find a way to tap into that "state of deep play".... If we stop feeling so stifled and find small ways to keep our creative juices flowing maybe that could change the ways that we work/talk/communicate with one another...

this feels fitting at this point: Madonna "Express Yourself." I love Madonna.

www.youtube.com/watch

Kate Bornstein gave possibly the most moving performance/talk that I think I've ever seen before. I actually started crying during the slide show that she put together about her mother.

I was also talking with justouttheasylum about how its so difficult to wrap our minds around the idea of someone changing continuously throughout their life. No matter how progressive we may believe we are, it is really hard to believe for some people that their personality, their values, their opinions, etc., are not entirely static.

Also -- here are some quotations from the performance that I thought were particularly striking...

"... shedding my identities like I shed those cells..."

"tell me what it's like to know...."

"what does it make me? I don't know how to be a girl and I sure dno't know how to be a boy, and it sure isn't worth all that trouble!"

"i need to learn to talk like a woman..."

"...tell me what you want me to be... " [in her story about herself as 'stormy']

 GASP: gender anarchist and sex positivism

straight homosexual

queer heterosexual

these were just some of the terms/ideas that kate bornstein threw out in her conversation today at bryn mawr. terms that are not used very widely, yet are innovative and different and real. i was so pleased i was able to see her both at bryn mawr and at villanova. it was interesting to really see her in am honest, straight forward relaxed setting versus her staged performance at villanova. she has so many ideas and lookouts on life, death, sex, and anything really. so much of what she said (like that the term "ally" was bullshit or gay marriage is not the right political fight) seemed so crazy but as she explained it, made so much sense. and her performance! what an actor. really. it wasn't a one person show, she embodied so many different characters, from different versions of herself from different phases of her life to her mother or a friend. she told it how it was and didn't hide any bit of herself from her audience. getting into graphic details of her surgery wasn't meant to scare anyone, it was meant to be honest. she knows not everyone will understand her, she knows it's not "the norm" to not define oneself as a man or as a woman. it was interesting in the setting itself too, at villanova. at one point she asked that if there was anyone in the audience who was gay, a lesbian, or bi to raise there hand... at first no hand went up and i'm pretty sure it was not because everyone in the audience was a straight heterosexual. then she added "and ally" and finally it was acceptable to raise a hand. it was just interesting to me to see people feel so uncomfortable to express themselves in that kind of environment. i mean students of the bi-co are not going to be living at bryn mawr and haverford their whole lives, there's a real world out there. a world where people aren't as open about telling people who they really are, a world where people will try to put you down and bully you, a world where even the slightest difference can make one an outlaw. but there she was, being completely frank about who she was and what she did to get there. and i was amazed.

 Kate Bornstein was amazing. She was honest and shocking and fascinating...I couldn't have asked for a better excuse to get out of my room and stop writing my essay. What's burning in my mind right now was the moment when Kate spoke about learning to talk like a woman; it was almost jolting for me, I can't quite describe how I felt. All of the sudden there was this woman speaking with this really deep, masculine voice and even though I knew the entire time that she was born Albert Bornstein, it kind of put things in perspective for me. I kept waiting for Kate to return to the feminine voice, and when she was using a different voice following the direction of the voice instructor, I couldn't tell if that was how she sounded before or not. It was a really interested experience, trying to meddle with these feelings because I realize I don't have much real-world experience with transgendered people. I was nervous and I didn't know how exactly to react, but by the end of the show I felt totally at ease. I wish I had been able to go to the lunch with her earlier in the day as well, to sort of close the distance between Kate and myself.

Oh, and I definitely plan on using my get out of hell free card.

-Despite its shocking reproductive health policies, Costa Rica is very politically and socially progressive. The country itself is ranked 3^rd in terms of having the highest gender equity in the world.  

            From a political standpoint, Cuba has very recently developed an international reputation for being a very progressive and tolerant nation due to its ongoing sexual transformation. Unlike its rivals (mainly the U.S.A and Europe), Cuba has acquired a more “civil” approach to domestic politics. As a result, Cuba is in the process of making a new name for itself in the global arena. Furthermore, according to Frances Negron-Muntaner, Mariela Castro is being prepared to take on more influential leadership roles in Cuba’s government in the near future. This could potentially lead to Cuba receiving even more positive international recognition.   

 Hello again,

There's a very interesting talk on reproductive rights being given at Haverford next week:

"The Tri-Co Mellon Faculty Working Group on Culture, Health and Medicine and

After reading most of What It Is I decided that it would be a good idea to attend Lynda Barry’s talk on campus...and boy was I overwhelmed (in a good way) by Barry’s personality! For the next 90 minutes I was entertained by Barry’s awkward yet hysterical performance. Besides learning some new jokes Lynda Barry was successful in teaching me a thing or two about writing. As a writer, Lynda argued that motion is key. By this she meant to say that it is important to keep our hands moving while writing. According to Barry, in order to prevent writer’s block we have to make the difficult decision of trading in our MacBooks for old-fashioned pen and paper. Writing with these simple tools will not only keep our hands in motion but it will provide us with a visual writing experience. Seeing words as images on a paper will undoubtedly inspire us to write more and more. With that said, I think I will take Lynda’s advice and write my next paper with good ol’ pen and paper.   

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/5295

pictures =)

yesterday i went to listen to suzan lori parks, and although what she spoke about wasn't connected directly to gensex, it was intriguing and a lot of fun.

my favorite quote of the evening was 'aint no body gonna turn me around' - from which i (obviously) immediately picked up 'body' and related it to gensex. -- in the sense that there would be no 'body' that would serve as a limitation.

i am lame. i know.

another interesting thing she said right at the begining was that 'writing was her revision of the real' which brought me back to our discussions on literature and language and how that helps shape us and our thoughts. and i must say that even though it does shape us, doesnt it also give us a space for expression? are we shaped through that expression? a little i would assume. maybe its a balancing act.

what i loved about suzan lori was her ability to engage the audience so well. and i think that came from her level of comfort. she seemed to be so comfortable with herself, in her body, on stage, addressing an audience, adding a ridiculous soundtrack to her speechs -- it was so natural. flowing. it made you feel at ease.

she said it was hard being the first at anything - (she was the first african american woman to win a writing award) -- and maybe it was just me but she seemed to say it in an almost mocking way. yes she had won it. yes it was amazing and hard. but was that because she was african american or because she was a woman? pppffft. nope.

i dont know. i liked her. she said a lot of things that ive heard before and a lot of things that were funny and new. but that wasnt it. she was vibrant in a way. alive. and you dont find that very often.

it was inspiring in a soft, comfortable manner.

             This evening I was fortunate enough to attend Suzan-Lori Parks reading in Goodhart Theater. I must say that I am very happy that this course requires us to attend some outside talks/events. If it weren’t for this requirement then I probably would have missed out on this great talk! Overall, I don’t really see how tonight’s talk directly relates to our main theme of gender and sexuality. However, I did find Parks’ performance to be very enlightening and motivational. More importantly, she briefly touched upon the idea of “activism” which I linked back to our ongoing class discussion about incorporating activism into our new syllabus. 

 I copied and pasted this from an email I got today...I imagine some people already know about this, but I thought I'd spread the word. I thought this could fill in some gaps some of us have in trans studies. 

I wanted to let you all know about an event that's happening this coming Tuesday. Monica Roberts is a black trans woman from Kentucky who is the author of the blog Transgriot (http://transgriot.blogspot.com/). Hosted by the Women's Center and the Office of Intercultural Affairs, Monica will be giving a lecture about politics, racism, and queer identity. After her lecture, Monica, the other CDAs and I will be facilitating a discussion about it. 

Where: Thomas 224
When: 4pm, Tuesday 20 Oct. 

so i travelled to arizona over fall break with my family and at some point we stumbled upon the topic of gender. my aunt and uncle have three kids - two girls (aged 8 and 5) and a two year old son. growing up in a house with two older sisters, my little cousin thinks its completely normal for him to paint his nails and watch/listen to 'girly' shows and songs.

but at the same time, he's obssessed with spiderman and fire trucks - something he hasnt had that much exposure to. this makes my aunt believe that some gender differences are inherent and some get embedded over the years.

im not sure i agree that something llike a liking for cars can be inherent.

that being said, did you know that if you go to mc donalds and ask for a happy meal they ask you whether its for a girl or a boy?! and you get the toy accordingly?! what if you're a girl who wants a toy gun or a boy who wants a doll?!!

its upsurd. 

So I went to see the movie "Slippery Slope", which is about a pro-feminist/anti-pornography film maker who in order to get the money for her film to make it to a film festival directs a pornography video. On one while the title of the movie is meant to convey the slippery slope of what happens with the saying the "the ends justify the means". After viewing the film I found it to mean something else. For me the title alluded to the main character before in the beginning of the film. She, holding fast to her convictions about pornography, found it hard to believe that it could be another thing other than a tool for the perpetuating male dominance. In many ways this hindered her growth in other areas of her life. I think the title serves also as a warning to the audience that being caught in your own ideas about how the world should be becomes a "slipper slope" to close-mindedness, which hinders the ability of critical dialogue to happen. This is an important lesson, I think, for this course in particular as there are many disciplines being represented in one conversation. Moreover, this is important lesson when thinking about re-vamping the ivory tower. Often, caught in our own theories and discipline's language for figuring out the world, we do not think about how truly inter-connected it all is and neglect to have interdisciplinary conversations.

 Recently (last Friday) I went to see a band at Lundt Basement at Haverford called Starfucker and apart from the awesome music, what really struck me was that each band member was in drag. Playing in flower dresses and wearing red lipstick, the band added this whole new element of performance to their, well, performance. When I watched an interview with the band after the show, they were asked about wearing drag and I found their answer intriguing and very relevant to our class discussions. They talked about how putting on non-gender conforming clothing helped them to take on this new identity, an identity they referred to as being more real. By dressing in women's clothing, they are able to create a separation between their "real-life" selves and their job as musicians. What I found particularly interesting was how you begin to appreciate the music for simply the music, as opposed to crazy fans throwing themselves all over the male musicians (as is typically the case). I actually love the band more now that I know that they are conscious of gender binaries and are contributing, in whatever small way, to questioning these binaries and why they are in place. I only wonder if my opinion would be different if I were a male fan...would their performance be of less significance? 

I recently went to a viewing of "Slippery Slope," by Sarah Schenck a very funny yet, for some, disturbing sexual comedy. I found myself laughing at every instant that some sexual innuendo, but soon after found myself asking why? I didn't understand why I laughed at something I would normally find degrading (Pornography). But then I realized, I do not know if I think that pornography(excluding violent pornography) is something that should be thought of as yet another tool that men use to control women. I mean, when one looks at the dominant role in a sex film, one sees that it is the women. The women has an infinite amount of ways to coordinate her body with another in order to satisfy her viewer; and at that she embraces who she is physically and mentally. She says to the world "I'm going to use my body to seduce you." I think that "Slippery Slope" did and excellent job of strengthening women as whole, because it embraced another group of women and illustrated how powerful the female body can be.