å Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

Hi everyone,

After class a few students asked if you have to define each terms listed on the exam: motherhood, monstrosity, masculinity, and home.  Yes, you need to provide a definition for each of these terms in relationship to the reading; however, you don’t have to discuss each term in relationship to all three works.  You can define home in relationship to Davis and Morgan, for example, and discuss monstrosity in relationship to Pascoe and Morgan.

Please post your questions to WordPress as they come up.

Elizabeth

In “Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School” by C.J. Pascoe, the author illustrates how the gender and sexuality have been culturally built. The administrators and teachers in River high seems to only have cultural idea of male and female relationship, and they seems like to not want to talk about sexuality. For example, in the first skit, two most popular boys in the school  are dressed as nerd which does not fit them. Then, they showed up with female costume that made a lot of laughter. Moreover, when the female couch lifted the barbells, the audience was cheering. This initially seems like the show is supporting diversity of sex, but it actually illustrates how important to be in the cultural idea of sex because it’s obvious if the two handsome boys dress like girls or the female gym couch lifts the barbell, it must make students feel strange. It implies that boys should be masculine and girls should be feminine. It also makes the students feel like if they are not what people think cool, they will be laughed at. The second example is the teacher Ms. Mac. she had a good reputation in students just because she is so interested in romantic relationship among students. She made a joke about two male and female students being a couple because they are close friends even though they are not dating. However it shows that how she thinks only heterosexual relationships are beautiful and does not think about other students who might not be heterosexual. Further more, by saying that in front of all students, it makes pure high school students think about what they should be. They might think about students, who are not heterosexually attractive, are wired. Moreover, another teacher unbelievably teases a male student about what he said is homosexually.

In CJ Pascoe’s novel, he discussed how during an event in a gymnasium, two boys dressed as nerds for a short play. Accompanying these nerds were their girlfriends and two gangsters that sought to bully the nerds. The nerds showed a short sequence of events where they attempt to gain their girlfriend back from a kidnapping by gangsters by power working out. This was a bit hilarious to the audience in the gymnasium because of the generalization that nerds are tall and skinny. Proceeding this, the nerds proceeded to save their girlfriends from the kidnapping.

Pascoe believes that one should not be characterized as not manly enough just because they dress in a certain way, especially in this instance. The barbells were a symbol of masculinity in this novel and should not be, because any one can lift barbells and it should not put a label on who they are as a person. In retrospect, if one chooses to not lift barbells that should not have a label put on them as well. Pascoe goes on to describe several other generalizations such as femininity, hypersexuality and black cultural style. Pascoe affirms that masculinity should be thought of only as a culture of dominant practices and nothing else should be associated with it, including gender. Talcott Parsons, a sociologist, believes that men and women should adhere to their gender roles because it helps to create a well ordered society. For example, women cannot be breadwinners of the family and men cannot be caretakers. R.W. Connell, also a sociologist, argues that very few men are dominantly masculine, and that most men incorporate some form of femininity to themselves. The idea of multiple masculinities has inspired and influenced countless studies in sociology. All in all, Pascoe believes sexuality should not encompass certain gender specific rituals, and that gender differentiation should be illustrious.

In Morgan’s novel, chapter 1 discusses the concept of monstrosity because of how the Europeans used biblical references such as satan to describe the black women of their indigenous lands such as Jamaica or the West Indies. Several Englishmen have portrayed black women during this time as monsters by exploiting their labor on their own land and described the cultural differences between them in racial ways. An example of how they were portrayed at this time as monstrous would be the description of the black women’s bodies while naked during laborious work. They went into significant detail of how different they were from the Europeans to make them feel like they needed to be put into labor. Native Americans were also made to be seem monstrous because of their cannibalistic behavior and rituals which gathering dead human remains. Again the Englishmen went into detail of the Native Americans eating habits which were made to be seen as culturally inferior from that of Europeans.

The concept of monstrosity can also be seen in Federici’s chapter discussing the degradation of women and those who were forced into labor. When an open – field system failed and returned back to feudalism, this led people to scavenge for food and hunter/gather for crops. There was an increase in poor squatters and they were led to beg to their knees for a job. There was a deep hatred for this economic system and led to great instability between social classes after the collapse of these open fields. Even the elderly had to take care of themselves and had no on to watch over them, they’ve even started to loot. After the appropriation of a wage slave system, many workers defied this because this led them to have to defend their land from being taken away from them because of an inability to pay. The workers felt that they would rather work on the roads than to be offered a wage.

In Chapter 1 of Jennifer Morgan’s novel, she discusses how it wasn’t until European colonization/influence that African Americans – especially women were led to believe that they were inferior, because they did not look the same. They noticed a racial inequality as a result of this. Europeans were led to believe at this time period that they were superior in some ways because of the harsh treatment of the African Americans. As a result of this racism and brute labor, bills that became laws were passed to reinforce the harsh treatment of the African Americans. Morgan also writes although there is a distinct concept of races biologically speaking, that should not ratify how humanity should be like. Several people in this chapter have varying opinions of how they saw the black people during this time. For example, one Englishman saw a black woman in the Cape Verde islands and marveled at her beauty. However, people such as Lynda Boose and Peter Erickson did not view black woman at this time as people to look up to.  They viewed them as assets for their marketable labor and fertility. Not only were black women racially discriminated against, but indigenous people to Amerindia were too, and were called wild or savage. Additionally, biblical references were made to black women describing them as a symbol of the devil. Moreover, Native Americans, those indigenous to our country were described as cannibalistic for eating one another and was characterized as savagery.  The West Indies and Jamaica have also put black women to labor use and have become  profitable lands. There was a wide cultural difference between England and Jamaica in terms of black beauty. It was very hard during this time period for the Europeans to let go of this tragedy of thought. Ultimately, exploitation of the Africans for labor have led to a superiority complex of the Europeans.