fSemir has 3 post(s)

I believe Foucault’s intentions in this chapter was to talk about the general discourse of sexuality and how the repression sexuality was being lifted in the twentieth century. The “technology of sex” was a different way of analyzing sexuality in relation to many things such as economics and medicine. According to him the transformation of discourse in the technology of sex opened more opportunities for other changes and techniques to be developed. In the 17th century sex was considered only to be done/discussed in the home, it was something that was shameful to talk about so Foucault believed it hindered the  development of these “technologies of sex”.

I think one of the main reasons we were able to move forward with the discourse of sex was the development and understanding of the medicine of sex. Medicine allowed the prevention of perversions and disease. Prior to this in the 19th century people would worry about them spreading throughout the classes which in turn cause hysteria. The upper class on the other hand used medicine as a form of Eugenics to create what they saw was best in themselves and allowed them to continue being wealthy and to boast the physical superiority. The bourgeois wanted utter control of everything, not only society but the sexuality of their men, women and children. With this newfound technology the bourgeois were able to regulate childbirth and marriage which would ultimately determine the population.

With the technology of medicine developing it also resulted in eugenics in the 19th century, I believe that Foucault determines that sexuality was a social construct created by the bourgeois, it was put into place to empower their social class while essentially the lower class was stunted by it due to their somewhat forced decrease in population from regulated births and marriages that came out of their fears of impurity in the family.

Semir Mulic

10-1-17

In C.J. Pascoe’s book ‘Dude You’re a Fag’ we’re able to see that there a couple different outlooks on gender and sexuality in River High.  A main setting I want to focus on was the play, it really pushed gender norms. With the girls being kidnapped and having to need saving from the male nerds it seemed as though the girls were helpless and needed sort of a “big strong man” trope. The boys would be seen as weak even when they spoke because they spoke in feminine voices. The boys were then “turned into men” when they did some weightlifting, an interesting thing here was that the female weightlifter would be applauded for lifting these weights as it was seen as breaking the gender norm, the boys were laughed at when they ripped off their pants to expose skirts, they laughed at the feminine qualities but applauded the masculine. The play in it’s entirety seemed innocent but played on the gender bias of the students.

The teachers were a different story, they placed dress codes on girls , promoted pairings with dances, rallies and prom. a couple teachers stand out, Ms. Mac for example would promote abstinence and encouraged heterosexuality through the pictures she kept of male and female pairings at the school’s events, she even in her teachings drew on heterosexual concepts. Ms. Mac wasn’t the worst offender of pushing gender norms, that would go to Mr. Ford and Mr. Kellog. They would go up to a student named Huey and make fun of his lack of success with females, even going from one class room to another just to tease him about it. Mr. Kellog had even said after Huey flipped off Mr. Ford that he should be having doing that with girls and not Mr. Ford. They pushed this agenda that he HAD to have relations with girls or else he was a failure.

Semir Mulic

In Jennifer Morgan’s Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and Racial Ideology, Morgan describes how the racism is sought to be justified by the characteristics of the female body. Morgan states in the very first chapter that Europeans viewed an African woman’s features such as hair, color of their skin and facial features as things that were flawed with the race. She goes on to say that the “flaws” of these women would make the act of forcing them into slavery somewhat more justifiable. I believe Morgan states that they had different body types to European women, and instead of just understand that they were different they had to make the connotation that they were inferior, even seen as “beasts”.

I think you can see the awful portrayal of women on the last paragraph of page thirty six. The Europeans seem to believe that because of their ability to carry around their large breasts to breastfeed their children, and the ridiculous assumption that they go through childbirth without experiencing any form of pain, they would not be phased by the hard labor they would endure if they were enslaved. In the paragraph it’s stated that the English believed the pain of childbirth was a mark of a woman in the christian community, this wouldn’t be the only time they use religion to justify themselves because it’s also stated that the African’s large breasts were that of a beast and only the devil was depicted with large breasts. Wealthy women in England would sometimes send their children to wet nurses to be breast fed, observations like these were said to create a barrier between the English and the Africans. All these differences would lead the English to believe that not only could the African Women perform hard labor but also the “trait” that makes them immune to pains of breastfeeding and childbirth would allow them to take abuse from things like beatings, lashings, and even branding. Morgan states that because of all these “flawed characteristics” from these women, the English were able to justify themselves that the Africans were able to deal with slavery.

Q: With how “strong” women were seen by the English how come there were so many more men sold into slavery?