Wow! There were so many great suggestions for the remainder of the semester. I looked at suggestions across the three sections I teach and am trying to figure out the best way to address all of your interests. I’m not sure it will be possible, but I will give it a try.

I am calling this week, “Medical Oppression.” There are two readings and one 25-minute film.

A Birth Story

This piece was written by Dr. Dana-Ain Davis, in collaboration with Leconté J Dill whose story is featured, and Cheyenne Varner who illustrated the piece. Dr. Davis is the director of The Center for the Study of Women and Society at CUNY. I work with her regularly and respect her work on black motherhood and medical anthropology. This piece deals with Obstetric Racism through the focus on stories told through words and/or images.

12 Reasons It Should Be Illegal for Doctors Not to Treat Trans People

This piece was written in response to a new rule proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2019 that could make medical care for transgender people not only worse but potentially protect the denial of health care to trans* people by federal policy. It includes some description of the rule, but more interesting includes 12 comments from people opposed to the rule in which they share their stories.

Period: End of Sentence

Some of you mentioned an interest in discussing period poverty and/or stories from a global perspective. I hope this film does some of that for you. You can watch this film through the linked title or through the embedded video below. This film, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject, is set in rural India, where the stigma of menstruation persists. In the film, women make low-cost sanitary pads on a new machine and stride toward financial independence.

Due this week:

• Discussion Post 12 & Reading Reflection 11 – Due Wednesday, April 27 at 11:59 pm.
• Comments on at least through Discussion 12 Posts – Due Friday, April 29 at 11:59 pm.

This is our last week before spring break. And our last week of “scheduled” content. I like to take the last several weeks of the semester to focus on different topics of interest to you all. I have a ton of information and places we could go, but I’d like you to include in your discussion post some things you would like to study. I will see if I can weave them in.

Before I talk about this week’s assignment, I wanted to note a few things about last week’s. You all did a great job with the materials. I hope you thought about the reading if you watch Ketanji Brown Jacksons’ confirmation hearings. I also hope the confirmation made it clear that oppression does not mean that you CAN’T prosper, but it means that it will be very difficult with many barriers blocking your way.

I wanted to also make a note that I think is very important. Some of you highlighted it in your writing, but some did not. I think it is highly important to note that the Combahee Collective was a queer one. Queerness provides models for deconstructing capitalism and other oppressive structures. The nuclear family reinforces capitalist ideals in that it creates roles that people play, divisions of labor, and competition of one family against another in the individualistic climb to amass power and wealth. Queer communities move from the individual to the collective – and this is a way to dismantle systems. If we engage in mutual aid and support of one another, rather than competition, we are calling into question many binary systems. Please note that queer does not necessarily (though it can) refer to sexuality, as there are many people who are LGBT who uphold binaries.

This week . . .

This week, we continue investigating identity politics. This time, with a chapter, “The Power of Identity Politics,” from Alicia Garza’s 2020 book The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart. Garza, one of the founders of #Black Lives Matter and organizer of Black Futures Lab, explores how identity politics has been used and misused in the 40+ years since Combahee. You will also read Aleichia Williams’s creative prose piece “Too Latina To Be Black, Too Black To Be Latina” in which she interrogates her own identity and others’ reactions to it, thereby enacting identity politics.

Not assigned, but encouraged, is Gloria Anzaldúa, “La Conciencia de la Mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness” (1987). I usually assign this piece along with Combahee, but this semester I have tried to assign less reading. In “La Conciencia de la Mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness,” Gloria Anzaldúa builds on the concept of la raza cosmica as articulated by Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos. In this article, Anzaldúa emphasizes the existence of Chicana women in a space she calls the Borderlands—she calls these women the new mestiza. She explains that these mestiza women are the product of constant cultural exchanges and recognize their position in life as one of multiple identities converging in one mestiza woman. Throughout the essay, Anzaldúa switches between using English and Spanish to emphasize the Borderlands that mestiza women inhabit. She challenges the constant attack of white, patriarchal ideals attacking Mexican and Chicana culture. Anzaldúa explains that mestizas learn to embrace cultural ambiguity and develop ambivalence to the world around them. She claims they can only be removed from ambiguity through “an intense, and often painful, emotional event which inverts or resolves the ambivalence.” Throughout the essay, she calls for an intersectional form of feminism that recognizes the struggles of indigenous women as well as other women of color. She also criticizes white feminists for lumping all men together as oppressors without recognizing the ways people of color and queer men fall outside of hegemonic ideals. 

Due this week:

Discussion Post 11 and Reading Reflection 10 are due Wednesday, April 13 by 11:59 PM.

Comments on at least three classmates’ Discussion11 Posts are due Friday, April 15 by 11:59 PM.

This week you will have one reading and one film to view. I hope you enjoy them both. In terms of history, we are moving into the end of the 20th century/beginning of the 21st century until we FINALLY will have spring break. While most of what we have read this semester has included intersectionality, now we move to properly naming it.  

The Combahee River Collective Statment (1977). 

This statement introduces us to black feminism and the term “identity politics,” and expands the feminist adage “the personal is political.” Black feminism has an undeniable personal genesis – a political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experiences of individual black women’s lives. By “seemingly personal,” they mean that each individual has a unique experience but as a group, they have common or similar experiences of racist/sexist experience. By recognizing the similarities in experience, members of groups can support one another while also knowing there is variation in their experience.

The Collective writes “Many black women have a good understanding of both sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions of their lives cannot risk struggling against them both.” And this is what they claim is the importance of identity politics: “This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” Because the members of the collective (and I hope all of us) have a “shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s may because of our need as human persons for autonomy” they also argue “If black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” The personal is political because everything that is seemingly personal is always already an experience one has within a system of interlocking oppressions. Therefore nothing is truly “just personal” but is always an effect of the political.

At the same time, Combahee adopts a decidedly anti-capitalist, socialist agenda that encourages us to analyze the relationship between gender and capitalism. They argue that “the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy.” Capitalism creates hierarchies that serve to separate people into groups. As socialists, they believe that all work should be organized to benefit and be equally distributed amongst the workers (the actual people making the products), rather than constitute profit for the bosses (as in capitalism). However, their socialism must be a feminist and anti-racist one in order to be revolutionary. To be revolutionary, they argue, “We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives.”

Paris is Burning

In the 1990 film, Paris is Burning by Jenny Livingston, we get a personal look into ball culture and the lives of those who live it. In many ways they have created their own revolutionary society wherein they create their own families, share monetary resources as well as housing and other necessities, and the ball world in which they can live their true identities that are excluded from the normative worlds of high fashion, modeling, and royalty. They are doing identity politics, while outside of the ballroom they still experience the oppression they momentarily leave behind at the balls. It is important to note that politics is at work with this film too. Many of those filmed accuse Jenny Livingston, a white middle-class lesbian woman, of being predatory. Indeed most of the people in the film did not benefit monetarily, while Livingston did. While the culture became mainstream, it was people like Madonna popularizing vogue who were celebrated, not those who originated it. Feminist thinkers such as bell hooks and Judith Butler (and others) debated the film as well. In 2006, a new documentary How Do I Look, made by Wolfgang Busch revisited some of the people in the film who gave their accounts.

Due This Week

Discussion Post 10 and Reading Reflection 9, due Wednesday, April 6 by 11:59 p.

Comment on at least three classmates’ Discussion 10 posts, due Friday, April 8 by 11:59 pm.

This week, which I am calling “Housewives Revolt”, you will read to pieces. Both were written in 1970. Both provide means for thinking about the feminist tenet “the personal is political“. This phrase is meant to highlight the connections between that which we consider personal or private, and larger social and political institutions. Meaning any personal issue we encounter is the result of political issues and requires political intervention to change. Please note we are talking about politics not Politics with a capital P (though that could be part of the equation). I ask you to reflect on this in this week’s discussion. Here are some brief summaries of the pieces.

Pat Mainardi, “The Politics of Housework” (1970)

Pat Mainardi distinguishes between the Liberated Woman and Women’s Liberation in “The Politics of Housework.” She claims that the Liberated Woman is sexually active and has a career while Women’s Liberation has to do with sharing housework in the home. Throughout the article, Mainardi illustrates that “the personal is political,” that is to say that the expectation of women to do all of the housework shows how our society undervalues women’s work. She spends the majority of this article discussing the opposition from her husband on sharing the seemingly trivial household chores. At first, Mainardi’s husband agrees that they should do an equal amount of the household chores. As time goes on, however, her husband tries to absolutely refuse to do chores around the house. Mainardi breaks down his statements in opposition to doing housework by explaining their actual and historical meaning—leading back to traditional gender roles for women regarding housework. She concludes this article by listing nine things for women to remember when trying to implement participatory democracy and equity of housework in their homes.

Anne Koedt, “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” (1970)

In “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm,” Anne Koedt deconstructs the false dichotomy of vaginal and clitoral orgasms. She explains that vaginas are not very sensitive and do not allow women to orgasm, while the clitoris is the tissue that allows female-bodied people to orgasm. She exposes that experts have wrongly claimed that women who cannot have vaginal orgasms are frigid when the truth is that traditional heterosexual sexual positions do not adequately stimulate clitoral tissue. The assumption that mature female orgasms are vaginal is evidence that sex has been defined as heterosexual and by what is pleasurable to men, not women. Koedt calls for women to redefine sexual pleasure so that it is mutually pleasurable to men and women. Koedt credits Freud for the invention of the myth of the vaginal orgasm, explaining that Freud did not study the female anatomy. Instead, Freud based his theory of mature vaginal orgasms on his assumption of women’s inferiority to men. Koedt then goes into anatomical facts of both the clitoris and vagina. She concludes this article by explaining why some women claim to have vaginal orgasms and the reasons men maintain the myth of the vaginal orgasm in society. 

Due this week

• Wednesday, March 30 by 11:59 pm – Discussion 9 and Reflection 8
• Friday, April 1 by 11:59 pm – Comments on Discussion 9

Are you an Artist or are you interested in Arts Administration and would love to work behind the scenes at a Museum?

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Whatever the reason, the Cultural Corps program has something in store for you!

Apply here to become part of the CUNY Cultural Corps 2022-23 Academic Year Internship! CUNY Cultural Corps is a paid career development program that places CUNY students at cultural arts institutions in the city.

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If you have participated in CUNY Service Corps before, you can still apply to CUNY Cultural Corps. However, previous CUNY Cultural Corps alumni may NOT apply. Our program may offer virtual/hybrid opportunities as well as in-person opportunities contingent on COVID regulations and guidelines.

For more information about eligibility requirements and the application process overall, please check out our FAQ page.

If you still have questions, email us at culturalcorps@cuny.edu   

Applications are due by the extended deadline of April 18th  2022.

Last week we read about the suffrage movement(s) of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The fight for suffrage continues for many groups in places around the world. Additionally, the right to vote is consistently under siege in our own country. One thing we can learn from the study of history is how fights for justice recur in different forms in our current-day reality.

This week we move on to consider the labor movement. First, there are two videos on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The first reviews the incident itself. The second video not only reviews the incident but makes explicit connections to today’s labor conditions around the world showing this fight for justice is ongoing. While the focus is on labor in general, there is a distinctively gendered story.

Lastly, you will read an article about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). When reading about suffrage a number of you mentioned how some states had more progressive laws than others. Likewise, the ERA, while being a federal piece of legislation, played out differently in different states. This article reviews some of that and also discusses recent movements to ratify the ERA after many years. If you watched the Hulu show Mrs. America, which came out in 2020, most of that show is about the movements for and against the ERA.

Due this week:

• Wednesday, March 23: Discussion 8
• Wednesday, March 23: Reading Reflection 7
• Friday, March 25: Responses to Discussion 8 Posts