Reading Response Week 4: The Perils and Privileges of Auto-Ethnography
Although not mentioned in this week’s Marshall/Rossman chapter, feminism and autoethnography has popped up before in prior readings, so there is some familiarity with both concepts. Now comes what their synthesis looks like in practice. In this light the readings forced me to re-examine positionality, especially in the framework of auto-ethnography. At first I thought this was too obvious but in light of the titular question Stacey asks – “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?” – the feminist researcher’s proximity to the data and interpretation positionality becomes the fraught answer to consider, Her awkwardness (if that’s the right word) in balancing the tightrope as an ethical researcher between product and personal integrity feels unexpected yet palpable. The dilemma she faces “forced my recognition that conflicts of interest and emotion between the ethnographer as authentic, related person (i.e. participant), and as exploiting researcher (i.e. observer)” (23). I feel as if she as a feminist researcher was startled by the dilemma she faced and wonder if her surprise was compounded by not anticipating it . How much an epiphany is it to learn that participants come with their own agendas? Therefore participants come with their own inherent powers which threaten to usurp the researcher and her own objectives. In the wake of this surprise she asks the provocative introspective question
Janet Lee’s and Susan M. Shaw’s, Women’s Voices Feminist Visions Classic and Contemporary Readings did provide the proper data to support their analyses. Lee and Shaw used sufficient evidence to address their main topic- the analysis of women’s gender studies by examining historical and contemporary writings. In chapter one Lee and Shaw discussed the purpose of women’s studies and examined gender. The ideas of feminism we evaluated, Lee and Shaw explained the negative attributes associated with feminism as well as the history of the gender movement. Women’s studies is a field of study that has been slowly expanding in the academic world sense the 1970’s. Lee and Shaw did provide the results to the data they analyzed. To prove their statements regarding the study of the
Ethnography tells about a culture and the members that comprise this culture. A definition is the scientific description of the customs and individual people of a culture. The process of doing this assignment allowed me to explore another aspect of a cultural group. I was able to learn extensively about interactions between individuals and how see them as a culture. The group that comprises my ethnography is a cultural group very common to Utah. The culture I focused on was the LDS culture, to be more specific I studied a sub-culture of this group. My subculture was a group of 12 year old adolescents that are a Sunday school class in this culture.
Locating a pattern of events that would validate the negative impacts the social world has on women is nearly impossible given the organization of gender roles and expectations of both women and men in 1973. Sociologist and author Dorothy Smith attempts to convey the conflicting roles of the women in relation to men. Writing Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology to serve as a representation of the classic Marxist dilemma. A women, a single mother and a scholar Dorothy has first hand knowledge of the flaws in the gender hierarchy found in a male dominated society. Even so it can not be denied that this perspective casts a shadow over the way In which she chooses to define the social world,women and experiences in her writing. An achieved collective identity consciousness is at the core of Dorothy’s way of thinking. Calling into question the structure of the disciple of Sociology. Expanding she asks the read the central questions,“ What can we ask of this social reality that was previously unavailable was indeed repressed? What happens as we begin to relate it in terms of the disciple? At the crux of her argument of a collective experience she pulls a second objective that is geared toward the analysis of the lack of female representation in the field of sociology. Insinuating that the collective experience of women as a
In choosing for this research project I have decided to challenge the ethical problem of the shortcomings of feminism. There has been much debate over feminism, the questioning of its purpose, its design, its inclusiveness, it is stance on other matters that connect to it. In a quest in finding the shortcomings, and bringing them to light. Using other essays as sources I plan to make this bibliography a journey into the scope not just feminism, but the history of feminism, intersectional feminism, the wage gap, and what defines a feminist. We will take into account of all aspects of feminism and how authors of some essays included have offered their
In Adrienne Rich’s article “Notes towards a Politics of Location,” Rich argues that positionality is a way of understanding how power and privilege affect perspective. I am in agreement with Rich that recognizing one’s own politics of location is a useful starting point for feminist theory. Rich’s main arguments are that the US education system failed to provide an adequate retelling of world histories, that white feminism is ignorant of its privileges, and that through the awareness and inclusion of racial movements can feminist theory grow. I will also compare Rich’s article to Simone de Beauvoir’s first chapter, “Biological Data” from her book The Second Sex, and to Judith Butler’s article “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Lastly, I will explain how Rich’s article is valuable to myself, to the WOMN 2000 Feminist Thought course, and in broader social contexts. Rich effectively argues that white feminism recreates the power structures feminism seeks to disassemble.
The burgeoning literature on digital ethnography and its processes of collecting information requires attention especially how social networking sites are integrated into everyday lives of participants (Hine, 2015; Markham, 2013; Murthy, 2011; Numerato, 2015; Postill & Pink, 2012; Ulmer & Cohen, 2016). It is important to critically evaluate digital methods throughout the study and to be cognizant of routines, movements and social relations in and between the online and offline worlds (Markham, 2013). While some scholars see the online world as just another context where social phenomena occur it is important to be critical of the process and mindful of ethical issues (Markham, 2013; Numerato, 2015; Postill & Pink, 2012).
Elizabeth Ettorre, an sociologist who using a feminist participatory action research process to analyze voices. Particularly, the theme of this auto-ethnography she wrote is a vision of is it truly equal? Or are we still trap by other, more on society expectations view? The author of this journal wants to challenge every of having an loving eyes not the arrogant eyes to those lesbian. In my opinion, this challenge is most fulfillable since in Canada, part of America, and other more country have approve and set LGBT right for loving the same sex, one woman love another woman. It is only the matter of time, how long can all the people can view them normally and not to push them alway from the society. In conclusion, using loving eyes to see
One of the main points Hernandez makes in his auto-ethnography is the oppression that surrounded his environment. Another main point is the importance of giving back to the community and how being part of it benefits an individual.
I live in a country where I can meet people from all cultures and walks of life on a daily basis, yet still I have felt like a stranger in this “melting pot”. In the United States, the idea of diversity is a term I have heard many times when speaking of ways to heal the past of slavery and segregation, but I think that in the current political climate, diversity is seen as an enemy to the American way of life. I am an outsider in the country I call home, and my cultural background has impacted the way I see the world.
The most recent and current third wave of feminism began in the mid-90’s and has destabilized many past constructs including “universal womanhood,” gender, body, hetreronormativity, and sexuality. A peculiar and important point of the latest wave that
Beginning to hone in her construct of analysis Smith began developing her work and writings with the concrete actualities of the everyday women. Smith’s formulation of this of work was the “Women’s experience as a radical critique of sociology”.
To conclude, this book is an excellent read which I probably never would have picked up on my own. I think Auel did a great job depicting the two theme discussed in this paper and she did it with what seems to be very accurate knowledge for the time this book was written. Feminism and gender roles are sadly still a big issue in modern society. Over the years, women have slowly come to gain more power and a higher place in society, but at times the question still lingers…. Will we ever be
I grew up in a household where my father proudly called himself a feminist, and my mother worked as a lay midwife. There were books such as Our Bodies, Ourselves lying around. My first undergraduate degree included 18 credit hours of Women’s Studies. About 15 years ago, I completed my certificate in the subject by choosing classes that evaluated the roles of women across cultures, religion, our similarities and our differences. Needless to say, I found myself in shock to learn that not all women embraced feminism, that the office of women’s studies was known to house “feminazis,” and that I found some of the views I encountered to be extreme. My background made this assignment not as shocking, but still eye opening.
After reading Technologies of Gender it is easy for me to imagine author Teresa deLauretis comfortably discussing the impacts of patriarchal gender identity construction - which, she convincingly argues, is the goal of the titular technologies – over espresso with the feminist likes of Virginia Woolf and Adrienne Rich (both of whom she invokes throughout this work). Indeed, such is the accessibility and potential expanse of the theoretical table deLauretis has set for her audience that Toni Morrison and Dorothy Allison could easily pull up a chair, too. All speak, or have spoken on, written about or theorized at great length, the negative formations and reconfigurations of women and Women in service of the greater patriarchal system. And as they have all noted from their various platforms, such a systemic and systematic ideology requires a networked delivery system to maintain its dominant ability to form and reconfigure. A synergetic machinery, if you will, or, in the words of Foucault which she quotes, a technology.
In effect, it was this very labeling of the female as 'other' that "was the starting point for contemporary feminist theory" (Mascia-Lees & Sharpe, 2000:22). By labeling the female as 'other', the dominant patriarchal discourse of modernism retains its position as subject (2000:22). Feminism aims to reverse the power relations of such modernist binary arguments, allowing those labeled as 'other' the chance to claim the title of 'subject' (2000:23). Nevertheless, the fact remains that modernism is ultimately a patriarchal discourse, a discourse effective only in its entirety and is thus unable to be 'cropped' to the liking of feminists (Hekman, 1990:6). As a result, by remaining