Re: nettime Gender and You
I'm just catching up with this debate and it's already quite complicated. Because of that, I can't pretend to address it directly. I think that most of this is beyond sorting out, and I think at this point the discussion isn't about Sondheim's Gender and Me post or even about Alan Sondheim as someone put it, but about itself the discussion itself and the momentum of this set of exchanges. I find it odd how little of the debate addresses the work in question (Alan Sondheim's). Since so much of the discussion is about establishing or undermining credentials and positions - who can speak and as what - I'll do the same and say I've been reading Alan's work online for 14 or so years. Furthermore, I work with him on a number of projects and know him quite well. So that's me, like it or not. I feel obligated - since we speak of dialogue and obligation - to make a plea for separating these exchanges from blanket characterizations of Sondheim and/or his work. Even the initial post, Gender and Me, is a small and informal fragment discussing an set of writings and practices over decades. I'm not saying everyone needs to read the whole Internet Text, but, for example: I know, from following discussion around Sondheim's work, that Kali is familiar with it and writes from that familiarity, however else I parse her responses; I notice, for example, that Kali is careful in her posts to note that her critique is not necessarily commenting on all of Alan's work. By contrast, it's just incorrect to assert that Alan's problem is that he needs to go read up on feminism, as Danny Butt does in a recent post (below). I think, in fairness, Danny Butt's post writes from unfamiliarity with Alan's work - or at least that's is my impression. Alan's work *is* informed by a few decades of feminist philosophy and criticism (empirically the largest body of work on gender issues) and makes a contribution to that field and acknowledges that it exists. I argue that Alan's Internet Text (along with _Being Online_ and other publications out of that work) remains one of the the earliest and certainly the most sustained explorations of gender issues online (among other things). If there is a problem - and I am not the one to say there is - it is not in lack of attention to gender issues. I'd say, also, that his work is nothing if it's not about dialogue and difference. So, it makes sense (in terms of dialogue, conversation, difference) to debate the role of feminist theory in Alan Sondheim's writing - and that might be a start - but the answer is surely not to call people misinformed when they're not. OK, flame on. Sandy Baldwin Danny Butt [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/09/06 3:18 AM Let's try this another way. ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Gender and You
Feminism is not the same as women, maybe not about most of them either. It addresses a fairly small set of some women's interests, and some of those women extrapolate their interests to women in general. And a small number of men use this as a means to presume to know what women are and, to be sure, want, that is, they want to be a certain kind of men pretending to be women of a certain kind, most often brainy show-offs. Similarly malism, or masculism, is not the same as men, and definitely is not about most men, but addresses the interests of a few men who extrapolate their interests to men in general. A small number of women use this as a means to presume to know what men are and, to be sure, want, that is they want to be kind of women pretending to be men of a certain kind, most often brainy show-offs. An even smaller number of women and men toy with becoming faux men and women, pretending like mad, utilizing narrow interests and perceptions abstracted from real women and real men in general which cannot be known in their generality but only by selective abstract positings based on limited direct acquaintance -- customarily only familiarity with a few hundred actual experiences and maybe ten to a hundred times that amount by way of study of the gender topic (once lumped as the humanities, oh the humanities). Queerism attempts to surpass all too easy feminism and masculism -- which incorrectly identify feminism with women and masculism with men. The vagina and the phallus are conjoined in the anus ashitting during penetration, abirthing congealed philosophy, or art, aboriginal, pre-verbal, farting precursing argument and song. Yes, there is a cartesian incertainty, gratitude at being alive, upon delivering a pile or puddle of feces, contributing to the earth's refertilization, sui generizing triumphantly, autoerotic coitus if comical to see in toilet mounted video. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Gender and You
Let's try this another way. Alan, you forwarded a piece called Gender and You to an overwhelmingly male list. If you're that interested in gender, maybe you'd familiarise yourself with a few decades of feminist philosophy and criticism (empirically the largest body of work on gender issues) and try and make a contribution to that field, or even acknowledge that it exists. Instead, you want to have a conversation with a bunch of guys about how you identify with your female characters, and this helps you work through your relationship with Heidegger. You don't have to be Eve Sedgwick to see that one side of the gender divide isn't getting a lot of airtime here. Then, when a woman says as much, you refuse to admit there could be a problem, proving Kali's point. Then you take the very mention of minstrelsy - a completely apt description which is well known in the literature on online identity - to suggest that you've been painted to be a member of the KKK. It's pathetic. You're accusing Kali of essentialism when she can discuss with great detail her experience working with African American people, and changing the way she behaves in response to critique from people who might know something about the issues from their lived experience. In other words, she's specifically saying that if you focus on real conversation with respect, you can build relationships across difference. If you were prepared to do the same, your textual efforts might be better placed to make a difference to the gender dynamics of the list, which would be a hell of a relief. x.d -- http://www.dannybutt.net # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Gender and You
I'm not sure how much longer nettime will let me go on, but I feel again I have to respond; now I'm an Orientalist as well as sexist. This is one of the ugliest exchanges I've had - maybe the ugliest - but I can't let it go. On Sat, 7 Oct 2006, Kali Tal wrote: I do find the Nikuko pieces Orientalist. I think Alan waves aside the crucial issue of who wields the power in creating and enforcing representation in a given culture; from my perspective it's absurd to argue that members of groups with different sets of privilege are still somehow equal on the field of representation. The male student who poses as a woman may learn a lesson about what it's like for women, but he's doing this in an environment where real women are already largely displaced by men playing women. He will of course bring his own stereotypes to the role play, and whether he intends it or not he's more likely to reinscribe sexist stereotypes than to violate them. If you did read the Nikuko work you'd know it's not enforcing the repre- sentation of any given culture; it's working out of the Kojiki. I was waiting for you to say this - from your viewpoint - and I still feel essentialist - any representation of the Other is always already damned. I'd like to know where you find - exactly - the stereotyping in the Nikuko material, since so called Orientals seem to have liked it. Second, the male student learns a lesson yes about what it's like for women - but I never claimed anything more. Judging by the results, the exercise was useful. And there was no time to reinscribe sexist stereo- types although of course you won't agree - the whole exercise takes about ten minutes. What you're doing here is disgusting - damning the male (or female) student for _trying_ - already accusing him of sexual stereotypes - which assumes he learns nothing about questioning such. Straw woman arguments: I'm an essentialist (I'm a constructivist); I don't see the relationship here, but when you announce that you're writing as a women - and when other women have seen the material differently - it comes across as essential - otherwise, why write it? I'm enforcing PC (I have no power to do that--I believe that PC-as- an-oppressive-force is an invention of people who benefit from unearned privilege and get annoyed when challenged); Yes, but it's a hell of a lot more than that, and you're begging the question. This is glib. I haven't read his work (I have; I just don't see the same things he sees in it); I accuse him of cruising (I don't--I accuse him of reinforcing sexist stereotypes); If you're read the work, why didn't you know that this material was abandoned years ago? I claim to speak for all women (I don't; I speak AS a woman, which is a completely different thing); I say I know what he's feeling or doing (I don't--I only say I know what he's writing); that I don't understand his work is fiction (I do--but nothing says fictional representation can't be oppressive); No it's not fiction - I don't have the original text here, but I wouldn't claim that it is, so apologies if I left that impression. It's a proble- matic of writing, a problematic of discourse, and isn't intended to be either fiction or poetry or any other pigeon-holing. I accuse him of violence (I didn't--I just don't like the way he writes women); I do him violence (he disagrees with the comparisons I've made across race and gender lines). Which does violence - bringing up words like 'blackface' is more than a 'comparison.' You're accusing me of violence and stereotyping - this is what you're doing in fact. You have no quotes for example from my work (although I'm sure you can find them) - so it's a question of differend - anyone reading this would be sure there's 'something' there since you say it's so. And that's a kind of violence. Apply your theory to yourself. Alan has posted a tremendous amount of text over the last decades, a good deal of which I have appreciated, as I said previously. I think it perfectly reasonable to critique one aspect of that text--the sexism, which seems to me clearly visible, whether intentional or not. I am well aware that not all women will agree with my critique I think it's reasonable to question absolutely everything - but you weren't questioning - you were and are condemning. And there's a huge difference. This isn't a discussion, at least not on my end. but then, I'm not an essentialist and so I don't feel that women need to speak in a unanimous voice. I just call it like I see it. As long as the voice is speaking 'as a woman.' - Alan blog at http://nikuko.blogspot.com - for URLs, DVDs, CDs, books/etc. see http://www.asondheim.org/advert.txt - contact [EMAIL PROTECTED], - general directory of work: http://www.asondheim.org Trace at: http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk - search Alan Sondheim http://clc.as.wvu.edu:8080/clc/Members/sondheim # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission
