Hey Queens !

Hope all is well !! For todays main topic lets discuss Material Feminism .. I feel like It means when people see Gender as a social contract except we aren’t the ones that agree with this contract now what do I mean by that ? The social contract theory says that people live together in society  in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of behavior.  Society refuses to see what woman do in reproducing the human race and those maternal instincts and abilities we process as a necessity . It is clear to see the imbalance in woman and males in regards of social equality . Public Service Announcement: When will we learn that Gender roles and Gender are two different things and society needs to understand that these two things are socially made up and shouldn’t dictate the amount equality we gain or have . In her book “ Vibrant Matter’’ Jane Bennet discusses how materialities constantly infect and affect human society and vice versa she is right . We should seek social change , we still in a world where men still over power woman in different fields and it shouldn’t be like that it should be equality for all but we still got a long way to go don’t we ? We may still be oppressed but once of these days we wont be any more and until then we should keep on fighting until we get what we want until we get what we deserve that’s it and that is all .

The idea of gender as a performance, refers to the daily application of beliefs that were learned and applied, based on cultural norms of what gender is. Norms of what femininity and masculinity look like. I think what Butler is getting at, is that gender is not completely natural. It is a performance or application of beliefs that become normalized over a period of time. It has to do with what we think validates being a man or being a woman. An example would be something like, being a man or woman has to do with the type of clothes you wear or type of haircut you have.

Judith Butler believes that gender is a performance by claiming, “It would make no sense to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex itself is a gendered category”. Because of these limiting boxes that are created upon us, Butler believes that we must identify ourselves through performance. We as a society do create gender and you are not necessarily born liking dresses or wanting to play football, but rather we are taught to like the things we like. Before a baby is even born, at baby showers they are already installing gender norms by flooding the room with pink or blue. In the media, we see how women “should look”, “act” and even are told what our goals should be. For men, they are told to like sports, to be “tough”. 

From the Heywood reading I gathered that, Culture Wars has to do with third wave feminism or “post feminist” and how they define themselves against second wave feminists. Culture wars also can refer to different social groups or particular institutions voicing very different opinions and challenging each other.

From my understanding, to disidentify with something means to not identify with something, or to separate yourself from a group or identity. Although I was born in America, I come from a Caribbean background. When I was a teenager there was a time when i disidentified with American culture and only wanted to deal with my Caribbean roots. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I just wanted to be more connected to my family’s heritage. Since then I’ve learned to combine both cultures into who I am.

https://hyp.is/z6la4osxEeqKaPt4BiecQQ/wgs1001shaw20.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2020/03/Moraga_Cherrie_Anzaldual_Gloria_eds_This_Bridge_Called_My_Back_Writings_by_Radical_Women_of_Color-Kitchen_Table_Women_of_Color_Press.pdf

“Racism is an ideology. Everyone is capable of being racist whatever their color and condition. Only some of us are liable to racist attack. Understanding the racist ideology – where and how it penetrates – is what is important for the feminist movement, not “including” women of color or talking about “including” men. Guilt is a fact for us all, white & colored: an identification with the oppressor and oppressive ideology. Let us, instead, identify, understand, and feel with the oppressed as a way out of the morass of racism and guilt.”

What this section means to me, is that racism is a set of ideas solely based on political theory and policy. Some of us women of color are predisposed to racial attack in ways some might not understand. And with that being said, understanding racism is very important to discuss in the feminist movement. A lot of the stories written here, from women of color, are expressing racial issues in feminist movements, so i thought this excerpt was important to emphasize.