Word Vomit

I will try to relate some of the theory we learned this term to a recently-noticed phenomenon around me, of girls giving so much of themselves away to their male partner in relationships. I'm a pretty open person, and I'm not advocating the building of even more barriers between people; however, a few of my girlfriends lately have found themselves buying into the often-played-out-but-never-reflected-on behavior of compromising their dignity and values just so that their partner will, I don't know, "keep loving them"? I also don't want to give the impression that men in relationships are just their to suck the souls of the women they are with, but I don't think that either realizes the power dynamic at play. Has the Cosmopolitan culture really rendered us as unconsious as Adorno and Horkheimer claim? I would like to think that both men and women who are in hetero relationships are able to somehow see the damage they do to each other by playing into the norm reinforced by headlines like "21 Sneaky Tricks to get guys to do what You Want", or "How to Ego-Stroke Your Man."

The manipulation that is so often flowing through the social interplay of men and women in liberal-capitalist society is baffling. The need for us to believe that we are all equal, liberated, and powerful, while at the same time swallowing the notions that we, as women, need to bend over backwards so much that we break is sick. This might not make sense so much, but I am still trying to fit my thoughts together, and also understand the emotions that go along with loving someone.

Critica Mass Announcement

Since we're all on the dicourse-interruption groove, I thought I'd give a notice that this month's critical mass bike ride is this friday.

Critical mass takes place all over the world (this picture is from one in Vancouver this summer), and it's meant to take back space in traffic for bicycles. I'm sure some of you bike semi-regularly and have almost died more than once, due to drivers who just don't pay attention to you, or just think that you shouldn't be there in the first place and think it's ok to try to run you off the road. Bikes are traffic too, damnit!

It is also a way to promote a more sustainable way of transportation, not to mention it's a lot of fun. We start at city hall the last friday of every month at 5:30pm- the middle of rush hour- and take up a lane all the way down Jasper and then cross the high level taking up both lanes. Then we head down Whyte on and end at Gazebo Park.

If anyone is interested, come out! Or you can check out the website at www.edmontoncriticalmass.com

Happy studying,
Denise

I <3 Kipnis

On thursday I went to class, had tea with a friend, and disrupted the hegemonic discourse.

Well, that sounds cool.

Although it was a rather clumsy execution on my part, I was a bit surprised at how much I felt empowered, and proud that I could take part in something collective, loud and feminist. I realize that within an all-encompassing hegemonic discourse, there is no escaping this heteronnormative, patriarchal, capitalist, and eurocentric system. However, I also understand more intimately now that the "cracks and fissures" Kipnis speaks about are vital and necessary to a popular culture that rocks the hegemony to the core, enough so that the core shifts closer to where we want it. I do grasp that we may not have "rocked the hegemony to the core" with feministeppin, but through the act of disruption, I got excited to think how with more and more of this agitaton, consciousness spreads, people's indifference can fade, and -dare I say it- revolutionary conditions can possibly form (someday maybe...).

This is very much the reason why Baudrillard frustrates me. He talks about how history does not exist, making our motivations, our goals, our shared experiences meaningless. I agree that the history we have been spoon fed in school, and what we have observed within popular culture is a part of the hegemony that dominates us. I also understand that meaning is disseminated everytime an event is reproduced to create something now so much like the original. However, what about the amazing (and completely destructive) things that have happened as a result of peoples' passionate motivations, goals, and shared experiences? And what about the reproducton of these events which have inspired more events that really do "rock the hegemony to the core"? There is uneven development within resistance to dominant powers, but it is the smaller, momentary "cracks and fissures" that ultimately create something more thoroughly connective between people, and bauldrillard just seems to want to rain on everyone's parade.

I just want to say again that I enjoyed feministeppin, as well as the beer afterwards.

Cheers.

On the existence of history:

**


My friend Patrick posed the question to me, if we were to live our lives not knowing anything about the world beyond what is directly visible to us, or its history, would we live it any diffrently?

(We usually chat about less heavy things, like fun cities, or how his mum's name is BJ, but I thought this topic was very relevant to our readings.)

History, or the signification of it, is a way for people to connect with each other. Reading a novel is the same as reading a history book: it creates a common knowledge base so that we can better understand ourselves in relation to other members of teh speies, within the context of our material surroundings. So, does it matter that history doesn't exist if all it is for is to provide purely subjective definition and context to us? It does when hegemonic interpellation can create false problems of value that are n contradiction to our own interests. The divide between high and low culture is what prevents an honest (and more interesting) connection/context. It's rather scary to think of being completely ignorant to everything tha's not immediately effecting our lives. But then again, if history doesn't exist, then that's exactly our condition. I'm stuck in this cyclical thinking and can't quite break it.
Does anyone have some wisdom they'd wish to spread here?