Friday 26 November 2010

11.

POSTSECRET




www.postsecret.co.uk is an ongoing project where people send in anonymous secrets and some from the week are displayed on the blog. This particular secret sent in, shows anons fear of being seen as a lesbian that isn't 'normal', feeling that she has to exist to live up to a stereotype even though that is not who she is.

Thursday 25 November 2010

10.

ROSY MARTIN/PHOTO THERAPY

I am going to look at Rosy Martin as a source, and also practically engage with her idea of phototherapy to explore gender roles.




Since 1986, Rosy Martin has been running phototherapy workshops tailored to specific audiences and working in different environments such as schools, art galleries and prisons. She says that there are two main models of her phototherapy workshops:


"1. 'Opening up the family album', a workshop, in which participants work
with their existing family albums, expanding the possible readings.
(suggested length 1.5 or 2 days)

2. 'Re-enactment phototherapy - memory and identity', a workshop, which
incorporates and builds on from (1). In this participants learn the
methodology of and experience re-enactment phototherapy for themselves.
Working in pairs, the participants will each experience a phototherapy
session, both as sitter/director and as phototherapist. Using the
photographs generated, which make visible aspects and parts of the
selves that remain hidden in the 'everyday', they will create new
narratives, new outcomes and transformations. By working together in
pairs and in the whole group, they will emotionally process the material
opened up.
(suggested length 5 days. If not possible 2 weekends, or 3-4 evenings
and one weekend.)"

(www.rosymartin.info/phototherapy workshops.html)

I am going to have a go at the second of the two. Firstly doing sessions with 3 or 4 different people, then doing 6 sessions (3 each) with one of the above in order to compare and contrast each session with the others. I'm going to ask the other person to choose a specific role, either a different sex, an 'idealised' version of their sex, a gender stereotype, an 'idealised' version of themselves, or a family member they wish not to become or see themselves becoming.

Tuesday 23 November 2010

9.

COCOROSIE



Bianca "Coco" and Sierra "Rosie" Casady make up two halfs of CocoRosie, two independent sisters who express themselves completely freely and defy perceptions of gender, by dressing 'masculine' in their videos (below) and often painting moustaches on their faces.

The second video is a live song they did as a retaliation to akon's 'I wanna fuck you', in which his lyrics say
"I see you windin n grindin up on that pole,
I kno you see me lookin' at you and you already know, I wanna fuck you, you already know"
CocoRosie retaliate with
"You see me trying to smile up on this pole
But I'm just hiding the pain that's deep in my soul. You wanna fuck me, I already know, You wanna fuck me and toss me back on the floor"

giving their song from the perspective of the stripper rather than the perspective of the male in which the female stripper is a object of the male gaze and questioning sexualisation of women in popular r n b music.



Lemonade - CocoRosie



CocoRosie - You wanna f**k me (live)

8.

JO SPENCE



"Jo Spence was one of Britain''s pioneering photographers. Born in Wembley of working-class parents, she worked for many years as a studio photographer. Her political concerns led her to documentary photography and she was a founder member of the Photography Workshop. Her life changed at 46 when she began a degree at the Polytechnic of Central London in the theory and practice of photography, and with the discovery of her breast cancer. Despite this, and through her struggle to find ways to tackle cancer and to share the experience with others, she developed new ways of using photography and new ways of living that affected her critical approach to a range of photographic projects. Jo Spence published and exhibited widely during her career, and her radical and innovative work has influenced a generation of practitioners and students of photography." (http://jospence.com/JoSpencesLife.aspx)

As a feminist, Jo Spence's work explores the body, in particular the female body; HER body. The female body in most media is seen as a passive object, an attention for the male gaze. Jo Spence's work contradicts this view, and she uses the female form to explore taboos, such as her mother, becoming her father, gender stereotypes and her illness.

7.

DISSERTATION DECIDED

So today I had a meeting with Julia and we spoke about different questions concerning gender I had been thinking about:

- WHAT does is MEAN to be culturally Male or Female?
- HOW is gender performed?
- HOW is gender defined?
- WHAT makes a woman?
- WHAT makes a man?
- DOES sex = gender?
- SHOULD a male be masculine and a female be feminine?

and also touched on gender roles and stereotypes and how they can be portrayed through photography.

We then began to look at Jo Spence and Rosy Martin and using photo therapy as ways of exploring gender and gender roles.

From there, I decided to focus on using photography and photo therapy to explore gender, gender roles and gender stereotypes.

I am going to do a series of photo therapy shoots with a male friend and in each one, we are going to take it in turns to explore a different specific role, male OR female and blur the boundaries of what it means to be culturally and genetically male or female.

Monday 22 November 2010

6.



GUERRILLA GIRLS

“We’re a bunch of anonymous females who take the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms and appear in public wearing gorilla masks. We have produced posters, stickers, books, printed projects, and actions that expose sexism and racism in politics, the art world, film and the culture at large. We use humor to convey information, provoke discussion, and show that feminists can be funny. We wear gorilla masks to focus on the issues rather than our personalities. Dubbing ourselves the conscience of culture, we declare ourselves feminist counterparts to the mostly male tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Batman, and the Lone Ranger. Our work has been passed around the world by kindred spirits who we are proud to have as supporters. It has also appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Bitch and Bust; on TV and radio, including NPR, the BBC and CBC; and in countless art and feminist texts. The mystery surrounding our identities has attracted attention. We could be anyone; we are everywhere.”

- http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

5.

RIOT GRRRL MANIFESTO

BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own moanings.

BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.

BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.

BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can't play our instruments, in the face of "authorities" who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and

BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary "reverse sexists" AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.

BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.

BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards.

BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.

published 1991 in the BIKINI KILL ZINE 2

Tuesday 16 November 2010

4.

"QUEERS AND FEMINISTS BOTH TAKE AN OPPOSITIONAL RELATIONSHIP TO A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ORDER WHICH ENSHRINES MALE DOMINATED HETEROSEXUALITY AS A LARGELY UNQUESTIONED NORM"
- Stevi Jackson

2.



via http://kimfffunk.tumblr.com/

Sunday 14 November 2010

1.

this blog is for ideas for my dissertation on feminism, film, queer theory, music etc

xo