Class Notes 9/11/12

• Class next Thursday will be combined with Dr. Pierce in Higley
• Class discussion began with everyone’s discussion questions from the Valdivia and Bettivia reading “Girl Culture: We Must Continue to Revisit It”
• P. 40 – bounds of class – choice rhetoric linked to financial resources
• P. 24 – description of vacation – link between theory and “trashy magazines” – can you still be a feminist? What is the place of popular culture?
•  Link to hierarchy within academia of what is valued
• P. 25 – the dominant voice in the article will be mothers’ – for “strategic” reasons – what does this mean?
• P. 30-32 – Did others in the class feel a gender bias from teachers in high school?
• Catholic school girl/boy separation (uniforms, lunch lines, etc.)
• Lines – separating girls and boys – what would Foucault say? Does that just teach them categories that they wouldn’t already divide into?
• Uniform debates – what’s the real purpose? Just to identify which school you go to?
• How significant are the timeline disparities between her daughter’s entrance into high school and our own
•  P. 31 – Daughter’s comment about their “secret” lives – brings up research methodology questions
• P. 28 – Does a feminist mother create a different type of daughter?
• How previous generations’ experiences shape our own worlds and what we know
•  P. 28 – race simplified and usually problematized – “normal” girlhood is white
• P. 32 – “her outspokenness is coded as lesbian” – something that we DON’T see changing from then to now
• “Angry” feminist stereotype – “Hysterical” rather than “passionate” which men are described as instead
• P. 26 – Feminist scholarship originally overlooked girls and now we’re turning back to them.
• Why are we examining girls? Only when there’s something wrong (ex: Honey Boo Boo)?
• P. 33 – “both too much and too little” – the good info’s there, ut how do you get it? “The more promising stuff does not last” – why is Disney still so much of monopoly.
• Dawson’s Creek – girls have major problems, but boys seem stable – telling girls they need boys to ground them?
• Compare with Gilmore Girls
•  P. 33 – “Chick flicks” – loved by some guys (ex: gay guy friend). Is “Chick flick” an instruction to consumer? What about it being “openly ironic”?
• Feeling left out because you don’t know a cultural reference? This shows the link between media and our identities
• True Blood v. L Word v. Foreign Films
• Ghana – interest there in American style and stores (and are interested in boys who wear the right brands)
• Adolescence -- balance between belonging and individualizing
•  P. 32 – adolescents prioritize the social -- importance/emphasis on gossip (prioritization of certain types of knowledge)
• Gender ranking – boys at DU not admitting to the shows they watch
• Do we hide behind the “irony” of watching certain things
• Link between gender equality and the policing of gender distinctions. If gender were natural, we wouldn’t have to police it.
• The new “My Little Pony” show that guys like to watch – “Bronies” – reversing the gender hierarchy or using it to raise the show up?
•  Connection to internet?
• Do the “bronies” make up excuses – about the animators, etc. to justify it?
• Is it okay for them to watch because there’s a designated category for them?
• Does Cat need an excuse for watching girly shows like Pretty Little Liars (i.e. the girls are pretty)?
• Fathers regulating their sons playing with girl toys
•  Blog “Pink is for boys”
• German father wearing skirts
• Angelina Jolie’s daughter, Chaz Bono
• Feminist focus on making girls like boys, rather than also making boys like girls – is androgyny better?
• Free to be…you and me episode about a boy wanting a doll and his grandma says he should have one because it is important to have good fathers
• Role of parents in being flexible about what and who their kids want to be
• Using “gay” as an insult between men and boys
• Naturalization of gender stereotypes – masculine men = heterosexual, etc.
• Commercial “real women sweat” – female bodies normally not expected to have functions, just be pretty
• Cleaning product and tampon commercials
•  Friend who had to quit sports because Mom wouldn’t let her use a tampon
• Are tampons stigmatized as slutty?
• Hiding our sanitary products – bc of androcentrism?
•  “porn for women” vs. “porn for new moms” (men holding mops) vs. romance novels
• Pictures of Girlhood reading
• Economics and privileged – girls with resources targeted as consumers – access to choices
• Confident consumers v. confident girls
•  Having $ v. having self-esteem
• What is available to consume – makeup?
•  Links to weight loss to be able to buy certain clothes
• Links between self-esteem (body image) and self-esteem (academics) – is there a mental divide, or are they as straight correlated as the literature says?
• Impact of location (Denison v. NYC)
•  P. 10 – “other means of survival” – girls turning to male approval? Girls doing things to get the needed funds for the consumer goods
•  “girl power” is a very restricted realm of power. How much choice do we really have? Is it just coke v. pepsi? Shouldn’t power be something much broader?
• Working within the system even as the system doesn’t work for htem – ducks look calm, but feet are paddling (presenting a normal façade while struggling under the surface)
•  For next time: Mean Girls – girls as target of inquiry of part of conversation?