Communicating Gender, Race, and Class: 2020

Since both sections of class today did not view the above video, you can watch it here if you would like to continue the conversation on the blog. The second video, which links slut shaming to victim blaming in the context of rape culture. Please only view it if you feel secure and supported, particularly if you are a survivor of sexual assault. I am available in office hours if you would like to discuss further. You may also comment here for alternative participation if your comments are respectful and affirming. Finally the  LA Times  article provides more context for the video about school dress codes we opened with in class.

These are the questions we will discuss in class Wednesday.  1. Prior to the coining of heterosexuality as a term, what qualities described “true” women and men? How were these qualities specific to race and class? 2. How did an economic and labor shift in the late 19th century result in a change of how we relate to our bodies? In what ways did this lead to a medicalization of “Normal Love”? 3. We have discussed discipline and deviance in relation to ascribed identity norms. How does the invention of the category of heterosexuality intersect with how we have talked about deviance? 4. What were the specific communicative impacts of a new heterosexual category? 5.  At the beginning of the article, Katz uses the word “ahistorical.” Near the end of the essay, he talks about the importance of a “historical” view of the hetero- and homo- labels attached to sexuality. What is going on here? What is an ahistorical view of heterosexuality compared to a historical view? Why does i...

“Prisons for Our Bodies, Closets for Our Minds: Racism, Heterosexism, and Black Sexuality,” Patricia Hill Collins Patricia Hill Collins considers the intersecting relationship between racism and heterosexism. She argues that the assumption that these two hegemonic ideologies represent separate systems of oppression obscures the fact that racism and sexism rely upon each other for meaning. Without sacrificing the acknowledgement of differences in the way that racism and heterosexism manifest, the author shows that the two systems converge and that both systems affect the everyday lives of all people. In class we attempted to answer the following questions. Since we didn't get to all of them, I encourage you to make comments here answering one of the questions. I am particularly interested in responses to no. 2 and 3 since we ran out of time for this in the 10 am class. 1.      Discuss the ways in which heteros...

For our reading on moving  beyond  the  binary , we set the tone with clips about the critically acclaimed FX series  Pose , which centers the experience of trans* women of color. The Daily Show clip provides some context and background with one of the series' writers and director, Janet Mock. The next clip features starts of the series discussing the importance of representation, which we can link to the  increased  levels of suicidal ideation in trans* communities, as well as  violence  on trans* bodies..

For today's reading on the "controlling images" and racialized femininities of Asian American Women, you watched a video (included below) to get a historical understanding of early media images. In class we watched the following video for a more modern perspective. To bring the conversation into a current context, an article about  "the Asian mean girl"  might be productive.

The reading for Wednesday begins with an examination of negative perceptions of  Michelle  Obama, and how the stereotype of the "angry Black woman" reinforces a lack of femininity and self-worth. This is then extrapolated to experiences of Black women in the modern office workplace, and the role they have been forced into as a side effect of affirmative action policies. The authors discuss the need for a specific form of presentation, titled  emotional  labor, as a way in they must present specifically in a largely passive manner. The focus then is to appear as quiet and non-intrusive as possible, leaving them without any identity of their own and undermining the superficial push for diversity that many organizations are highly focused upon. We watched the following  video  in class that brings together concepts of workplace stereotypes and inequalities in the context of media production.

Latinx representation topics that will augment our discussion of the Monday 2/3 reading. It is timely to discuss last night's Super Bowl Halftime Show by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. The following link about the show is from a Latina lifestyle blog, Spanglish Girl. The  Forbes  article discusses the prominence of criminal portrayals of Latinos. Highlights from  Betancourt  article: “In 2016, only 5.8 percent of speaking roles were said by a Latino in film and television.” The oft-cited statistic, from the latest report from the Media, Diversity & Social Change (MDSC) Initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, remains staggering considering, as Rodriguez elaborated, there are 55 million Latinos in the U.S. Highlights from the  Guardian  article by Carroll: Only 3% of speaking characters in 2016′s top 100 films were Latinos, according to a University of Southern California study, even though Latinos comprise 18% of the US p...