Week 3 Ana Mendieta

Dialectics of isolation 

Main Attention

I know I look scary in these don't mind that lol

John Berger: "Ways Of Seeing"

Quote 1: "According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man." (Berger 45).

Response: I wanted to bring to light how the struggles of the presence of a woman competing with a mans presence is noticed which is amazing because it's no longer being overlooked, but it means nothing if all that is being done is it being questioned. The problem isn't being resolved just chattered about.

Quote 2: “If a woman throws a glass on the floor, this is an example of how she treats her own emotion of anger, and so of how she would wish it to be treated by others. If a man does the same his action is only read as an expression of his anger.” (Berger 47).

Response: Double standard has always been an increasing issue in society. You would think that after decades it would improve however society hasn't changed at all. Women showing their emotions are looked at as crazy or overdoing it however when men show their emotions it's nothing to be questioned he's strictly showing his anger nothing more. What makes our emotions so different from one another? Bell Hooks : Understanding Patriarchy

Bell Hooks: "Understanding Patriarchy"

Quote 1: "Patriarchal gender roles are assigned to us as children and we are given continual guidance about the ways we can best fulfill these roles." (Hooks 18).

Response: I love how this quote challenges parents and society to stop pushing social norms onto young children. It saddens me that a mother and father with opposite gender children make them believe that since they are a certain gender there are things they can and can't do such as the son must grow up and allow a woman to clean up after him or even cook for him and because the daughter is a female she must be okay with these actions because it is her "role" to clean up after the family. Then they go about their own adult lives and bring these attributes into their homes and teach their kids the same making a never ending cycle.

Quote 2: "I was always more interested in challenging patriarchy than my brother was because it was the system that was always leaving me out of things that I wanted to be part of." (Hooks 20).

Response: I believe society needs more men and women that are willing to stand up to the standards that have been set for gender roles. Believe it or not even though women are the ones being discredited in this situation there are women out there that want this for themselves, to be helpless and take up the care giver role and not the take charge role. In my opinion I think they rather this because they haven't been exposed to anything different, they grew up with this type of household so they are afraid of change. Or even because it makes them feel good about themselves, maybe in their own way feeling like you need to be saved but also being the person people look too for comfort is their way of surviving.

Bell Hooks: "The Oppositional Gaze"

Quote 1: "Amazed the first time I read in history class that white slave owners punished enslaved black people for looking, I wondered how this traumatic relationship to the gaze had informed black parenting and black spectatorship." (Hooks 115).

Response: I do believe that there are traditions that have been carried down from slavery that we need to break free from. Supposedly we are in a "free country" so how come we still struggle to change up what our ancestors have been put through. Such as forced labor, sex trafficking, and forced marriages.

Quote 2: " When I asked a black woman in her twenties, an obsessive moviegoer, why she thought we had not written about black female spectatorship, she commented: "We are afraid to talk about ourselves as spectators because we have been so abused by 'the gaze'." (Hooks 125)

Response: I agree with this quote, us as women feel as though we aren't able to do certain things as little as speaking of ourselves as a spectator because the male gaze has taken so much away from us that if we even feel like were insinuating power on our end its challenging what has been drilled into society.

The male gaze: Is basically the way a man sees a women and how he sexualizes her. He doesn't hold a female in the same view as another man he only sees the woman from a sexual pov.

The female gaze: Is how a female views another female through her eyes. It brings out femininity in another female the way a man can't because they don't see that.

The oppositional gaze: Is the idea that a black women must have the will to critique the social norm representations of black women in film

Female Gaze: "Art that Looks at What Women See"

Quote 1: "Decidedly I am too nervous to make anyone else sit for me." Her models were her mother and sisters, so in a sense she was creating an image of the world in which she lived. (Siegal 13).

Response: I don't blame the artist for not challenging society and stepping out of her comfort zone and painting a bunch of random people. I feel like She'd rather play it safe and do what she knows rather than bring in men and other random people who may be harder to work with. just like the other artist Cindy Sherman she'd rather work alone than struggle getting models together and getting them to see her vision.

Ana Mendieta: "Artist Who Pushed Boundaries"

Quote 1: "Ana Mendieta's art often pushed ethnic, sexual, moral, religious and political boundaries."

Response: I love that this artist felt empowered enough to push the limit but sometimes you have to be careful when walking on the edge because societies ego can push you over that edge due to their stubborn ways.