Weekly Selfie #3

 

Flowers and Doobie Wrap

Ana Mendieta, Imágen de Yágul, 1973.

John Berger, Chapters 2+3

Quote 1

    "A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies." “A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you.”

    There are multiple things that can contribute to a man’s presence, like money, social status, morality, etc. So a rich man or a man generally considered to be kind and good would have a higher presence as these men can do more for you, or could get away with doing things to you with a higher chance of getting away with it.

Quote 2

    "But this has been at the cost of a woman’s self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself."

    Even if women are unaware of exactly what it is they are usually mostly aware of the feeling of being constantly perceived, and this feeling is usually the male gaze. It can be subconscious too, behaving a certain way without realizing the reason is really the feeling of the male gaze.

Bell Hooks, Understanding Patriarchy and The Oppositional Gaze

Quote 1

"In reality I was stronger and more violent than my brother, which we learned quickly was bad. And he was a gentle, peaceful boy, which we learned was really bad.”

This reminds me of something I’ve heard multiple times, if submission was so natural to women the church wouldn’t always be reminding women that they are naturally submissive. 

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.”

I feel like more recently this is a bit switched. It is much easier for a woman to be more gender neutral than men. Of course there is still push back but it is way more socially acceptable for women to wear pants then men to wear skirts. Gender neutral clothing always leans more masculine than feminine as well. And while women do get pushback from enjoying things that society deems masculine, men get a lot of push back from enjoying things that society deems feminine. So men should care more about the patriarchy even if they can’t bring themselves to because it harms women, they should at least care because it harms them as well.