::The Harbinger:: - We don't like Disney...

So my attention and focus right now is placed on one class in particular..a class that really means nothing to me except the fulfillment of a psych requirement. That class is Sex Differences (created by Rabin herself in 1973...Got that!? 1973). Now I'm not going to form any ignorant, uninformed opinions such as 'it's such a man-hating class,' but I will say it's pretty much bullshit. Let me preface all of this by saying I hold pretty strong feminist convictions and do not disagree with most of the contents of the COURSE, but I find myself more and more in disagreement with the professor. Now, she makes for an awesome lesbian, but it's the sixth week of school and she's still trying to tell us what we will be learning in this course. A lot of the information she tries to teach is very redundant. It's funny, I just thought of the analogy that she comes full circle but just keeps repeating that same circle, but that's not even true as she's very fragmented and fails to make the connection among a lot of things. For instance, today I was pretty heated about the fact that early on in the class she mentioned that we, as humans, are information collecting systems and this is evident from the time of birth. Later, she goes on to say that humans create schemas for other people but we should be teaching a more aschematic approach to our children. Well, this message completely contradicts what she had earlier stated was an innate, biological human tendency. In order to collect information, we must be ableto classify it. Now, to be fair, she was not in fact saying we shouldn't classify things, but she is saying we should not fashion schemas around GENDER, a social construction, but rather sex, a biological construction. However, even though I am able to bridge this connection, I feel there are others in the class (and it's a pretty big class) who are not as cognizant of social versus biological functions of human existence that will take from this lecture that people should not create schemas for anything...we should not have preconceived prototypical conceptions of different objects and animals. A bear is an ape is a dog is a squirrel...if we didn't match the image of a bear standing right in our face with our preconceptions of what a bear is, we might feel inclined to chase rather than run from it...and that's pretty retarded if you ask me.

So let me move on to my bigger issue that has been festering in my mind for quite some time now...she prides this class as a class on diversity. Of course male and female alone accounts for some diversity, but there are so many other spectrums to consider. Our professor does place emphasis on the fact that this course is about gender constructions across race class, sexual orientation and all that jazz, but I feel like she hasn't really honed in on that theme in her lectures. Surprisingly enough since she herself is a lesbian, I think she teaches a lot of the material from a heterosexist perspective. Case-in-point, her discussions of GI Joe and Barbie. She has talked across several lectures about the fact (which is pretty universally understood by now) that Barbie is an impossible ideal that little girls are meant to aspire towards as it perpetuates societal stereotypes and expectations of them. At the same time, GI Joe is supposed to be setting the standard for males. I agree this much: that the appearance of these dolls as the model from which we are form our own body images is absurdly impressed upon us by such iconic figures. However, Rabin goes on to say that Barbie is the epitome of sexuality, which is what society says is women's only tool of coercion, contrary to the GI Joe doll who uses power and strength as a means of force and impressionism. That is what I find to be a very heterosexist view that boys will view Barbie as a symbol of sexuality and girls will view the GI Joe as powerful and dominating. Well, from a gay man's point of view (that would be mine), GI Joe was always seen as the sexually provocative figure who uses his appeal to get what he wants and Barbie was the stronger, more empowered figure for which Ken (her male counterpart) is just an accessory. So for me, I was not as attuned to what society meant for these action figures to represent as a heterosexual boy would be.

Lastly, I just want to say that Rabin likes to talk a lot of smack about Disney. I will agree that many a disney cartoon epic portrays its male leads as more heroic and its females as damsels in vulnerable damsels in distress (think Sleeping Beauty), but for those few examples where a female lead is the strong character (i.e. Pocahontas), the professor automatically reverts back to 'well, look at her appearance...' and that whole rant about a woman could never look like that. BUT I would like to make a stand and say that the appearance issue is almsot ALWAYS both ways. The men of disney films are impossibly built with all too well defined features that boys are meant to have. So, in essence, the fact that Pocahontas looks mighty fine is no excuse to say that Disney does not value the equality of women. We should rather focus our anger against Disney toward their portrayals of all human beings. So, male power, gay power, schema power, and fuck Disney (somehow). That is all. Oh, except I'm 20 now...yay! I hate everyone.

- James the Third