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Sunday, December 14, 2008

eastward ho!!!

So i leave in less then 24 hours to go back home. I still have to pack and get my stuffs ready...arrrrgh!! So far i have a trip to NY, Salem and a few paint parties planned...as well as a few trips to the movies...yeah Twilight...lol.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

taking flight

So in 5 more days or so i shall  be making the retrn flight home after almost a year and a half!!! Thanks to hippy and bird! I'm kinda nervous bout the flight but excited bout the possible adventures...hopefully good ones!! I'll be home for about 2 weeks and migrate west on Jan. 2nd with 2 days before the start of the new term. I must admit that i'm kinda bummed bout not gettin to much time to just chill and such but...i'll just have to work it in throughout te term!

Fun Home; A Family Tragicomic: A review

The graphic novel Fun home: A Family Tragicomic, is written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel, an “out” lesbian and graphic novelist. She is also the creator of the Dykes to Watch Out For comic series. The memoir, which was awarded Time magazine’s book of the year in 2006, tells the intimate and moving story of her growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania as one of three children born to two very educated parents, her eventual coming to terms with her sexuality and her struggle in coping with the suspected suicide of her father that eventually led to the discovery of his closeted homosexuality.
The book itself is composed and told in Bechdel’s medium as a graphic novel. The story is centered on the dynamics of her family. Alison Bechdel’s mother was graduate student at a local university with little time for a family. She is depicted as an unsatisfied woman who had greater ambitions for her life then a family and white picket fence. In contrast, the father is portrayed as a stereotypical suburbanite who spends his weekends doing odd jobs on the families Victorian house and collecting antiques. The reason for her mother’s unhappiness becomes clear when she tells Bechdel shortly after her fathers death that he had liaisons with men, mostly former student’s. She illustrates in great detail the pain her mother must have felt carrying the secret of her father’s homosexuality around. The humiliation of her father’s arrest after being caught with a student and a beer driving around town is portrayed with skill and hindsight as the author herself was too young to have known much of the reason behind what had happened on that night.
She describes her house as an artist commune of sorts. There was very little communication between family members. The author describes her family as being a talented group. Everyone was typically off working on a particular project. Her mother was often busy working on her thesis, her father spent most of his time in his library reading and the children were often encouraged to express themselves in one form or another whether they wanted to or not.
The story appears to begin in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s and takes the reader along on a journey of not only the life of the author but runs parallel to and highlights the development of the gay rights movement including the impact the Stonewall Inn riots had on her life. The author correlates her self- discovery along side the early gay rights movement. As she reminisces over her walk through the village with her family and passing the stonewall inn shortly after the riots occurred, she says there was still “a feeling of electricity in the air”. The illustration depicts the Stonewall Inn with the Mattachine Society’s message in the window.
There is a heavy focus in the book on the tense relationship between her and her father. The novel portrays with humor the painful struggles of the author’s childhood, growing up with an overbearing father, who as the author describes, ran the family and their renovated Victorian house as if it were a museum. Her father was a former military man when he met his wife while overseas. He later became a high school literature teacher with a love for post-modern literature though he showed obvious dilike for his job. Bechdel reminisces over the discussions between her and her father regarding books as being the foundation of their relationship and until her fathers death she seemed to feel it was all they had in common. Bechdel illustrates this point by telling the story through a literary perspective using books that were in her dad’s library. This aspect of the memoire was very enlightening and amusing to those who have read any Earnest Hemingway or other post modern works. Alison Bechdel gives her story added depth by almost assigning her and her father, the two main characters, a literary persona of sorts based on her dad’s favorite pieces of fiction. This fictional persona fluctuates as the story develops to provide insight into the emotion surrounding the two main characters at a specific time.
As the author goes away to college in New York, her life begins to change. She meets her first girlfriend, discovers the underground world of gay liberation that’s taking place including lesbian and feminist literature. She comes out to her family through a postal letter and receives a surprisingly accepting but coded message from her father in return. Her interest in her studies begins to wane as she became more involved in her newly founded gay identity. She explores the “gay scene” in New York and becomes more interested in studying this aspect of herself then she was in studying literature. This eventually catches up with her as she starts to struggle with a class on James Joyces’s Ulysses, her senior seminar class that she had taken to please her dad.
Bechdel’s skilled and humorous bringing together of oral and social history in this book provides an intimate look at the struggle one goes through in the process of coming to terms with and coming out as a lesbian through the authors experiences and struggles as she did it. Bechdel’s illustrations provide the reader with a deeper sense of what she conveys with her words.
Alison Bechdel very nicely illustrates the story with explicit emotions and illustrations of what the world of her small town home looked like through her eyes. An example of this would be after the death of her grandfather when her dad takes over the family owned mortuary business. She recalls the time she walked in on her father in the process of an embalming and seeing her first body and how aloof her father was about it. She looks back fondly on the time spent as a kid helping polish the newly delivered coffins with her siblings, the time spent playing hide and go seek in the coffin display room. To many this would be seen as morbid at best, but to the author this was a normal part of her day to day life. This book would be a good read to anyone who is curious to the experiences of coming out to family and one’s self. The work also provides a humorous look at certain events in history that had an impact on gay histo

last womens history paper!!!!

A Legacy of Success
Janet Belisle
Marissa Chappelle
History 363
12/08/08














There are many legacies of second wave feminism that are found today. The presences of these legacies are reflected within the constantly changing social climate that increasingly provides ever more opportunity for women, in the labor force, in education and in freedom of expression and choice. Despite occasional setbacks suffered by the movement such as the failing to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, there have been many successes throughout the evolution of the second wave women’s liberation movement of the 1969’s and 1970’s.
The women’s movement was not just a unified front under one agreed upon cause but rather a number of small fronts based on the specific needs of the women behind them. It was this ability to be flexible that allowed the movement to last. These micro-movements were most often divided by class, social status and marriage among other things. The hallmark of the second wave of feminism is the movement’s incorporation and acceptance of the fact that not all women had the same needs or concerns. It is the small triumphs made by these groups that stand as the movement’s greatest legacy. As said in The Declaration of American Women, “[W]e seek these rights for all women, whether or not they choose as individuals to use them”.[1]
The movement faced many obstacles, the biggest of which was itself. There was severe fragmentation amongst its members based on class, race and sexuality. This division prevented the movement from reaching its full potential or using the resources available to their best ability.
The second wave women’s movement branched off from the multiple movements of the era, most notably, the civil rights movement and incorporated many of that specific movement’s messages and strategies into women’s fight for equality. Sadly, the civil rights movement offered little opportunity for black women to express their opinions or have their needs heard. This led to increased identity or gender politics within both the civil rights groups as well as the women’s movement. Women of color, who were oppressed not only as women or people of color but instead as both, were expressing their frustration at having no where to turn. The identity politics can be seen most clearly in the work by The Combahee River Collective when stating “Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women do not need to have with white men.”[2]
Women’s struggle for equality much like the struggle of other oppressed groups was created by a growing number of issues such as social stereotyping, unequal pay, unequal job opportunity and unequal education as well little to no say regarding decision about their bodies. This issue was a bridge over the gap between class and gender. Women of lower socio-economic status, a group that frequently included women of color needed ways to support their families, have a say in events and current affairs outside of the home and most critically, decisions regarding their own bodies. According to the Combahee River Collective, “The sanctions in the black and white communities against black women thinkers is comparatively much higher then for white women, particularly ones from the educated middle and upper classes”.[i][3] Once the women’s movement took root, women of color as well as those of lower classes were given tools that they were familiar with and therefore, an opportunity to make their voices be heard.
The women’s movement shared many goals with the civil rights movement. The major goals were equality and increased opportunity for women. Equality was sought in employment, education and decisions regarding family. The movement wanted increased opportunity for women of all classes and backgrounds though there would be some indecision among the various sub-groups as to just what that opportunity looked like.
One very important legacy of second wave feminism would be the techniques used by the movement to reach its goals such as consciousness raising. This tool proved itself to be critical to bridging gaps and helping women realize their full potential as individuals and as a group. Tools such as these allowed the movement to be flexible and continue to change with the times to meet the changing needs of women. In Orleck’s book consciousness raising is described as “[W]omen… meeting in kitchens and living rooms…talking to each other for the first time about concerns they had previously to cope with alone…”. [4]This tool helped to cross barriers of race as well as class. Other tools that were used to make their voices heard were protest, boycotts and community building.
The start of the women’s liberation movement grew out of women’s struggle to have a voice outside of the home. According to Betty Freidan in The Feminine Mystique, “The feminist had only one model, one image, one vision, of a full and free human being: man”.[5] Women wanted to move beyond just being an expert in cleaning and cooking. They wanted to be able to use the education they received while waiting to meet their husbands and be a contributing member of society. Women were directed in to Home Economics course tracks. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, says “[W]omen like men are immeasurably benefited, physically, mentally, and morally, and are made vastly better mothers…by subordinating the distracting instincts of sex to the simple human fellowship of similar education”.[6]This easier home economics track was thought to be better for them as it required less thought and stress while at the same time providing women with the skills that they would need in their future. There was little to no expectation of a woman entering the labor force and needing training in anything else. Today, women have access to the same education as men and much more mobility in the job market with that education though some pay inequalities still exist.
An issue that the movement had great success with was reproductive rights. Before the 1960’s there was little access to birth control, especially among the lower classes who expressed the highest need. According to Emma Stampley, in Storming Caesars Palace “I would have preferred to have fewer children…but there wasn’t any birth control on the market for black peoples like there was white”.[7] White women of lower classes also struggled to gain access to birth control.
The women’s movement has within it many fractions. Women of lower economic status had different struggles then the middle class housewife. In Annelise Orlecks’ Storming Caesars Palace, women were engaged in a fight to be able to support their children and hold a job that offers security and subsistence wages. The women Orleck spoke with were trying to institute welfare reform that provided enough funds to house and feed the family and allowed the women, in this case mostly single mothers of color the same opportunity to provide her children with the same advantages as the middle class homemaker.
Women gaining acceptance in the workforce was and remains to be a serious issue faced by many. This is one area where it is difficult to distinguish whether there has been much success. This is due in part to the fragmentation of the movement. A strong example of this would be the 1908 Muller v. Oregon case where the state was granted the right to place a maximum hour restriction on women’s labor. This verdict was received with mixed feelings. Some women felt this was a success for the movement as it prevented women from being exploited. This view was help mostly by middle class activist. Today there is still great inequality in pay and job access for many women, though this has been slowly changing.
There are many legacies of second wave feminism. These legacies can be seen every time a woman cast a vote at the polls or works beside a man or stands next to that man on the picket line to fight for fair wages to raise her family. These are but a few of the legacies of the movement’s overall successes. The fight for women’s liberation is still fought today and referred to by some as third wave feminism. The movement has continued to thrive and transformed to meet today’s needs and will continue to do so because of its ability to evolve to meet the needs of the time. According to A Third Wave Manifesta, the needs of women today have changed but still reflect concerns at the core of the movement such as reproductive rights and the E.R.A.[8] The movement is more encompassing at this time. There is more acceptance of homosexuals and women of color for example.
The legacies of the movement are most apparent in the evolution of public attitudes toward women outside of the home. Society has grown to be more accepting, and in some cases even supportive of the struggles of women. According to Emma Goldman in A Radical View of Women’s Emancipation “I hold that the emancipation of women, as interpreted and practically applied today, has failed to reach that great end”.[9] I disagree with this thought, though there are many more hurdles to overcome, Second Wave Feminism has served to get the ball rolling and show that a difference can be made.
[1] Declaration of American Women Houston 1977 103
[2] Black Feminism Combahee River collective 98
[3] Black Feminism Combahee River collective 253
[4] Annelise Orleck Storming Caesars Palace 100
[5] Betty Freidan The Feminine Mystique 140
[6] M. Carey Thomas Present Tendencies in Women’s Education 6
[7] Annelise Orleck Storming Caesars Palace 30
[8] A Third Wave Feminist Manifesta Jennifer Baumgardner Amy Richards 139
[9] Emma Goldman A Radical View of Emancipation 25

Sunday, December 7, 2008

the end of the road!

Finally coming up on the end of the term...i was statriong to think it would never end!!!! I nam for sure a bigger fan of the semester system!!! I need my extra 6 weeks. I just wanna say that i got a 96 on the Orleck / friedan paper that i posted and as of yet theres still no grade on my interview with hippy but ill keep ya'll posted!!!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

tag cloud

Near completion

Thank you all whop have been following my term through my papers. Sadly, i hadn't had the time to post regular blogs like i wanted to so as a way of lettin my readers know what i was upto, i posted my school work...and after this week (and three more papers) that will FINALLY be done!!!!!!
Thank you all again for your patience!

Monday, December 1, 2008

interview with julie...=)

The subject of my interview is Julie, a 30-year-old lesbian who grew up and came “out” in a small town in Southeastern Massachusetts.  She came out to her family at the young age of 13, after meeting her first girlfriend. Julie received a positive response from her family despite their thought that her sexuality was just “a phase”. Her family was also very supportive of her when she began getting harassed in high school as a response to her openness regarding her sexuality.

Julie mostly associated with older lesbians who eagerly introduced her to the underground lesbian community that existed in the greater Worcester area. She recalls two lesbian radio shows, one that was punk run by her friend “Aunt Judy” and the other run by her friend “Sage” that played folk music. She excitedly recalls the lesbian bookstore that she discovered while in North Hampton with Sage. When reflecting on the books store Julie says “It was a thrill. I was about 14, it was winter and we were a few hours west of my parent’s place. I had never been to North Hampton, never been to a lesbian book store, so it was a thrill. I was really glad to see that we had our own stores, our own books, our own music.  After the bookstore we went up north a little to visit a friend of Sage, I forget her name but, she had been into publishing in the 1980’s and she had some boxes of lesbian authored poems that she gave me. I still have them. I wanted to be a writer back then so it was inspiring.”

 Talking to this 30 year old now while sitting outside Java stop drinking a coffee and watching the rain, one gets the feeling that they were sitting with someone much older. Julie talks about community and says that even though she has been transient, she mourns the loss of the lesbian sub-culture that once was a part of her life. She feels that the integration of certain aspects of the lesbian sub-culture that she grew up with and was exposed to be other lesbians, into the mainstream culture,  leaves a void for the younger generations coming out today.

Julie, or “Johnny” as she was referred to during her late teens and early 20’s also traveled extensively. Her traveling began with a visit to North Hampton, which she describes as a “lesbian version of P-town”. There she purchased a “black and white zine” that had advertised a bus trip to the 25th anniversary of stonewall in the back pages. At this time, Julie wasn’t sure what Stonewall was.

This advertisement had stuck out to her because she had been looking to become more involved in the community. She found out what Stonewall was and why its anniversary was celebrated though today she doesn’t recall how she came across that information. Julie describes her reaction to finding out as one of excitement and surprise. This would turn into one of her first journeys. At age 15 she took a bus trip to New York  to be at the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots. ”I was hip to be a part of things, I was eager” she recalls.  When asked about her family’s feeling about her going away to New York for a week on her own she said “I had already been to two countries in Europe with no drinking age and came back in one piece, I guess they figured I’d do the same going only six hours away”.

A few years later at the age of 19, she saw a flyer posted at the inner city commune house she had been staying at for a place called Owl Farm. This was a large chunk of land set aside as women only land in Oregon and owned by the Oregon Woman’s Land Trust. Julie wasn’t sure how she was going to get there but knew she wanted to. Her opportunity came when the 1997 National Rainbow Gathering was hosted in the Ochoco Forest of Oregon. Through a combination of hitchhiking, riding with friends, and the greyhound bus, Julie and a straight friend, Beth from the commune got to the gathering. After several weeks of living in the woods with a mass gathering of hippies, Julie hitchhiked toward Owl Farm.

There, Julie met “Cotton” another older lesbian who had been living alone on the land.  She says “Cotton was a unique character. Totally seperatist. She didn’t like men, didn’t want to talk to them or befriend them in anyway. This was new to me. I had been friends with men, most of my friends were guys. I have brothers and a father all of whom I get along well with so the seperatist thing didn’t sit with me. I could get it, from Cotton’s point of view, from the way her life had been with nothing but trouble from men, I could see her way of thinking. She was a cool woman. I think seperatism is not possible as a way of life for me but I see the value in women only spaces. I see the value of being just with women learning to do things together, work together, create together. I think we made things in those days and in the decades leading up to those days, we made community and culture in a way that we don’t anymore. Maybe we do, maybe I’m just out of the loop but something feels gone.” The two of them spent most of their time tending the land, hiking and volunteering at a local food pantry on Saturdays. One of Julie’s more vivid memories is of the collection of books had at the main house. She says ”there wasn’t much to do on the mountain in the winter. We’d play dice and read books.”

While at Owl Farm Julie was introduced to Lynde, a neighbor of Cotton’s who lived nearby on the mountain. The two became close and Julie eventually left Owl Farm and traveled with Lynde across the country for about two years. After this extended hiatus Julie returned to her parent’s house and started work on the degree she finishing with a masters in English from O.S.U. Her story touches me because, after hearing it I can’t help but question if I missed out on the culture that once existed.

A conflicted Consc.

Betty Friedan’s analysis of feminism in her work, the Feminine Mystique is not relevant to the struggles faced by the women described in Annelise Orleck’s book, Storming Caesars Palace. The difference of perspective between the two authors is largely based on class. The struggle Orleck describes is that of poor women to gain recognition in the eyes of the government and be treated equally both as women and mothers as well as poor American citizens.  Orleck argues that lack of education and adequate employment opportunities are the main causes of the widespread poverty amongst women of color. She also feels that lack of access to birth control was a factor. In contrast, The Feminine Mystique focuses on the issues faced by females in the middle to upper classes, the majority of whom were college educated. Freidan claims that these women were victims of advertising and rigid social roles and expectations. She feels that they were not allowed to meet their full potential as human beings.

            In Freidan’s book, motherhood is depicted as a deterent to women’s process of self -actualization. Freidan quotes a Redbook magazine article “Few women would want to thumb their noses at husbands, children and community and go off on their own”.[1] Having a child meant one was instantly tied to the house, while the husband worked and interacted in the outside arena. The only expectations of the wife were that of housework, childrearing and being there for her husband at the end of the workday with a well-prepared meal. This provided a sense of security to most women. The housewives that suffer from Friedan’s mystique work in the home at menial chores offering little challenge or intellectual stimulation. Their work centers on the family’s well-being and happiness in such a way that was not possible for the mothers in Storming Caesars Palace. According to Freidan, this possession of education with little or no outlet was what created “ the problem with no name “ as it is referred to. The women in Annelise Orleck’s book, the majority of whom were immigrants to Nevada from segregated area’s throughout the south were involved in a battle against the state over their right to have and keep their children, as well as the right to provide them a decent upbringing. Orleck declares, “ In 1967, Congress gave Welfare departments power to remove children of AFDC mothers…”[2]. These women wanted the financial security to provide their children with the same parenting that Friedan denounces in her work. Many of those in Annelise Orleck’s work were single mothers trying to support large families with labor that was physically challenging and paid less then was adequate for subsistence.

One point that was shared between both groups was the importance of birth control. Both groups of women had large families but for very different reasons. The women Orleck speaks with had large families for a variety of reasons, large families meant more income as a sharecropper, there was no access to birth control and the women were often victim’s of sexual assault. Freidan’s women had large families because they needed to fill time with children to take care of while the husband was out in the workforce as well as to fulfill the social expectations of the woman as “happy housewife”. With access to birth control the middle class housewife could control when she started her family allowing time for a career. Those who were denied access to birth control in lower class groups were forced to try and support families that were to heavy a financial burden, keeping these women from being able to better their situation.

 Both works refer to the root behind women’s plight as being that of a capitalist society. The changing economy of the post war era was one of affluence. There was also a great leap in technology and new goods that was left without a market. According to Betty Friedan, this hole was filled with the middle class housewife. Advertisers created a market of happy housewives using tools like their new washing machine that cut the time spent on menial task and allowed for more time to be spent attending to the families other needs. Freidan claims that the middle class housewife was vulnerable to this marketing because they were allowed no other goals in life other then to provide care to their family. This created a longing in these women to “professionalize” the work that they did around the house. The amount of time that Freidan’s housewife spends on her family was a luxury to the women Orleck spoke with. What to do with extra time could not be a concern of the lower class. Freidan offers little information about the plight of the poor or women of color. The women that Annelise Orleck spoke to were working women, not because they wanted something to do outside of the home but because many were single mothers of large families who needed to support their children. One woman who spoke with Orleck says, “The women wanted recognition of their work as mothers. They also wanted the state to stop punishing them when they worked outside the home.”[3] The social climate of the time was not very accepting of women outside of the house. This along with the harassment from welfare offices made it near impossible for Orleck’s mothers to find a meaningful job that provided both decent wage and security. Many of the jobs open to these women were extremely physical and offered little in reimbursement. This is very different from the life of the women in Freidan’s book. The chores of the middle class housewives were not satisfying. They had access to new technology that made their jobs easier and the women looked for more to do with their extra time.

            The Feminine Mystique discusses at great length the effect of advertising on women, in particular housewives. Betty Freidan argues that due to the lack of involvement in activities outside the house the gap was filled with material products marketed to the housewife to make her life easier. “ [T]he professionalization is a psychological defense of the housewife against being a general cleaner-upper…”.[4] The role of a housewife was not an option for the women in Annelise Orleck’s book. Many of those women were victims of domestic abuse, abandonment by their husbands and large numbers of children. One can not ignore the irony that as the housewives of The Feminine Mystique were looking to give their roles as mother and housewife purpose through professionalizing their jobs in the house, those that Orleck spoke with were struggling to create a opportunity to give their role as mother some meaning despite their not being in the home.

            Betty Freidan makes the argument that the higher education afforded women was partly to blame for their discontent. The Feminine Mystique argues that women were educated for careers that they were unable to have. Any women that fought her way into the career field were thought to be unsatisfied in their role as a woman. Many prominent psychoanalyst and sociologist unwittingly supported this notion. Sigmund Freud was relied upon greatly for this support as well as sociologist Margaret Mead. Mead felt that women should be satisfied with their role as mother and caregiver to her family. There was little attention paid by these fields to the lower classes of women and their struggles. Freidan ignores any implication these studies may have had for women of color or lesser class.

As a means of correcting the unhappiness caused by the unfulfilled potential of education, women’s colleges and colleges in general started mainstreaming women into a curriculum that provided little actual thought development and better prepared them for their role as housewives. As Freidan states, “More women…were going to college but fewer of them were going on from college to become physicist…stateswomen, social pioneers, even college professors.”[5]Many of the female college students spoken with by Freidan were only attending college till they found a husband. Those in Anelise Orleck’s book were struggling to get any support that might help them get a job that compensated well enough to support their large families. Most of the women interviewed in Orleck’s book were former sharecroppers who were denied any educational opportunity. Once in Las Vegas, they organized to fight for job training programs that might allow them an opportunity to a subsistence wage and job security.

             There were few commonalities between the women focused on in these two books but they all shared a common struggle to be respected for the work that they did both in and out of the home. The women of Annelise Orleck’s work fought to be recognized as good mothers and equal contributors to society as members of the work force. Those of Betty Freidan’s work struggled to free themselves from the restrictive social stigma’s surrounding womanhood as


[1] Betty Freidan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963) 69

[2]Annelise Orleck, Storming Caesars Palace (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005) 96

[3] Annelise Orleck, Storming Caesars Palace (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005) 101

[4] Betty Freidan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963) 309

[5] Betty Freidan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963) 227