The Discrepancy Reversed...

Terry's entry last week on the lack of famous-- or "canonized," if you will-- female instrumentalists turned my reflections toward arts other than literature, and the gender demographics of the recognized artists therein. I was immediately reminded of theater. I first started acting at around fourteen, and during my first play I soon pieced together that the main reason I was given one of the forty roles in that production over the sixty auditioners whom were not cast was that I was a male over the age of ten. The gender breakdown of this play was not unique. Since then I have performed in over twenty plays (many of them musicals, I should point out), and in almost every one (except for Wabash shows, naturally), there has been a surplus of female actors and a dearth of males. Further, not only are males typically underrepresented, but from my experience, it seems that within that group, there is a disproportionately large representation of gay men.

After a few years in the theater, it became common for people to ask me if, or even assume that I was, gay, merely because I was an avid thespian. Even on the national professional level, big name broadway actors are predominantly gay-- Gavin Creel, Jonathan Groff, Nathan Lane. I do not contend that there is any bias toward gay men or against straight men in theater, but conversely, that straight men shy away from theater.

There is, of course, a well-known stigma of femininity, or "swishiness" associated with thespians which I assume is the root of this hesitance, but whence did this stigma develop? Perhaps it has something to do with the art of acting itself. Males in our culture are expected to maintain a stoic disposition, refraining from displays of emotion, especially emotions which involve vulnerability. But to act IS to express emotions, and to express them in a bold enough fashion as to elicit a response from an audience. Maybe this pursuit is seen as too feminine to warrant the interest of a straight man.

I suspect, though, that there is also a more complex, socially-driven phenomenon at work. The theater has long been a bastion for progressive thought, a place where new and controversial ideas are promulgated. This sort of pursuit breeds an atmosphere that is naturally accepting and egalitarian, which may seem especially inviting to people who suffer discrimination elsewhere. This could help to explain the abundance of gay actors in the 21st-century theater. Homophobia may keep some straight men from auditions, while a subtler force pushes the others away. "Homosexual panic" is a term coined by James Joyce critic Roberta Jackson, in an essay on the short story "A Painful Case," to describe the incessant fear of being labeled a homosexual which affects the decisions of both closeted gay and straight men, and I believe that this "panic" is likely another factor which deters straight men from getting involved in theater.

Testosterone and Fatherhood

One of the last conversations in class centered around whether or not hormones played a role in gender identities--and the New York times article on fatherhood and testosterone was suggested as a blog topic. The experiment notes the relation between fatherhood and decline in testosterone levels, "Testosterone was measured when the men were 21 and single, and again nearly five years later. Although testosterone naturally decreases with age, men who became fathers showed much greater declines, more than double that of the childless men." Even more fascinating is the link from the article to the commentary that Doctor Gray, a professor at the University of Nevada, gives on the experiment, "Wider principles of hormones and behavior have long indicated hormones can influence behavior (think of puberty or castrated pets, for example) just as behavior can influence hormones (try measuring stress hormones before and after a public speaking engagement." This piece of information clearly invites a question--To what extent do hormones affect our thinking, and thus our behavior, and to what extent do our actions dictate our hormones?

The question likely won't be answered soon, and it seems fairly futile for English majors to debate the effects of hormones on the body. However, Gray makes one final point in his commentary that seems extremely relevant to our class. The study points out that "male parental care is important. It’s important enough that it’s actually shaped the physiology of men." The article also notes that males with higher testosterone are actually more likely to become fathers, clearly distinguishing that males with lower testosterone are not more likely to become fathers." Dr. Gray expounds on these two points in his commentary to suggest that the experiments serves as "a nice case study of the relevance of evolution to everyday human life." Gray describes how male evolutionary theory ultimate posits that "constraint[s] on male reproductive success [tend] to be reproductive access to females." The article explains how testosterone then functions as a "trade-off, with high testosterone helping secure a mate" but "reduced" testosterone working "better for sustaining family life." Gray describes how humans take it for granted that fathers care about their families, whereas parternal care is actually "a defining
feature of our species" that is lacking in the primate species most closely related to us.

In other words, the gist of his article is that testosterone functions as an evolutionary tool that help males acquire mates. However, after marriage and childbirth, testosterone rates plummet in order to help males maintain a stable family life and care for the children. This knowledge seems to radically undermine our concept of masculinity--testosterone-fuled maleness is not the end of masculinity, but simply the vehicle towards a more androgynous role in a family relationship. Is testosterone a now obsolete, unnecessary byproduct of evolution, like stress? What does it mean to be male if the end goal of maleness is a more androgynous role? I don't know the answers, but the experiment's results certainly seems to suggest that males are biologically engineered towards child-rearing.

Oh, and here are the links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/health/research/13testosterone.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=testosterone&st=nyt

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/09/12/1113323108.full.pdf+html

I’m not going to write about The Awakening; I think that will be written about and deconstructed plenty over the next few class discussions. Beating a going-to-be dead horse isn’t particularly my style, but music is. I listen to an inordinate amount of music from all different genres and eras. From indie bands to mainstream pop, I’ve very nearly covered the lot, or so I like to think. However, as three in the morning rolled around last Saturday night, a fellow Wally and I began to discuss the merits of the guitar players of history. Being naïve as he often can be, he instantly, unchangingly, and whole-heartedly supported the great-but-not-greatest Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. (This will get to gender bias, I promise.) At first, I couldn’t help but agree, then the bands and guitarists flooded my head. What about Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, and Santana for god’s sake! There were too many, Duane Allman, Slash… so many. My head was spinning, and he reverently supported the wonderful Mr. Page. However, at about this point, I peered down at my phone to see I received a text from my dear friend “Katy.” It was that one name that sparked the question, “Danny, do you know any female guitarists?” He said, “Jimmy Page…” I knew he wouldn’t be any help at this point. But I began to think. Female artists, singers, littered my head, Janis, Ella, Patti, Aretha, and Joan were the names that scrolled across my head as if in a marquee, but not one was a guitarist. Moving into modern times, how many well-known female guitarists are there? Hell, how many female musicians are well known for much more than a spectacular voice? I know great female musicians are out there: Daru Oda, who plays with Norah Jones, is one of them, but why, I ask, is the female contingency of the music industry relegated to the voice while the men can explore a diverse set of instruments from banjo to bass, organ to piano? Not detracting from amazing vocal talents of late and lively female singers, but where are my guitar girls: where are my girls splitting strings on a bass or breaking sticks on a drum set?

How Kate Chopin Got Me Into Law School

No wait, I'm serious. When I took the June 2011 LSAT (the single most important factor by far in getting into law school) Kate Chopin showed up on the reading comprehension section. Now, before I go on, I should briefly outline the way the LSAT works (though I'm sure at least some of us--who have taken it already--should already know). There are two logical reasoning sections, one 'logic games' section, and one more for reading comprehension. I hate logic games. Not surprisingly, since I'm an English major, I love reading comprehension. This test had a very easy logic games section. This by alone wasn't really enough to help me, however, because that would only mean the curve was harsher and my standardized score would be the same. But the reading comprehension was a different story. Talking to many people who took the test, this section was incredibly difficult. As a result, the curve was typical for an LSAT. As I said before, this section is my strong suit and I usually get perfect scores on it anyway. Therefore my standardized score was significantly better than it would have been otherwise, and my odds of getting into law school skyrocketed.

Why was that section so difficult? Kate Chopin. One of the four reading sections was on Kate Chopin's development as a feminist writer. It included details about specific feminist genres, but generally avoided complex terminology (I can't be any more specific than that--LSAC copyright stuff and all). However, a huge number of people struggled with it. When I was in the bathroom during break, most of the comments I heard from the others were in some way related to Chopin--"Did you understand that one about 'chop-in'"? Or "How about that feminist article?" I also talked with a few girls about the test (in general terms, LSAC people who have googled this blog, general terms only) and none of them talked about the Kate Chopin article. They talked about the geological, heavy-laden with scientific terminology article.

So is this an example of a lack of bi-textuality? Are men simply less receptive to feminist ideas simply because they're men? I must admit, even though I did really well on the section (English major after all) I missed more questions on the Chopin piece than on the other three combined. But is there a flipside? What about the women who struggled with the more objective geology piece? Does that kind of article express 'masculine' characteristics? Certainly, in schools besides Wabash anyway, men tend to take more science and math courses, and women are more represented in literature courses. So, may it be true that the reason the men struggled with the Chopin article was because of its specific topic of literature--not feminism? I'm honestly not sure. I'm just really glad that Chopin threw everybody else off. Thank you Kate Chopin!

Also, for the other people in the class that took the LSAT this June (I think there are at least 2, maybe more), what do you guys think? Was the article that hard? Of course everybody else can feel free to express answers to any of these questions.

Ownership in Relationships

During our discussion in class about The Awakening I thought about Edna's problem with feeling objectified in her marriage. I especially thought about this when we questioned if Edna would be in a committed relationship with Robert. It seems that her problem with any relationship is feeling like she is an object that is owned by a man. This lead me to question relationships in general. What I mean is, when we get into a monogamous relationship or even marriage don't we submit ourselves to some implied objectivity? When you chose to be with someone in a committed monogamous relationship, as bad as it may sound you do submit to becoming the object of some type of ownership. That is implication is made through the language we use to describe relationships. In a marriage you become someone's husband or wife, in a relationship someone's boyfriend or girlfriend. When you fall in love with someone one way of expressing that love to other other person is telling them that your heart BELONGS to them. When you take your vows at your wedding part of it is to HAVE and to hold. Even when some people have sex, they speak of owning their partner's genitalia. Although it may not be extreme as looking at someone solely as a piece of property, in my opinion their is no way around implications of ownership in a relationship. I also believe it is not problematic as long as it is reciprocated by both parties. Some may agree with me, but these are just some thoughts that I have been trying to work through since the last class discussion.

Bewildered

After today's class discussion of Kate Chopin's The Awakening I am left questioning my personal view of the end of the book. Although, I believe this was Chopin's intent when writing her novel, it bothers me that I continue to question the reasoning behind Edna's suicide and what it says about the rest of the novel. At the end of class we discussed two very oppositional sides of the ending. Some viewed it as a very romantic ending, making a strong conclusion to what was a rather "loud" text for women's rights at the time. On the other side of the coin others argued that is was a very tragic ending, as Edna spends her entire journey during the novel "awakening" to her suppression as a woman, but only to squander all that she had escaped by committing a tragic suicide. She left behind no evidence of the progess she had made and in essence just disappeared. As I left class today and even during I was rather bewildered, as my title suggests. What was Chopin trying to communicate to her readers? Her writing is such that she is very elegant in descrete in all of her descriptions and messages that sometimes things aren't always as clear as I would like them to be. Although that is typical of the era in which she wrote this book, I find it frustrating at times to me as a reader. Just like this ending that is filled with so many question marks. When i first read the text, I saw the ending as a very romanticized one. I saw Chopin using the suicide as the final "great escape" for Edna, as her ultimate "awakening" of her suppression within the world. However, after discussion today I had to question this reading. Was Chopin making a statement about women at the time who were expeiencing their awakening who did not know how to deal with it? They take this new found freedom and let it drive them to the point of death. A classmate made an interesting point about the biography of Chopin and her personal struggles with Depression and having to see a doctor to deal with such bouts in her own life. Frankly, I'm still bewildered. I wrote this blog in a hope to find a resolution for myself by the end, but i have not. I'm left out in the questioning abyss, which is perhaps what Chopin herself intended.

Finally

I'm not entirely sure why, but the blog has been set on not allowing me to post until now. Turns out I've been trying the wrong email address. So anyway, I'd like to piggy-back off of Scott a little bit. While reading Felski chapter 3 I started thinking about a point she raises on page 97 by saying, "There is, for example, no rich and sustaining tradition of female heroes in Western Culture....The old stories do not tell of women's action and achievement, creation and triumph. The feminine virtures are patience, submission, and selfless love." This paragraph made me think, first, about the canon and how it does definitely lack feminine heroes; then secondly, how my generation is being exposed to a slightly different truth.
I would agree with Felski on her comments as long as they remain in reference to past stories; however, I feel recent history suggests something different. Consider the examples both Felski and Scott bring up: Cinderella, Snow White, and the like. These are stories written long ago, before any of us were much more than a thought. And yes, they certainly reflect the patriarchal dominance in literature. But i can't help but think of the numerous stories (in this case movies but I feel movies still count) in my generation's life that seem to counter Felski's point. To name a few: Pan's Labryinth and Suckerpunch. In these two stories the protagonists are female characters that actively subvert the stereotypes of passivity and patience that Felski mentions. In Pan's Labryinth the girl is actively adventuring through a myriad of challenges to realize her place in life, her destiny-and it is not the traditional 'get married and live happily ever-after. In Sckerpunch the protagonist(s) are all female characters that display both masculine and feminine traits-actively subverting some traditional roles (yes, these women are taking names) while openly empowering others-namely sexuality.
So I suppose my point is similair to something I said in class last Thursday...that the literary world needs time. If one looks at the progression of literature, the emergence of non-traditional feminie presence is on the rise. Currently, we are stuck in an awkward time period where those changes are taking place. However, it would seem obvious that great strides are being taken but naturally there is an imbalance at this point. But again, time will bring about the advancement and change that Felski and others alike are striving for. But again, these are just my thoughts on the matter.