Fight Club

After reading Fight Club and watching the film Fight Club I was confused about how they would be connected to the ideas of gender and feminism. I really enjoyed class Tuesday because it helped me connect the ideas together. I thought it was interesting that the unnamed narrator chose a penguin for his power animal. If he was the typical manly man he probably would have chosen a tiger, bear, lion or a big, overpowering animal. As people discussed in class, a penguin is not very masculine. Some people even said it was not gendered which I agree with. Penguins are also small compared to other animals and are not known to be aggressive. I think the author's choice of the penguin was to show that the unnamed narrator does not think like the typical manly man. According to an internet source, male and female penguins look a lot a like. I also thought it was interesting how much advertising is included in the book. Women are typically consumers in American society, buying the clothes for the children, husband, themselves, decorating the house and therefore buying the furniture and knick knacks. To me, the majority of guys do not care how their house is decorated. For instance, one of my good guy friends moved into his house about 4 months ago and is only using the essentials. He still hasn't unpacked many boxes in his house. I know that if it were me I would have everything organized the way I want it and atleast a few decorations around the house. Another example of the difference between men and women, my brother lived in dorms or apartments throughout college, he never ever put a poster up or anything. On the other hand, I put posters up in my dorm as soon as I could. Decoration and consumerism is more aimed towards women. Toys and big items are aimed more towards men. I know a guy that has owned all the toys imaginable: a hummer, a tractor, motorcycles, boats, cars, trucks, snowmobiles, etc... as they say, "boys with their toys." I thought the talk in class yesterday was interesting and brought up many new ideas.

Fight Club

I really enjoyed the class discussion today about Fight Club. This is one of the discussions where I feel that people were able to really get into how they feel about certain situations. Usually the class is calmer, a lot of silence, but I felt tension today which is a good thing. There was a lot more about feminism than just gender. Something that I found very interesting was how the constricting society was described as feminist, which is something I viewed in class. However thinking more about it I think it is kind of contradicting not only to blame the women for males being constricted in society but also saying it is feminist. Feminism and being feminine are two totally different things. These males may feel like they have been raised in a feminine society but I would never go to say it is a feminist society. A feminist society has the goal of equality between both men and women where neither sex is limited. In fight club it is saying that society is constricting the male, which is different from the usual argument that it is the female is the one who is constricted in society. I think it is a great book, extremely interesting and a great different perspective. There are always two sides to everything and I agree that men need to get out their aggression and anger in a society that maybe, yes, is a little to constricting sometimes. I also believe that the other side is important to recognize. That maybe women need to express their anger and aggression as well and maybe they are also constricted within society. If this was addressed, then it would have been a feminist theory. I think it is more of a society problem then a gender problem.

Gender and Fight Club

i really enjoyed today's class discussion about fight club. There were so many different themes that were mentioned in the book, and we seemed to have covered many of them. I like the author, and his way of writing very much. I had read Invisible Monsters even before i read fight club. Invisible Monsters is quite the opposite of fight club. Its about a model who gets her jaw blown off, and they cannot replace her jaw. So instead she walks around, missing a jaw. No one wants to look at her, thus she is "invisible" and even steals a frozen turkey from a grocery store. The author has a very blunt way of writing that makes you really think about things outside of the norm. I like this very much.

One of the topics that was talked about in class was the idea that Fight Club completely left out the idea of women being surpressed. I could understand how alot of people could have felt that way, but i somewhat disagreed with this arguement. Yes, the book may have been about a male domninated anarchy where only men came to fight and rebel...but i also think that the marla singer character was a symbol for women doing the same thing. She was not the typical "lady." In fact, she was quite the opposite. Marla does not care what other people think of her. She does as she pleases and does what she believes in. She is attracted to the idea of death, thus she used to work in a funeral home, and now she attends terminal illness support groups. Perhaps the perfect example of her "unladylikeness" could be when she attends the testicular cancer support group. There is no possible way taht she might have testicular cancer, but i think the symbolism of her being there is to put her on the same level with the narrator. This is why Marla and Tyler Durden are so perfect for one another.

To go further, i would also say thats its very interesting that Tyler gets so frustrated that Marla is attending "his" meetings. His insomnia comes back beccause this "faker" is in his presence. Even though he is doing the exact same thing as Marla, he is being hyppocritical that he cannot have this "tourist" attending his meetings. I think that this could also be a statement on women in the work place. Marla is just as perverse as Tyler, however, "how dare she attend?" Women for years had to fight for equal jobs. However they still do not get paid as well as men do in our society. Maybe this is the reason why Tyler beings a males only fight club. To get away from this female "faker".

P.S. I think Transamerica would be perfect...love it

Carmilla discussion/thought

I found Carmilla very interesting, explaining its influence on the vampire culture proceeding it. However, I am torn between whether I think it is empowering to women or criticizing women as sexual beings. The concept of being a vampire, as we have discussed, is seductive and sexual but mainly pertains to men. Carmilla focuses on a women vampire, who is attracted to and feeds off of the female characters. The vampire represents beauty and attractiveness, but as a dangerous entity. Laura on the other hand represents the virginal, obedient daughter who is curious about the Carmilla. The essay I feel criticizes what happens to women if they should dare to be overtly sexual in general, and especially towards women with lesbian tendencies. Having been written so long ago, I do feel that it is making a social commentary about the role of women, rather than just bringing up the issue of lesbian sexuality. The work could be seen as shining a light on the fact that women do have sexual preferences other than striaght heterosexual roles. Also ,women are portrayed as being sexual which generally could be a good thing although takes on a negative context in the work. I like the idea of the seductive sexualized female vampire, which could potentially be empowering to women, except that I think the author is trying to deter women from being to sexual because back then women had strict social constructions on how to behave. The author is trying to abstain women from doing anything "bad" or taboo, because in the end the vampire does and Laura lives. The work could also be a message to men that attractive sexual women are dangerous and have potential to castrate a male by seducing him; therefore, switching power roles.

gender discussion

Our class discussion on Tuesday was very interesting. It certainly seems clear that women in positions of power and authority are stuck in a conflict. They are truly in a lose- lose situation. If these women are too feminine, they are not taken seriously and are unable to gain the respect they deserve for their work, abilities and accomplishments. However, if these women are not feminine enough and instead demonstrate traditional masculine qualities at work such as competitive drive and aggressive behavior, they are ridiculed and insulted for not “doing” the feminine gender appropriately. Essentially, these women’s femininity is put into question, often being criticized for being too “butch” or manly.
This bind that women have found themselves in is really just a response to more and more women in our society gaining ground and securing high level positions of power. We live in a patriarchal, male dominate society. When women begin to challenge gender boundaries, men resist in an effort to maintain their position of power and control. By attaching a social stigma to women who are powerful and career driven, this therefore maintains the status quo, essentially protecting men’s dominant position in society.

After reading Carmilla, I found our class disscussion very interesting. I though it was cool to compare the movie Interview With a Vampire to Carmilla. As both of these pieces are about vampires, they are actually very different. Carmilla was cool to read because it was the first piece of writing about vampires, and the author chose to write about a girl. When I think of vampires I think of men, as I would picture them to be in Interview with a Vampire. The way that Carmilla went about getting blood or getting what she needed, was far different from the way that the men did. In comparison the men in the movie went straight in for the blood and had the immediate satisfaction of seducing the women and getting what they wanted. Where as, Carmilla waited and slowly used the other girl for what she needed from her. There was as much of the immediate sexual satistisfactoin between the girls as was seen between the men and the women. Something I didnt like about Carmilla, which was also brought up in class, was that there wasn't much of a climax. As i was reading it, I thought it was kind of dull, boring, and didnt seem as though it was really going anywhere. In the end, i didnt think it was very good, although i think the class disscussion brought up some points that i hadnt previously thought about.