Dec 19 Feast
We are on for the feast tomorrow night, in our usual classroom. Remember we should have food that is peanut-free, vegetarian, and gluten-free if possible. I will be bringing hummus (I have a special recipe, I swear) and various things to dip in it, and some cheesy polenta. Can you leave a comment here with what you plan to contribute? If you are unable to contribute, you are of course still welcome!
Dialogues in Feminism and Technology
A Mural.ly used for discussion outside of class after we moved away from the Forum and Blog posts.
The Year of the Flood Mural.ly
Class discussion over the development of The Year of the Flood website project.
Final Project Check List
To complete your final project, make sure you have the following on the YOTF web site:
1) Your group’s digital projects
2) A short textual annotation of the projects: what tools did you use, why, and how did you approach the content?
3) A short bio in the “About Us” section telling readers a little bit about yourself and the role you played in the project
And
4) Your group should contribute to the YOTF Wikipedia page. On *our YOTF* site, give short a explanation of what you added/edited and why. Include screen shot it for archival purposes, in case it gets changed.
And the winners are!
For the FTN Videos, the class has chosen the videos on Race, Sexualities, and Bodies. I have embedded them directly in our discussion mural, so please watch them and join the conversation there. I have also added space for discussing Alien and Sleeper.
If your group is not yet signed up for a check-in with me, please use Doodle to sign up. I can’t wait to see your latest work.
Group Project Check-ins
I emailed each group individually, but in case you missed it, each group needs to sign up for a check in. If it is impossible for your group to find one time that works for you, email me and we’ll work something out.
One check in per group! Allow us about an hour.
Sign up here: http://doodle.com/8ut2c53zhufiph8n
Final Project Guidelines
Good morning and happy monday!
We’ve talked in class about expectations for the final project, but here is a checklist for your group to use.
As you know, our final project is a multimedia companion to Year of the Flood. We have our site set up at http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/yotf/. You have all been invited to the site and can start contributing to it now.
Each group is responsible for a few things:
- A well thought out subsection of the site that represents information in your area
- Multimedia work that represents your approach and/or analysis. In some groups, individuals are making their own pieces and in others, this work is being done collaboratively. Either is fine, but clearly indicate on the work who is responsible for it!
- While our focus here is multimedia, you should have enough writing to guide site visitors through your work, and to give it context. Think of someone who has never read the book, and what they needs to make sense of what they are encountering on the site.
- Each group member should have a short reflective essay on the final site that talks about the multimedia work you did and your experience translating your understanding of the novel into a digital format.
- Each group should have a short, polished contribution to the Wikipedia page on Year of the Flood.
The end of the semester is creeping up, and we have the holiday this week. But I would like to hold a conference with each group–in person or via Google Hangout–sometime before December 3. Please be in touch before Thanksgiving so we can figure out a time that works.
TYOTF vs. Harraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”
Jonah: In the context of Year of the Flood, Donna Harraway’s “Cyborg Manfesto” is quite relevant given the dystopic future that Atwood depicts. Harraway provides a direct critique of the God’s Gardeners through her critique of naturalism. This becomes clear when she states “The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust.” The mantra of the God’s Gardeners is a naturalist doctrine. Under this naturalist doctrine, Harraway argues that gender norms and patriarchy continue to exist. When looking into the text, Harraway is spot on. There are multiple instances where patriarchal norms are apparent within the Gardener’s community, such as the multiple acts of sexual assault on Toby, and the normalizing of it.
Sophia: Right on, Jonah. Another troublesome aspect of what you call the “naturalist doctrine” that the God’s Gardeners uphold, is its extreme reliance on a set of principles, stemming, in particular, from problematic creationist origins, the teaching of which, Harraway claims, ought to be “fought as a form of child abuse.” They fail to recognize the irony of their faith in this form, rendering their hypocrisies offensive, rather than inspiring, strategic, or methodical, which Harraway proposes as just some of the valuable untapped capabilities inherent in such an attitude. Indeed, in coming into contact with the God’s Gardeners I imagine Harraway would be deeply disappointed in their lack of respect for the blasphemous, which she believes “has always seemed to require taking things very seriously.” That is, perhaps, with the exception of Zeb, who seems to relate his membership to the Gardeners through a constant desecration of their principles, with a wink-wink and an elbow in the side of whoever might be watching.
Paired Discussion
Adrienne and I talked about Losse and how we think she would respond to Atwood’s society based on how she feels about Sandberg’s view of life. Losse doesn’t think that work should be a never ending race and that the life Sandberg glorifies isn’t the sort of life that Losse thinks women should have to live as in order to advance in their careers, and their advancement and pay raises definitely should not be seen as a threat to male coworkers. Losse also doesn’t think that career advancement and pay raises for women should be seen as threats to men and therefore be used as excuses for not being given the pay raises they deserve, but that “threat” to men doesn’t seem to be a thing with the Gods Garderners especially since their way of living is different.
When looking at the workplace in The Year of the Flood we can see how the compounds vastly different from the Garden although there are still some similarities. Adrienne though gender equality in work depends on the group; Gods Gardeners seemed mostly egalitarian because everyone was supposed to do their part based on their expertise and it didn’t seem to matter whether or not males or females did specific jobs, but Zeb was the one who taught survival and hunting skills (hunting is a traditionally male job in many historical societies, save some Native American ones) and Toby and Pilar knew about medicine and healing, and wasn’t Rebecca in charge of cooking? (healing and cooking are traditionally female duties in many societies). Things were different at HelthWyzer though. Frank worked whie Lucerne was a trophy wife who spent his money on clothing and luxuries and pampering at AnooYoo, and even Glen’s mom who escaped the Compound seemed to be just a housewife to her husband.
I agreed with Adrienne that the Gods Garderners definately seem more egalitarian even with some stereotypical gender roles in their society. What’s also interesting is to note how Lucerne is probably the exact opposite of what Sandberg thinks a woman should do with her life. Not only does Lucerne not work, she also seems to neglect her familial duties which is something Sandberg would consider as a form of work. Towards the end of the book we can see how Lucerne has completely abandoned Ren and spends all her time at Anoo Yoo getting spa treatments. Sandberg would probably look down on her vanity. Sandberg is very keen on spending all her time simply working and that anything that’s not considered “work” isn’t really worth the time. Losse on the other hand thinks that Sandberg may be pushing the idea of work too far and would probably be okay with some of Lucerne’s shopping sprees and treatments. It’s also interesting to see how within God’s Garderner’s society there is very little indication of there being anything related to entertainment. Sandberg would probably approve of this since less distractions is better. There’s no mention of vacations, hobbies, etc. Everyone just continues to work to help the community.
We also talked about how both Losse and Sandberg would see some areas of this book as demoralizing to women especially with Toby getting basically raped at Secret Burger and the continuous mistreatment of female workers at Secret Burger. There’s also the issue with how sexual harassment seems to be something women should just ignore because “it’s not really a big deal”. I think it would be interesting to get their opinions on Scales and Tails and the SeksMart Corp in general. In The Year of The Flood, prostitution is basically legalized, and employees get health care and other benefits just like any other job would. I personally think Sandberg would not be so against the idea of prostitution especially if it’s something the women wants to do and feels they are good at. Even within Scales and Tails, there’s a hierarchy for the prostitutes. It would be interesting to see if she just sees as a way of living and the workers at Scales and Tails are simply just doing a job they picked or if working as a prostitute is demoralizing.
Besides Losse, we also connected it to Sandberg and how she would view the different societies in The Year of The Flood. We both agreed that it seems that within Gods Garderner there’s very little social mobility. Everyone is about the same with the exception of the Adam’s and Eve’s being a bit more respected. Although working as a God’s Garderner isn’t really a monetary job it’s still seen as work for these people in order to survive and within this system the hierarchy is pretty limited which is something Sandberg probably wouldn’t appreciate and find it oppressing.
Paired Blogging 11/21
Here’s what me and Ana discussed about The Year of the Flood through Siobhan Sommerville’s work so far:
*super long post ahead, we more or less wrote mini essays to each other…*
Vita: The piece we read by Siobhan Somerville dealt with the interdependent relationship between scientific/ pseudoscientific discourses of race and (homo)sexuality in the 19th century. In regards to The Year of the Flood, race/ ethnicity and the spectrum of sexualities seems to be absent or downplayed (debatable?). However, a working idea that has been ruminating in my mind is a similar interdependent relationship between discourses of sexuality and economics/ capitalism in The Year of the Flood.
I argue that the general economy of this dystopia, especially the various Corporations, is saturated in sexuality in terms of influencing products and values. In turn, discourses about (hetero)sexuality of several characters are informed by economical principles. The most potent example of the first side of this relationship is the SeksMart Corp, which included the club, Scales and Tails, by the time Ren was in college. In an extreme example of an economic monopoly, pimps and street prostitution was outlawed and anyone outside of this “legitimate Corp with health benefits and a dental plan” was considered “pathetic” and even called “‘hazardous waste’” (Atwood, 2009, p. 294, 7). In addition, Toby recalls that it was typical for people to reason that even if a young woman fell into economic despair, “at least she had something of marketable value, namely her young ass…and nobody had to feel guilty,” which suited the ultimate CorpSeCorp principle of the bottom line (Atwood, 2009, p. 28).
On the other hand, in the discourses about sexuality by characters like Ren and Amanda, the economical influence is apparent. This is obvious when Ren starts working at Scales and Tails. On numerous occasions, Ren mentions doing “plank work” or talking about the “bristle work” that was done by literal expendables (not Scales girls) (Atwood, 2009, p. 130). In addition, Amanda would often use the euphemism of “doing a trade,” which was literally providing sex for an exchange of items or help from others…
Ana: I also found that gender roles and sexuality in The Year of the Flood wasn’t as important of a personal identifier than it is in our contemporary U.S. society. It can be argued that our gender and race are the most influential in establishing our identities in a public space and even how we are expected to behave in private spaces. Race and gender function as the most powerful categorical tools we utilize to differentiate ourselves and also connect to others. Perhaps, because The Year of the Flood takes place in a post-apocalyptic North America where it seems nations are defunct or never even existed in the collective memory race is almost non-existent.
To respond to Vita’s argument of the economics of sexuality, I actually found it a generous facet of the CorpSeCorps to legalize and celebrate sex workers. Our world stigmatizes any kind of sex work, even if one is only an exotic dancer! We believe them to be immoral, dirty, outliers, and above all, subhuman. They are portrayed in media as loose, godforsaken women (and sometimes trans men) and of low class. They are usually portrayed as desperate and without dignity.
Now, I’m sure the CorpSeCorps did not create the SeksMart Corp out of the generosity and open-mindedness of their hearts, but to control that sector of the entertainment economy. But still! These sex workers, as Vita mentioned, HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE! I think it’s safe to say that if the status quo persists, I will never live in a day when sex workers will have the rights to governmental health care (considering we’re having a problem now with its distribution as the healthcare sector continues to privatize).
To get back to what Somerville argues in Queering the Color Line, race and sexuality are not mutually exclusive either in The Year of the Flood. Somerville argues that historically, once the discourse of race was the hot topic of the 19th century, talks of homosexuality also began cropping up in mainstream academia. She argues that just as the color line was established to prevent mixing between races, so did sexuality categories to prevent “experimentation out of the white, hetero norm”. In Atwood’s novel, Toby’s sexuality is almost non-existent until she undergoes a physical transformation when she begins to work at the AnooYoo Spa. Her skin tone changes to that of a darker color and her facial features change as well to what is described as a more sexually exotic looking woman than the white, lanky, and rather sexless woman she was before. She notes the changes in herself as well as the noticed difference in treatment from Zeb. After her transformation, she seems more gendered as female gathered from the behavior she “elicits” (is this implying a sort of victim-blaming mentality?, because that’s not how I meant it) from Zeb. It is impossible to talk about the birth of her sexuality without talking about the change in her physical appearance.
Vita: I forgot that example about Toby! I agree that her racialized physical appearance change corresponded with a shift in her gender performance and sexuality. I also find that Toby’s sexuality (and corresponding gender performance) throughout her life/ book to be unstable: she was a relatively “normal” college student who was sexually involved with a monogamous boyfriend; after the double tragedy of her parents, she went through a drug-fused sex run; then there is her horrific experience with Blanco; and in God’s Gardeners, she is known as the “Dry Witch” and was deemed “sexless” enough that even Lucerne isn’t paranoid that she is a rival for Zeb. Also there are tiny snippets through her narrative in which she questions her feelings about jealousy and affection surrounding love/ sexual desire. Curious…
I also interpreted Toby’s racial transformation as a subtle nod to a long line of stereotypes surrounding women of color: as you note, the exoticism and sexualization of the “other.” Atwood also brings out complications of these sexual, gendered, and racialized stereotypes in the scene where Toby meets Rebecca for the first time in SecretBurgers. Rebecca warns her about Blanco and expresses relief that she is “too black and ugly for him” even though Toby/ narrative notes that Rebecca is “beautiful in a substantial way” (Atwood, 2009, 35). I suppose this is the flipside of women of color/ other being exotically sexual is to be undesirable to “white hetero norm man” (also noting what Blanco’s name translates as) and is in sync with Sommerville’s argument of the intertwining fears of sexual desire between races and within genders in the 19th century.
Lastly, I agree with your comments about health insurance as well as the stigmatization of sex workers in our society. Though, I think the curious thing about dystopias is that there is sort of a sugar and medicine mentality: there are the appearance of “good” and ideal things such as health insurance and care, but it is twisted in either their sincerity or their purpose. I think about what the true quality of their healthcare might be since it’s likely another Corp and we know they hold no bounds in using customers or even their own workers for their own gain such as how the rigorous healthcare Toby’s mother received ultimately cause her death.
To be continued…
