Monday Evening's Focus Group

On Monday, I attended the focus group that was conducted by the graduate student from Penn State. She was a lovely lady named Rachel, and her project revolved around stereotypes and issues that various groups face in West Virginia. For our discussion, we talked mainly about women in the state. A lot of focus was put on sexism, feminism, and a sense of belonging. Everyone who attended shared various stories about each topic. One discussion that stood out to me was about a Shepherd professor making rude, sexist comments to students. I was rather surprised. I have never had this professor for class, but I have not heard very many good things about him. I was very bothered by the story of his comments, and it hurts to think that so many students will have to endure these rude remarks in his classes. Anyway, that was just one part of the discussion. If anyone wants to know anything else about the focus group, feel free to ask. It was pretty cool. :)

On Seminar papers, luck and context.

Attention all Women's Studies folks: You are part of a discipline that values context, depth, and complicated questions over simple solutions. My favorite part of Women's Studies seminars (and as of the end of next week, I have taken part in two) is that you never know what you're going to get and you can never fail to learn something new. Our readings this semester focused on the 19th century women's experience, but covered everything from imperialism, abuse, early science, and marriage law to how to eat an orange, and why it's a bad idea to cross-dress in Cranford. Although I have several things that I could reflect upon over the course of this year, I would like to tie this seminar and last semester's Gender and Technology seminar together and talk about my paper. I am talking about the significance of the railway in Middlemarch and Cranford as a multi-layered metaphor and a mark of masculinized history in the text. As a major source I wanted to use a very difficult book I reviewed last semester in Dr. Edwards' Gender and Technology seminar called
The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and The Scientific Revolution (1980) by Carolyn Merchant.
Compiled during the tumult of the second wave feminist and environmental movements of the 70s, Merchant frames the historical developments of modern industry, science, and capitalism in reference to increasing amounts of environmental damage and curtailing of womens representations in the public sphere-- saying that these developments were made possible by modes of thought which, by objectifying nature and the nature-identified woman, made both inert, passive, and mechanical and set the scientific (coded masculine) establishment on the road toward the 20th centuries dual crises of environmental and social justice.
This was not a fun, easy read. Each chapter is a layer and the equivalent of five history course's worth of material on early modern science, culture, economy, and philosophy that never seems to have an endpoint or a moral-- mostly themes or ideas that circle around one another and appeal to intuitive connection. It's a book I never thought I would use again after my brief review about it, however-- to refer to my first sentence: Womens studies is a discipline without easy answers, but in which everything is connected.

Favorites

We've read six books this semester. Just six books in a thirteen week period. We should know these characters backwards and forwards. I started to think about who my favorite character was from one of the novels, and I decided that I couldn't choose between Jane Eyre and Ruth Hall.
Both characters are strong women from humble beginnings. They have many terrible things that happen to them through their lives. Despite hardship, both characters have happy endings, and the readers actually wish that for them. For the most part, the characters don't whine about the bad things in their lives. Both women get up and respond to the situations placed before them.
I wondered if anyone else had a favorite character? Were you able to narrow it down to just one?

"Reader, I married him"

As the semester is slowly but surely winding down, I thought I would post a blog about my favorite subject--marriage. One thing that surprised me about the works we read as a class was that the authors had many different points of view on marriage. On the one hand, you have authors like George Eliot, who portray marriage in a negative light and focus on problems rather than on accomplishments. You also have authors like Harriet Jacobs, who regard marriage as a nice but unrealistic theory that stems out of a desire for communality. On the other hand, however, we also had the opportunity to examine the novel Jane Eyre in which an optimistic, highly-romantic Charlotte Bronte see marriage as the union of two soul mates.
In review of the works we read in class, I would like to ask everyone to think about which view of marriage you most closely identify with. For me, I find that I can relate to Jane Eyre, as her undying love and perseverance make her an admirable character. Yes, I think that Mr. Rochester is quite a pompous, caustic individual but the fact of the matter is that Jane does love him. Isn't that how love works? I am a firm believer that one cannot choose who they love, one can only choose how to respond to that love once it is discovered. Jane knows that Mr. Rochester has problems and she strives to work with him to find a happy medium. From my experience thus far, I have come to believe that a good marriage in which both parties are willing to compromise. We should not, therefore, blame Jane for following her heart; instead, we should praise her for finding a way to make things work despite setbacks and difficulties.

The Times Make the (Wo)Man

Now that I am coming to a close on my Jane Eyre essay, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the questions I set out with have very different answers than what I had anticipated. My main frustrations with watching the Jane Eyre films was that I felt no one was doing Jane "justice", but I've come to realize that it will never happen. And it will never happen because people don't seem to want it to happen. Every Jane Eyre character introduced in film is different from the last, and it has everything to do with when the film was made. The culture, ideals, and set of norms all dictate how Jane will be portrayed in every film, and the hope/want to see the "original" Jane will never be fruitful. Filmmakers will only ever make a Jane (or any character at all, for that matter) that they believe the people want to see, as opposed to who the character actually is.

What happens after Middlemarch ends?

Dr. Hanrahan stated that we could write about anything this week on the blog, so here goes. I am going to talk about what I wrote in my paper just a bit, because I am Middlemarch brain-dead just about now! And of course my favorite subject of Middlemarch is....WILL LADISLAW! Well, who wouldn't want to be married to Will? He was on the cutting edge of societal evolution, not stuck in some patriarchal misogynistic role of the mid-nineteenth century England. AND, he was good-looking. He was progressive. If the book had continued for another 900 pages, in my opinion, Eliot would have most assuredly returned Dorothea to her architectural work. Dorothea would perhaps have even gone back to school to become proficient in architectural drawings. No, Dorothea wouldn't have needed to go back to school because she was smart enough to start her own architecture school after her kids had gone off to college (her girls included, because she has a few more kids after the book ends...). So Ladislaw is not the cause of Dorothea's return to the domestic sphere. Ladislaw helps Dorothea fulfill her dreams of motherhood and then Dorothea chooses to pursue her dreams of college a profession.

What does Incidents mean today?

When I really think about it, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl blows me away. Sometimes, I fall into the 21^st century reader trap and think, “Wow, I can’t believe Harriet Jacobs actually experienced all this. It’s awful. I’m so glad slavery is over.” Then, I try to think about what a reader of the 19^th century would think. The crazy thing about this novel is that it was published while slavery was occurring. Incidents was not published as a historical memoir; it was a current event. When Jacobs writes, “Reader, my story ends with freedom;” Jacobs is addressing people who have slavery in their daily lives (156). If I was reading this novel while slavery was occurring, what would I think about Incidents then? We have talked in class about what Incidents, as well as other novels this semester urge readers to do: to take action and change something.

I refuse to believe that this novel does not mean anything to the “reader” today. Jacobs can still motivate us to do something. Although slavery is no longer legal in this country, racial discrimination still does exist. Likewise; there are many instances of human trafficking that occur in this country and around the world. As readers, what can we do? What would Jacobs want us to do? Because we are still reading this text centuries later, I believe that Jacob’s text still has the power to motivate readers to be active and change human injustices. 

Here is a video I found about human trafficking in California. The Case Act that is being discussed will go to ballot in November. Just this month, West Virginia criminalized human trafficking. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa_Wo4hbh50&feature=related