Gender and Feminism Presentation

First of all, I love baking cookies. Once I read the Gilbert and Gubar piece, I knew that I wanted our group (since it was so large) to represent the many faces of “woman” in literature, and since one such face is that of the housewife or angel in the house, I figured that cookies were a necessity.

After reading the assigned texts, I proposed to the group that we begin our presentation in costume to demonstrate the fragmented state of “woman” in literary representations. This fits with both the Gilbert and Gubar and Fetterley texts . I proposed that we each find a representative or explanatory quote from one of the texts in order to ground our ‘character’ in the criticism. Also I initially wanted to break the class into essentialist and constructionist groups, and proposed that the class answer a qualitative survey and construct their own gender identities (Butler) or prove their essential masculinity/ femininity (Irigaray). When Sharlene and I met last week, she proposed instead that we have each member of the class draw a classmate’s gender identity. That seemed like more fun than a survey. I also served the group as a mediator and organizer. I emailed individuals in the group and the group as a whole, and made sure that everyone was on the same page.

This was a most enjoyable and interesting experience given how close to home the issues of sex and gender are to me and (presumably) to most of the class. I was impressed by the insight and contributions of my classmates, and in particular, the divergent reactions to the Barbie debate. I was also glad to see that there were inconsistencies in how individuals code certain characteristics—that someone who is athletic, etc. is coded as a male even though she is female.