Boobs Again: Update
My friend netmouse, who actually participated in the project, posted a very thoughtful post on how she and the folks who conceived it thought of it, and I want to quote it here for discussion purposes:
To me this was really about gender-nonspecific personal connection and permission-granting (or not granting), not women caving to the male power or notions of body-rightness.
A lot of people are concluding it was a "You had to be there" kind of thing, but it's frustrating that people clearly don't understand.
Society has been telling us women all our lives that our breasts are not our own to make decisions about--that they are inherently only for certain approved purposes and we must otherwise cover them and protect them from detailed touch or inspection with things like bras and clothing and moats and lions and tigers, if necessary, because the only person who is allowed to see and touch them is YOUR MAN and you aren't allowed to assert a non-standard set of access permissions yourself.
This project stood that on its head. It was in fact a fine case of feminist rebellion, combined with general rebellion against socially defined rules and toward opt-in interpersonal intimacy and appreciation.
Here's a link to that discussion. (NO, I'm not getting any work done today, because this is far more interesting).
Described that way, it seems really interesting to me. NOT unproblematic, for all of the reasons I've already stated.
It's like performance art, is how I'm seeing it. And YMMV. And if you put it out there, it's subject to social criticism, including feminist criticism. And there is certainly an argument that the idea is feminist, too, in the "postmodern undermining of the way discourse about my body" works sort of way. (Which, if you read my other fem theory posts, I do think can work).
There is a real, not perceived, tension, however, in my point of view, between intent and experience.
To that end, I think a way to look at it all now is to LET GO of the personal attacks and look at it the way we look at other pieces of art or "multi-media" projects--coalesce all of the good, bad, ugly (throw away the personal attacks on both sides)--and maybe redesign the project to be more cognizant of the way the people around (that you're communicating to) experience it.
One thing I should have said in my last post--my feminist analysis is of the project, the blogpost, etc. Not the person. You all don't KNOW the people who participated in this. You can't speak for how THOSE PEOPLE experienced it. And while I'm not disavowing my p.o.v. (it remains there, below, for everyone to see), none of it means I think anyone is a bad person, or malicious, or an actual misogynist pig, or anything like that. I just don't think it was a great idea. It's not Rape In The Congo, either, though, and I think we should also keep that in mind.
To me this was really about gender-nonspecific personal connection and permission-granting (or not granting), not women caving to the male power or notions of body-rightness.
A lot of people are concluding it was a "You had to be there" kind of thing, but it's frustrating that people clearly don't understand.
Society has been telling us women all our lives that our breasts are not our own to make decisions about--that they are inherently only for certain approved purposes and we must otherwise cover them and protect them from detailed touch or inspection with things like bras and clothing and moats and lions and tigers, if necessary, because the only person who is allowed to see and touch them is YOUR MAN and you aren't allowed to assert a non-standard set of access permissions yourself.
This project stood that on its head. It was in fact a fine case of feminist rebellion, combined with general rebellion against socially defined rules and toward opt-in interpersonal intimacy and appreciation.
Here's a link to that discussion. (NO, I'm not getting any work done today, because this is far more interesting).
Described that way, it seems really interesting to me. NOT unproblematic, for all of the reasons I've already stated.
It's like performance art, is how I'm seeing it. And YMMV. And if you put it out there, it's subject to social criticism, including feminist criticism. And there is certainly an argument that the idea is feminist, too, in the "postmodern undermining of the way discourse about my body" works sort of way. (Which, if you read my other fem theory posts, I do think can work).
There is a real, not perceived, tension, however, in my point of view, between intent and experience.
To that end, I think a way to look at it all now is to LET GO of the personal attacks and look at it the way we look at other pieces of art or "multi-media" projects--coalesce all of the good, bad, ugly (throw away the personal attacks on both sides)--and maybe redesign the project to be more cognizant of the way the people around (that you're communicating to) experience it.
One thing I should have said in my last post--my feminist analysis is of the project, the blogpost, etc. Not the person. You all don't KNOW the people who participated in this. You can't speak for how THOSE PEOPLE experienced it. And while I'm not disavowing my p.o.v. (it remains there, below, for everyone to see), none of it means I think anyone is a bad person, or malicious, or an actual misogynist pig, or anything like that. I just don't think it was a great idea. It's not Rape In The Congo, either, though, and I think we should also keep that in mind.