The Male Gaze and Makeshift

[radical_jojo]

Comments

[rgspiritwalker]

I've grown up with a lot of women who had very powerful attitudes, Jojo. Every one of them seemed to have a problem (not with themselves) but the fact that social circles don't always know where to pidgeon hole them. If you rely too much on the opinions of others, you can feel alienated for the very traits which make you strong. You are a strong woman who is straight and embraces both femininity and masculinity in her work. I'm a sensitive man who is straight and embraces both masculinity and femininity in my work. These abilities make us more of a human being, not less

[radical_jojo]

I...I've gotta be honest: I have no idea what people actually mean when they say "strong woman". The phrase gets used so often that's it's kinda cliche, and I really don't know what it's supposed to entail. :B

I'm afraid I expressed myself badly in this blog. My crisis of conscience refers to whether I inadvertently promote a worldview that lessens women to being only passive roles in an androcentric world.

My (perhaps unnecessary) worry is that I've somehow been promoting a morally incorrect view in my art, specifically. I don't have any such hangups as to my own personal conduct, which is a gender-neutrality that I'm perfectly comfortable with. I only mentioned myself in the context of trying to figure out whether I'm committing wrongdoing in my art, since my own (not particularly girly) self must obviously have a major role in informing my (perhaps though not necessarily questionable) art and writing.

[rgspiritwalker]

I apologize. I know that there are many kinds of strengths and did not mean it in the cliche. Let me use the strongest woman in my life as an example. That would be my Granny Sparks on the Native American side of my family. She was like Granny of the "Beverly Hillbillies" on steroids. She was blunt, determined, and impossible to dominate. As if it wasn't enough for her to grow up crippled from polio, she grew up in violence. Our state is in the top ten for domestic violence and seeing what my family had been through two generations back, I can see why. She survived (not by submission) but by scrapping back. When my Grandfather tried to do the same to her and her children, she physically threw him out. And let me tell you, he went dinged up too. When I speak of her strength, I don't just refer to her physical strength, (and she was as physically strong as any man I've known) but also the determined spirit within the woman. No man would ever be able to dominate her. She did the dominating. When a woman gets a toothache,

[amberace]

* would try and make a deep meaningful comment... but laughing too much at the wolverine picture *

omg thats too funny!

[radical_jojo]

:D