Childbirth, sons, marriage, and more

When I started watching Pan's Lab, I thought of Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild," which is available in full online (about 30ish pages in a normal book) if any of you are interested in reading it. It's a sci-fi story - Hugo winner, Nebulus winner. Even though it's not a fairy tale (or I hadn't thought of it that way previously...), it definitely touches on feminist issues we've been talking about in class. And it's fabulous.

Disney, Disney, Disney

Hey guys,

So some people may already know that I'm a huge animation nerd. I've been following Tangled since once upon a time when it was still Rapunzel. By following, I mean reading stories, looking at pictures, listening to the song samples, and watching videos.

Today I watched a video on YouTube. This is a Disney-sponsored video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1pPsji7BQ

I was wondering if anyone else thinks that this video is as problematic as I think it is. I'm talking specifically about the part in the middle, when it's showing "What you can do if you're 'Grounded For Life.'" The overall message is irking me a little bit, too. I'm not even sure I can say why.

As we continue with the Bluebeard section...

I mentioned in class today that "Bluebeard's Egg" works as an artistic illustration of Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. As we continue with the Bluebeard section, we might also consider Emma Goldman's "Marriage and Love" essay, particularly these portions:

• From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much less about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan of his trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn[7] something which is filthy into the purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize. Yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder of marriage. The prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive field—sex. Thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all an exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up because of this deplorable fact. (6-7)

• ...what remains of the protection and glory of the home? As a matter of fact, even the middle-class girl in marriage can not speak of her home, since it is the man who creates her sphere. It is not important[10] whether the husband is a brute or a darling. What I wish to prove is that marriage guarantees woman a home only by the grace of her husband. There she moves about in his home, year after year, until her aspect of life and human affairs becomes as flat, narrow, and drab as her surroundings. Small wonder if she becomes a nag, petty, quarrelsome, gossipy, unbearable, thus driving the man from the house. She could not go, if she wanted to; there is no place to go. Besides, a short period of married life, of complete surrender of all faculties, absolutely incapacitates the average woman for the outside world. She becomes reckless in appearance, clumsy in her movements, dependent in her decisions, cowardly in her judgment, a weight and a bore, which most men grow to hate and despise. Wonderfully inspiring atmosphere for the bearing of life, is it not? (9-10)

• The institution of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute dependent. It incapacitates her for life's struggle, annihilates her social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human character. (11)

What do you guys think? Connections between these bits and the Bluebeard stories we've read so far?

Ahhh you guys have to check this out!

http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Overthinking-It-Female-Character-Flowchart.png