FEMINISM IN POSTMODERNISM

The Postmodernist era is truly remarkable especially when it comes to media. Weve got flying cars, movies that know they are movies, and an ever evolving sense of the self. We dont ever have to leave this cozy simulacrum where the real is more real than real life. Unfortunately, the pathological view of women has not changed. Postmodernism is male-centric, heterosexual, white, and ivory tower supporting. Im going to explore a few specific areas of this broad topic. First, what the postmodern images of female-ness are so that there is a point of reference. Then Ill look at two theorists, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Francois Lyotard, for their ideas about language: Derrida for his deconstructionism and binary opposition; Lyotard for his ideas about language games, meaning, and plurality. With their analyses, Id like to prove that the postmodernist view of language is actually supporting a move away from patriarchy and white supremacy and therefore helping the feminist movement. Dictionary.com defines feminism as the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. It defines post feminism simply as pertaining to or occurring in the period after the feminist movement of the 1970s. More concisely, in the book Teach Yourself Postmodernism, Glenn Ward describes it as: A meeting of feminist concerns (e.g. Gender equality) and postmodernist attitudes (e.g. Relativism, anti-essentialism). A key figure has been Madonna, for her ability to combine apparent equality in a mans world with a possibly ironic performance of female sexuality. post-feminism rejects what it sees as feminisms hostility to pleasure. To simplify a complicated debate: where a 1970s feminist might see the fashion system as a

form of domination (dressing up for the male gaze), a post-feminist will see it in terms of womens skillful self-creation. Ward gives the examples of Madonna and an American artist by the name of Cindy Sherman to illustrate the idea of changing images of female-ness. He makes the point that these two individuals are deconstructing some of the stereotypes of women perpetuated by mass media by toying with multiple identities and making all of these identities appear equally artificial, even those of gender. An article by the name of What is "Postfeminism" and Are We In It? by Janelle Reinelt claims that post feminism, as opposed to second wave or third wave, started in the early 1980s and blossomed in the 1990s. The female image started with coercion by society to pursue the beauty ideal and moved to power feminism that rejects an old bad feminist hardline for a kind of seize the day program that claims equality and economic empowerment are attainable for women with enough drive and self-confidence. Reinelt also argues that post feminism is marked by the lack of identity of the term woman. This lessened any concrete criticisms of women because identifying with any common properties of all women became impossible. Plus, it marked the loss of a narrow ideal of what woman/en is/are. So it would seem that post feminists are obliterating the gender line by owning what it means to be a woman no longer is a womans appearance and behavior due to oppression but confidence and her own personal desire. If the idea is that language operates because of certain rules and social constructs, then we could potentially change the rules and change the meaning of the word making it more favorable or creating fewer stigmas around it at least, thats my theory. According to Derrida,

the dominant interpretation of a word is picked at and destroyed through deconstruction which is a tool that allows us to understand the meaning of a word (Foskin). This leads to plurality: which means we acknowledge more than one meaning for a phrase or a word (Foskin). This also means that a word like woman can have several different meanings. Post-feminist critics have argued, for example, that the universal desire or urge implied by generalized talk of sexuality is actually a male heterosexual idea (Ward). Perhaps by shifting to a less marginalized view of people we can support a more egalitarian society. Theres also an interesting theory about the interplay of written language and the death of matriarchy. An author by the name of Leonard Shlain wrote a book called The Alphabet versus the Goddess. In Thom Hartmans review of the book, he argues, The basic premise of Shlain's book is that we are naturally wired to be cooperative, nurturing, and probably matriarchal in social organization. Evidence of this particularly evidence of the worship of goddesses along with gods - is widespread around the ancient world, and among indigenous peoples today. But, Shlain says, when we teach abstract alphabets - the type where the letters are not pictures of the meaning conveyed to children at an early age, we cause the abstract/male side of their brains to rise up and take over, suppressing the intuitive/holistic/female side Just another example of how aspects of language that we may not even be aware of can support the suppression of women. Another theory of Derridas is binary opposition which is when a pattern is created where one in a pair of opposites is privileged. This is acquired by habit, culture, and is artificial (Foskin). In this way, a culture could easily perpetuate the idea that man is greater than woman or white is better than black. While it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to destroy binary oppositions, we can at least be aware of these.

Lyotard stressed the importance of emotions and sensations when deriving the meaning of something (Foskin). He meant to escape the confines of conventional, puritan thought and in my opinion paved a way to a less patriarchal system of thinking. This is my personal favorite analysis of language because it supports the individual and moves away from a marginalized view of people. Lyotard seemed to define truth by what truth is to each one of us based on our experiences, that our reality is just the flow of individual intensities. Truth is not universal: its personal. Lyotard also stated that truth is a language game we play with ourselves so the foundation of truth depends on the rules of the game (Foskin). Therefore we can change the rules and hence change the truth. This is such an important concept when we think about the meanings society has placed on our words and how we can destroy them and create our own. We can own our words they will no longer own us. According to the professor of the Native American Perspectives on Conquest class at Colorado State University, Dr. Roe; using the words of the oppressors freely in the oppressees own speech is the mark of internalized oppression. However, she says the word takes on a new meaning when this happens: what was once painful gradually becomes acceptable and then funny. The best example is the African American communitys adaptation of the n word. Another example is womens adaptation of the word bitch. It used to be incredibly loaded and hurtful but now its practically a compliment. Granted, the implications of internalized oppression are nothing but negative but the benefit of this process is that the word loses certain negative effects. It would lead to a world where racial slurs wouldnt hurt anyone, the word woman wouldnt be any different from the word man, and no color would hold privilege over another. Another very interesting Post Structuralist philosopher is Judith Butler who wrote about an idea known as performativity. Dino Felluga summarizes her theory:

By endlessly citing the conventions and ideologies of the social world around us, we enact that reality; in the performative act of speaking, we "incorporate" that reality by enacting it with our bodies, but that "reality" nonetheless remains a social construction . In the act of performing the conventions of reality, by embodying those fictions in our actions, we make those artificial conventions appear to be natural and necessary. By enacting conventions, we do make them "real" to some extent (after all, our ideologies have "real" consequences for people) but that does not make them any less artificial. The way this applies to gender is to think about whether the self is sexed or not, gender is not a role that expresses or disguises that interior self. Butler understands gender as an act that it has no relation to truths about the body but is only ideological. Its the repetition of norms that enables a subject and constitutes the temporal condition for the subject. Butler is making the argument that gender is only a social construction and our repetitive acts, such as language, is whats constructing it. In my opinion, this theory makes every single one of us sound dismally autonomous. And maybe we are but if shes identifying the tools with which we use to construct our genders, we can use those same tools to deconstruct and reconstruct said genders. Maybe its even possible to eliminate gender altogether. One very important thing to remember when it comes to language is who is speaking, for whom, and to what end? And who is hearing it and excluded from it? Post feminism can absolutely lead America to a more progressive era and I believe language is the key. Its accessible to everyone, constantly evolving, and incredibly powerful. To illustrate my theory that language is the foundation of defining gender well, anything really; but in this case gender I analyzed the movie Lost in Translation. It stars Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson. Its about Bob, an older movie star with a sense of emptiness,

who goes to Japan to shoot a commercial and, while there, meets a much younger, and unhappily married, Charlotte who he has an affair with. Its a very traditional movie by which I mean its your typical boy meets girl story, generally the women are wearing skirts, and Bob is quite a bit older than Charlotte. The directors name is Sofia Coppola. Shes the daughter of two directors, is divorced, and has two children with her current boyfriend. She is the third woman in history and the first American woman to be nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. Plus at the age of 32, she became the youngest woman ever to be Oscar-nominated as Best Director for this movie: Lost in Translation (Wikipedia). This is important because her background is going to impact the way gender is portrayed. I thought because this movie has a woman as a director, it would be more progressive and break out of the gender stereotypes I was wrong. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, Lost in Translation is so traditional that theres no guesswork regarding the motives of the characters and the plot runs like clockwork. Charlotte is, in my opinion, the less traditional, saving grace of gender identification which I will explain in detail later. In analyzing how the characters, mainly Charlotte and Bob, identify their gender in terms of behavior and appearance, the first thing I noticed was that almost all of the female characters wear skirts even the ones who have very little screen time. And Charlotte spends quite a bit of her screen time in underwear and a tank top. In fact, the opening scene is a close up of her posterior and thighs wearing only her underwear and a tank top. I would say this is degrading to women but Charlottes character is somewhat ambiguous in her gender definition. She rarely wears make up and when she does its very light, her hair is often unkempt even when shes in public, and her clothing style changed to suit her situation/mood (sometimes pants, sometimes a skirt). Everything about her character says that she owns who she is, even her gender, but her relationship with her new husband

defines her as a passive aggressive wife who is often left alone in the hotel room while he is at work. However, she was the one to make the first move with Bob by sending a drink to him at the bar. Bob is in Japan to shoot a whiskey commercial this fact alone defines him as a man because whiskey companies know their biggest demographic is men and their appealing to that demographic. The men in this movie hold higher job positions (e.g. Bob is a well paid actor, the photographer is a Japanese man while his assistant is a woman, the talk show host is a man while the translator is a woman, and Charlotte doesnt even have a job to speak of). Bob is often wearing a suit and he has an unhappy relationship with his wife. Bobs wife seemed to portray the nagging woman while Charlottes husband portrayed the negligent man. But Bob and Charlotte themselves are more static and fit less into gender stereotypes. As far as language goes, I think that Charlotte and Bob define themselves more traditionally. One example of this is one of the last scenes where Charlotte tells Bob that shell miss him when he leaves and he doesnt say anything. Shes very open with her emotion which is indicative of females and Bob is more closed off which is indicative of males. Another example of typical gender roles established through language is Bobs comedian role. All too often in the media men take on a loud, playful, humorous role which very few women have been able to tackle because its not seen as acceptable yet. Bob exemplifies this role when he takes Charlotte to the hospital and tells her to get in the wheelchair for no other reason than to be funny. Or when he grabs her hand and runs across the street shouting. I think Judith Butlers theory of performativity works best when analyzing these characters. What they do and how they act is ideological/traditional theres history behind their

behavior. Their language defines them as not-out-of-the-ordinary man and woman because their language is well not out-of-the-ordinary. Language is subjective, emotional, repetitious, and shifting towards plurality. These traits lay the groundwork for gender construction and therefore deconstruction. I think the movie was generally supporting current gender construction but I still believe it is possible to tear down the patriarchal norms of society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. feminism. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 25 Mar. 2010. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminism>. 2. Foskin, Professor Kevin. Class Lecture. Postmodern Language. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO. 3 March 2010. 3. Hartmann, Thom. "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image" -- Thom Hartmann's Independent Thinker Review. The BuzzFlash Blog. BuzzFlash.com, 3 February 2005. Web. 25 March 2010. 4. Reinelt, Janelle. What is "Postfeminism" and Are We in It? Public Sentiments 2.1 (2003). Web. 25 March 2010. <http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/ps/reinelt2.htm>. 5. Roe, Bubar Dr. Class Lecture. Native American Oppression. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO. 25 February 2010. 6. Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Butler: On Performativity." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. 28 Nov 2003. Purdue U. 13 May 2010. <http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/genderandsex/modules/butlerperformativity.html>. 7."Sofia Coppola." Wikipedia. Web. 13 May 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Coppola>. 8. Lost in Translation. Dir. Sofia Coppola. Focus Features, 2003. DVD.

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ABSTRACT My paper is about feminism in post modernism (which is also the title). The three main points I discuss are post modern images of female-ness, Derridas and Lyotards concepts of language and how these concepts construct a view of language that could create a society that is more accepting of diversity. The concepts of Derrida that I use specifically are deconstructionism and binary opposition. The concepts of Lyotard that I use specifically are language games, meaning, and plurality. There are also examples from Glenn Wards book, Teach Yourself Postmodernism, to define post feminism. Also, Judith Butlers performativity theory helps to show how language is only a repetitive process by which to define gender with. The movie I chose to analyze was Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson, directed by Sofia Coppola. I discuss how the language, behavior, and clothing define gender identity.

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