I'm so sorry to be posting this (slightly) late today! Have a great weekend everyone.
Reading over the pieces in class this week was very
troubling, and served to give me some mini existential crises to work through.
While it was difficult to work through, I also think that being uncomfortable
is sometimes maybe necessary to process complex ideas and boil them down to
their useful components. I suppose I just think it’s really hard to grow if we
always stay comfortable - sometimes shock value (a radical idea) is critical to
start the ball rolling on changing our perceptions, as well as get us out of
our bubbles that we may be living in. I'm curious if other people agree that being uncomfortable can be conducive to promoting change and helping individuals see problems in a new light.
It was difficult for me to read MacKinnon especially, and
begin to work through ideas of consent not being valid due to compulsory
heterosexuality and all the structures of domination and power that exist. Does
that mean that I can never have any sort of sexual encounter? Today in class
during our discussion, we talked about how a lot of different sexual acts would
be construed as rape by MacKinnon, and how uncomfortable that left us feeling.
We also wanted to discuss if masturbation then becomes the only thing to do
that isn’t in some manner forced by compulsory heterosexuality. But – we could
see MacKinnon’s argument going as far as to say that there is no way any form
of penetration is acceptable, which would narrow down and police sexuality to a
very few things (so, where do we draw the line?).
I suppose the part that made me feel most uncomfortable in
the theorists this week was the idea that I have no power or control. I’d like
to think that I do have the ability to make choices, but if they are all governed
by a system in place, then I just have the illusion of choice. I guess the way
to explain this would be if I were offered apples or oranges, I would take that
as me having a choice, but it’s not a real choice because there are so many
different fruits out there I could have, but I’m just not seeing because the
person offering them is just showing me what they want me to see. That’s kind
of an abstract example, but I hope it works. I suppose the question I am
grappling with is if we don’t actually have choices in this heteropatriarchy
and there is no consent, then does anything we do actually matter? Won’t the
system make sure that no matter what we do we wind up in the same place anyway?
I definitely think that being uncomfortable is one of the first steps to promote change and see things in a new light. As people living in Canada, attending university I would say we live fairly "comfortable" lives. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to be uncomfortable so that we do not become complacent in our lives. If we are uncomfortable with a certain facet of our life we will be more driven to change our circumstances. Stepping out of our bubble and being uncomfortable will help us to promote change around us and around the world.
ReplyDeleteMackinnon's points about consent and compulsory heterosexuality also left me wondering about what sexual encounters are "allowed." She doesn't really leave any room for women to choose to have sex because she says consent is not possible. I have the exact same questions you pose about sexuality and consent.
I also struggled with these readings making me feel like I had no power and agency. It's hard to wrap my head around the idea that the choices I make in some situations are not choices at all. Your apples and oranges example was great and made a lot of sense. How can we ensure that we do have power and agency? Do we only have illusions of power and agency? The theorists this week have left me with more questions about rape and our society then I had before.