In Sedgwick’s “How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay” I found it interesting that she pointed out that in DSM III when the definition of “homosexual” had been removed but “Gender Identity of Childhood” had been added to the list of disorders. The most interesting part of this was that the definition only applies to girls when they are anatomically male, or will become male. However, the diagnosis is for boys whenever they desire to not have a penis or act like women, in dress and manner. This reminded me of our first readings of the class and the understandings of gender differences, where the differences are completely centered on the male genitalia. If you remember the readings, Galen and Huarte de San Juan talked about the only difference between men and women anatomically were the placement of the genitalia, in reference to the male penis. Why has the medical definition of genitalia solely been focused on the penis and not female genitalia? Can this signify sexism within medical diagnoses?
In a very different line thought, I want to explore an obsession with lipstick. What is it that makes makeup in general and lipstick in particular an identifier of femininity? How did Joon Oluchi Lee know almost instinctively that lipstick expressed the more feminine? Lee even remembers the taste of the lipstick twenty years later when he buys his first kind again. Why is it that women are typically the ones changing their appearance and “perfecting” it, so to speak, while it is not socially acceptable for a man to do the same. Does it stem from women-as-spectacle, as described from the Silverman article that we read earlier this year? If the woman is the one to be looked at and desired, she must then be the physically perfected, with the help of makeup. But then what does that at all have to do with Lee’s early fascination with lipstick? How could he have come to be indoctrinated at such a young age to perfect oneself in order to be the spectacle? Therefore it must sometimes stem from something else. Because lipstick is for lips, does this introduce an oral fixation, or does it come from the femininity and sensuality of lips that lipstick will highlight? I obviously do not know the answer, but what do you think?
Your dialogue about lipstick was extremely interesting! For a while now, this class has caused be to question the established rituals within our society that revolve around gender. The idea of makeup has particularly been on my mind as I have begun to question it just as you have. At what point did it become socially acceptable for women to essentially mask their physical appearance yet for men, wearing makeup is something that others laugh at. I know that I have even caught myself suprised to see men wearing eyeliner; but why? I don't think I can answer that.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I hadn't thought of, was large a role one inanimate object could play in human decisions and behavior. Thinking about lipstick and the instictive feeling that it is feminine can even be present in children makes me wonder if the need for feminine perfection is somthing that is innate, or something that is created by society.
The lipstick issue (all that fuss about an inanimate object, as Ashlee puts it) is indeed fascinating. The fact that this object is used on the mouth, of course, is of great importance, as Tessa suggests when we think of "orality" as one of the main avenues for pleasure for a baby. And even THE avenue connecting mother and child through the breast.
ReplyDeleteBut wouldn't these oral pleasures be shared by both male and female babies? Why is it that only females are associated with the lipstick obsession?
ReplyDeletePerhaps "properly heterosexualized" males manage to project their fascination with "the feminine" onto women. I believe Kaja Silverman suggests that in "Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse." Of course all babies go through "the oral phase" (and perhaps never leave it?). But the way they will manage their attachment to certain pleasures (oral ones or otherwise) will differ (repression, projection, disavowal, embodiment, etc): for Oluchi Lee, he ultimately managed to embrace his "lack", his metaphorical castration.
ReplyDeleteok! that makes more sense :)...that everyone does have a fascination with oral pleasuew but different people project it onto different things.
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