the coercion of segregation..

So I recently watched a segment on ABC World News (tiny and short), which was focused the implementation of single-sex education in the Greene County school district of South Carolina. The news segment which aired on February 18th was supplemented by this news article, which states:

“Next fall, public schools in Greene County may be the first to implement single-sex education. By separating students by gender, educators hope to improve low test scores, and cut down on teen pregnancy and disciplinary issues, which trouble most of the school system in that rural district.

‘Our high school still ranks 332 out of 369 schools in Georgia,’ said Shawn McCollough, superintendent of the Greene County schools. ‘So, it’s pretty alarming when you see you’re that close to the bottom.’

The board of education approved the measure in a unanimous vote last week. The sports and band programs will remain mixed, and boys and girls will continue to ride the same buses to school. Only the academic programs will be segregated.” (source)

The article goes on to acknowledge that the parents of Greene County students were not able to vote for or against this measure, and that many parents feel helpless and rightfully upset over the “forced” segregation of their children. The way in which the Greene County board of education has dealt with a single-sex segregation enforced school district has outraged even Leonard Sax, from the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, and one of the lead advocates for single-sex education.

food for thought – hannah wilke.

“Visual prejudice has caused world wars, mutilation, hostility, and alienation generated by fear of ‘the other.’ Self-hatred is an economic necessity, a capitalistic, totalitarian, religious invention used to control the masses through the denial of the importance of a body language, which is replaced by a work ethic devised to establish a slavery of the mind burdened by that awful albatross – the body . . . . The pride, power and pleasure of one’s own sexual being threatens cultural achievement, unless it can be made into a commodity that has economic and social utility.” (emphasis added)

-Hannah Wilke

In the 1970s and early ’80s, Hannah Wilke produced performance tapes that examine sex and sexuality, feminism and femininity, the body and its representation. Wilke explores gesture in relation to gender and power, using her own image to confront the erotic representation of the female body in art history and popular culture. (source)

unconventional feminisms: or, postmodern narcissism in the third-wave.

I think we’ve all read the newspaper reports that (negatively) call this generation the most selfish, the most apathetic, the most self-entitled. And also think that most feminist bloggers would agree that nothing could be further from the truth. But I have to admit, I am fascinated by the concept of narcissism – which I do think is increasing. The difference is that when I use the term narcissism, and especially when I use it in a postmodern context, I don’t utilize the negative connotation that perhaps older generations are incinuating. We are living in a world that is unstable, dangerous, and uncertain. Former structures of stability are gone, future structures of stability are uncertain. Narcissism has become a necessity in this world. Furthermore, The third-wave has been influenced by postmodernism narcissism. This is my attempt to explore how. 

This paper explores the blogosphere through a lens of postmodernism. The reason I wanted to write this paper, and the reason that I’m posting it here, is because I’m really very interesed in postmodernism, narcissism, and their relationships to the third-wave. The concept for this paper was almost exclusively inspired by Sean Conroy’s article, “The Nightmare of Clever Children: Civilization, Postmodernity, and the Birth of the Anxious Body.”

I would L-O-V-E feedback on this. If you take the time to read, thank you – please let me know your thoughts. And yes, my abstract overlaps a bit with the introduction.

Abstract:

Using unconventional language and technological spaces, American third-wave feminism is forging new ground. Increases in the number of women’s studies programs nationally, as well as increases in nonacademic feminist discourses through the blogosphere, have produced a multidimensional brand of young third-wave feminism. However, the postmodern situation has created unchartered ground for feminism. Acknowledging the deconstruction of normative frameworks of stability, the death of god, and the implications of identity formation without structure or security, I will explore how postmodernity and inevitable postmodern narcissism are influencing the third-wave. Included in this discussion will be the third-wave’s distinction from second-wave feminism and academia, choosing instead to construct a plural and dialectical feminism which rejects former icons and dismisses overarching hegemonies. Specifically, this creation of feminist plurality will be discussed through the tool of the internet blogosphere, a space of self-creation and reimagination that has irrevocably revolutionized third-wave feminist identity formation. I will discuss the blogosphere as a space of modern consciousness-raising, as well as a space of postmodern identity construction and a new embodiment of individualistic feminist ideology. Ultimately, I will ask whether the influence of postmodern narcissism has strengthened feminism by allowing it fluidity and plurality, or if instead it has divided feminism and lost definition.