Week 6 WebCT - Shakespeare/Waldman

Having spent the past week paying attention to sexist language for
an assignment in a different class, I could not help but notice that
Katherina's monologue in The Taming of the Shrew is filled with sexist
ideas and language, which no doubt stem from the patriarchal society
Katherina lives in. Barker's text cites McLuskie (p. 309) as saying
that the play treats "women as commodities within a pattern of luxury
consumption and aristocratic lifestyle." If that is not sexist and
degrading, I don't know what is.
From Katherina's monologue in its textual form, it is difficult to
discern whether Katherina is succumbing to the powers of the patriarchy
or stating the monologue as a sarcastic expression of her opinions. I
think it would be interesting to see how an actress interpreted this
text. Getting back to Barker's text now, The Taming of the Shrew is yet
another example of images of women in the media (yes, literature is
media). As to which image Katherina represents, she's not quite the imp
as she does not seem overly rebellious (though I feel there is a slight
rebellious undertone to her monologue), she is not quite the good wife
because she doesn't exactly seem to enjoy her position in domestication,
she's not the harpy because for all her words she is not truly
aggressive, and she's not the manipulative bitch. She quite easily
could be the victim, because she obviously is a victim of male
oppression, but I'd argue she is the decoy if anything - though she
seems to be the victim, her monologue (in my reading of it) seems to
express some sort of irony or sarcasm - as if she desperately wants out
of the situation. The other images Barker presents us with (siren,
courtesan, witch, matriarch) seem too far from Katherina's character to
even consider based on this monologue.
According to Barker, "the marginality or subordination of women is
understood as a constitutive effect of representation realized or
resisted by living persons" (p. 310). As I understand this, what Barker
is telling us is that images such as the ones mentioned above lead to
the marginality and/or subordination of women. If anything I would
certainly say that such images enforce it.

Moving on to the Feminafesto by Anne Waldman. It was the second to
last sentence of this piece, "Turn the language body upsidedown"
(Waldman), that drew my attention back to when we were discussing
Saussure's ideas of signs and semiotics. As Barker tells us, these
ideas were also explored by Julia Kristeva (p. 296). The very language
of our culture is a method of social control which (whether
intentionally or not) more often than not puts women in a subordinate
position to men. If one is to truly start changing this social order,
one needs to influence the language of the culture - turn it
"upsidedown" as Waldman suggests. As mentioned before, I spent the last
week recording sexist language examples from my daily life for another
class. Though we may not realize it, many parts of our language are
intrinsically sexist and patriarchal. The very word "woman" stems from
"man," truly making women the "'second sex'" (p. 297).
Julia Kristeva's ideas (as presented by Barker) seem to be quite
closely aligned with Waldman's ideas. Waldman envisions a culture where
"the body [is] an extension of energy, that we are not defined by our
sexual positions as men or women in bed or on the page" while "Kristeva
advocates a positions in which the dichotomy man/woman belongs to
metaphysics" (p. 297). While I don't think our culture can come to such
a change within my lifetime, I do believe that our culture is slowly
shifting closer to this direction. Though women are still subordinate
to men in many instances, they are closer to being equal to men now than
ever before. Heck even gays and lesbians are beginning to be
recognized. Maybe our culture's concepts of gender will get a makeover.