Notes for 3/5 Marcus and Daiss

Liz Reynolds
Notes for 3/5
Marcus and Daiss articles

I. Business

II. Marcus on Rape Scripts

III. Daiss on Violence

IV. Midterm Handout

*There is a very extensive discussion section where I was able to identify most comments/speakers but not all. Sorry if I missed you or your name!

I. Business

Midterm: prepare on your own

must prepare for every perspective (you’ll do at least two over the course of the midterm)

II. Understanding Marcus

D

The way that we talk about women, our language, makes women more susceptible to rape/violence.

Feminist conceptions of rape as “real”, “inevitable”, “immutable”, “facts”. Marcus is concerned that this creates vulnerabilities for women that don’t need to exist. She targets feminists and non-feminists alike.

Also concerned with legality and policies only deal with rape after the fact, failure to focus on prevention.

A

Rape is a language in itself, thinking about rape linguistically; involves gendered grammar (of violence) and scripting rape.

Criticizes the continuum of rape that is presented, argues that it doesn’t allow a gap for women to fight back.

Men being subjects of violence. “If men get into a fight men expect violence to be on both sides”. Men are formed as subjects who are expected to know how to handle and use violence. Conversely, women are formed as objects of that violence and subjects of that fear. As a result, women when confronted with violence tend to be fearful instead of fighting back.

Women are formed to think that they are a space to be violated.

V

Marcus wants feminists to get rid of the script of rape

Wants women to have a different sense of self

Wants to make it so women are also subjects of violence, it should not be reserved for men.

Suggesting a rethinking of violation of space

S

Wants women to disrupt the script focus on prevention of rape rather than dealing with it after the fact, outlines different ways to disrupt the script (a woman who fights back whether verbally, physically, etc. challenges the power that a rapist feels and has the potential to dissuade or defuse the situation).

Critiques

Uses very broad depictions of men and women. Men rape, women are raped.

wrong vision: all subjects should be non-violent

Discussion:

Did anyone take martial arts classes when younger (elementary school)? Dr. Sparks related to a former WGS major taking up martial arts and explaining it in terms of moving from an object to a subject of violence. Says Marcus is arguing that it’s not even the act of being violent but for men to know they women have the potential to fight back.

LL question: Rethinking women as agents of violence: interested in quote about representation and beginning to imagine the female body as changing, multi-subjectivity. Marcus would probably say that representation isn’t cohesive or doesn’t have to be, and it’s perfectly possible to have more than one subjectivity.

RB: Thinks that Marcus’s theory about linguistics is compelling but problematic in terms of advice Marcus seems to be giving to potential victims of violence. For instance, when she says “maybe make a joke” or “punch your rapist”. Rachel disagrees that that could put the victim in a more dangerous position. The burden of ending rape seems to still lie with women.

BS: Agrees with the burden of rape being on women and also believes that for the survivors of sexual assault can reinforce victim blaming. Puts burden on both potential victims and survivors.

Student: Maybe one of the other things that was problematic was advocating for women to engage in what we think of as male violence, the way that males typically interact with each other. Acknowledges it’s for the purpose of the male knowing that the female is not fearful.

MJ: Why is becoming a subject of violence the ultimate goal? Being an active subject or object of violence or fearful, weak “thing”, in a basic way it makes sense but is problematic. Why is there a project of taking feminine characteristics and pushing them to a more masculine, violent, “phallic” position.

LL: When you’re talking about using the terms “men” and “women” generally with understanding but having frustrations with gendered language, relates to Mackinnon and power dynamics (in language). *Only in terms of gendered language, not impossibility of consent.

RB: Language implied heteronormativity. Perhaps gendered language was something Marcus was willing to overlook for other things.

Student: Fearful of what this would look like longterm, if everyone was engaged in subject-subject violence, if Marcus’s ideas were the only option.

LL: “Hobbesian”, this will create hierarchies and privilege.

HS: The making women subjects of violence is what’s bothering most of you?

BS: It’s putting men as the norm and telling women they must get to that norm to be safe from rape, which I think is wrong. I don’t think we need to masculinize women in a violent way for rape to not be a thing. It’s not taking the experience of many women into account.

HS: Marcus would say that you’re leaving women open to raped, not men to stop rape.

BS: If we’re going to put it in that way, we need to start it from the ground up, we need to change the way we’re bringing men into the world then.

RB: Right, different forms of socializiation then.

HS: (As Marcus) What are you going to do with all the women in the world now then? What are you going to do with all the boys? How many generations will this take?

MJ: The only way this strategy would lead to prevention of violence in the longterm...there’s no broader reframing of violence, you need to start from the ground up. Disrupting it at the moment is and admirable concern...there’s a difference between stopping and preventing.

??: How do we get to a point where I feel like I could fight a full grown man? Why should I have to take so much of myself and my time?

Student: She would say you’re already spending a lot of time preventing as an object of violence (carrying keys, avoiding dark, walking with friends). Why not teach [self-defense] when children are young?

….

HS: Who teaches their son to rape?

HS: It gives women more options to prevent it in the moment instead of waiting generations.

Discussion on whether or not it’s inefficient to spend time on self-defense, rape crisis centers, etc. “Is it more efficient to work on stopping it in the moment [Marcus] or preventing in the long term [class opinion]?”

She’s suggesting that all of these [the strategies] are captured and repeated in discourse. She’s trying to target one piece of the bigger picture. You can not like this [women being a subject of violence]; maybe if everyone can commit violence and it might be possible to lower the violence.

HS: In 20 years the responses to this [our class] has an understanding of rape culture, what it is and what perpetuates it.  

III. Daiss (discussion):

Student: Finding it troubling that she was teaching her daughter to be violent rather than take other measures to get the boy to stop.

Student: My first inclination was that also, but I thought of different social movements over time and it’s hard to tell someone not to defend themselves, but obviously communication is better in the long run. It’s unsettling to tell someone to find another solution.

Student: How do you define or distinguish when violence is happening? You could argue that violence occurred before they had an altercation, the little boy saw the little girl as someone that he could be violent to. Going back to Marcus’s argument, I think there is a violence that is immutable and there’s a certain violence that yields a certain response and there’s a violence that happens in the moment. I think that defending yourself in the moment is acceptable but also you have to teach both the boy and girl that violence in itself is not ok.

Student: I really agree with that because it was the only part of Marcus that I agree with when she discusses the continuum of violence where any violence on the continuum is violence. The violence started way before and could have been intercepted beforehand. Needing to understand that all of these things are violence and acknowledging that there are different degrees of violence. When it comes to Daiss, I don’t know, my mom taught me if someone hits you to hit them. I think it goes back to the conversation of socialization.

Have to think about your goals vs. values when deciding what is going to create social change.