queers/gender/appropriation

Diane Hodges (dhodges who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu)
Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:58:22 -0700

xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>Without sounding too Foucaultian, how does appropriation take us beyond
>the
>problems of internalization.

without sounding too queer, why do men find internalization a problem?
is there any learning that can ever in this existence take place
without the irrepressible process of learning?

> The assimulationist project was not only
>concerned with skills, but also identity formation. I find appropriation
>as useful, but it also has its risks.

why would you assume that 'appropriation' is somehow optional?
isn't this like assuming that learning can be controlled or regulated?

> I think Rogoff, Wertsch and many
>others work in wonderful in pointing towards culture, education being a
>dynamic process that involves intersubjectivity. But, it is also
>important
>to remember that this process makes "internalization" more efficient.
>Yes,
>the child is more active in this process but that doesn't in itself make
>it
>any less assimulationist. One example from Rogoff's manuscript on guided
>participation, a mother responds to her daugter playing with an object
>(doll) "is that the eyes, did you kiss the baby". Its a nice example of
>appropriation in that a certain intersubjectivity is involved between
>mother and daughter, yet it also is about appropriating gender roles.
>Without sounding too ironic is there much difference in having the girl
>internalize gender roles vs appropriating them.

yikes. YIKES. you make it sound as if gender roles are conscious options,
when we live in a misogynist world, and when any gender digression of
female-feminine or female-masculine or female-male is a subject of
discovery,

and yet the male=queer equations are noticeable in their absence.
appropriating a gender identity involves a cultural context of approval -
any gender identity that resists misogyny is the work of
internalizing a gender identity and invariably involves a context of
resistance.
cripes dude.

diane
>
>Nate
>

' 'We have destroyed something by our presence,' said Bernard, 'a
world perhaps.'
(Virginia Woolf, "The Waves")

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, vancouver / university of colorado, denver

Diane_Hodges who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu