Bferris4's Blog

“Love Clinic” by Soyon Im

bferris4 — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:14:00 +0000

In her essay, “Love Clinic,” Soyon discusses the dilemma of being caught between two conflicting cultures: Korean and American. She discusses enjoying and exploring freedom and liberation, which sex has provided for her. Additionally, she discusses the numerous relationships she has been in, at her own will. While these are typical American values, Soyon’s mother hopes her daughter will follow traditional Korean values. Each day she reminds her daughter not to have sex and when she finds out her daughter is no longer a virgin, she becomes outraged. Instead of allowing her daughter to pursue her own relationships she wants her to remain a Yam-ja-neh, a “nice, sweet, compliant” woman (Im 138). Her mother and father set up opportunities with possible suitors, particularly sons of friends who are successful Korean doctors or golfers. Yet, Im turns to feminist literature like Naiomi Wolf and Olga Broumas because she is unpleased with her mother controlling her sexuality and relationships, considering her mother and father have a terrible and bitter relationship. She does not accept that her mother is trying to control her daughter’s love life when she cannot even control her own.

This essay contain ideas and concepts that are similar to those found in Erica Gonzalez Martinez’s essay, “Dutiful Hijas: Dependency, Power and Guilt,” which depicts a Puerto Rican daughter who feels obligated to remain dutiful to her mother by physically and financially supporting her at an old age. Although her mother does not force Martinez to take care of her, her culture highly encourages the concepts of “marinasmo,” which teach daughters to “not be single, self-supporting, or single-minded” (Martinez 145). Like Im’s mother, Martinez’s mother is very timid and unable to find strength and power to tick up for herself, due to her economic dependability on her husband. Similarly, Martinez learns from her mother’s experiences of gender and cultural oppression from her dominating husband, and becomes and advocator of feminism. Like, Im, Martinez feels pressure and guilt when faithful duties are not fulfilled (but to a much greater extent than Im), yet, through education, she becomes enriched with knowledge of individual strength and feminism.

Unit 1 Project Sources

bferris4 — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:22:15 +0000

I’ve decided to use all of my sources that I used for my annotated bibliography, for my research paper. I am able to find a variety of content on my research topic of Black feminism and music; however I found these four sources to be the most relevant, useful, and credible. Patricia Collin’s article, “Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination,” has the most content on the history and meaning behind Black feminism, which she defines as an interconnected system of class, gender, and race. This article is a secondary source since it gathers research and opinions concerning the topic of Black feminism, from a number of other people and sources, including herself. The article provides a great base of information that I can use in my research paper to define and explain what Black feminism is. This article comes directly from her book that was published in 1990, labeled Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, which appears in many college African American studies and Black feminism writing courses. For example, Shani Jamila, whose article, “Can I Get a Witness?” appears in Colonize This !: Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism, published in 2002, mentions reading Collin’s book in her classes at Spelman College. Therefore, I find this source to be reliable and credible.

Black female rapper, Shani Jamila, provides me with another primary source of research that discusses her experiences with Black feminism and how it ties to hip hop. Since Black feminism and hip hop make up my topic, exactly, this source is an excellent way to gather insight into a Black feminist musician’s background and social views. To further my inquiry of hip hop and feminism, I chose to research and use the article “Oppositional Consequences within an Oppositional Realm: The Case of Feminism and Womanism in Rap and Hip Hop, 1976-2004”. I found this secondary source through the library website, on the data base, ProQuest. This article comes directly from a 2005 issue of The Journal of African American History. This article has given me a much better understanding about the history of female hip hop, how it has become mainstream, and how it reflects important values of Black feminism today. Since I am not too familiar with the historical background of female hip hop in the United States, this article as well as Jamila’s article is extremely helpful in learning about this subject. Finally, I am deciding to use Crystal Keel’s article, “The Hip-Hop Discourse: Coming to a Campus near You,” which is published in a 2005 issue of the journal, Black Issues in Higher Education. I found this secondary source on ProQuest as well, and it discusses the negative portrayal of Black women in hip hop and rap music videos. This is a great source since it discuses Black women’s long history of oppression and how this oppression is still connected to them today. While some Black women are being objectified in men’s hip hop videos, other women such as Shani Jamila are creating hip hop music videos of their own to lash out against such oppression. Using sources from both ends of the spectrum will bring great depth and variety to my research paper.

bferris4 — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:46:38 +0000

The introduction of Colonize This! serves the purpose of introducing the cultural and social backgrounds of the two editors of the book. Each editor, Bushra Rehman and Daisy Heranadez, discusses her hardships and oppression while living in the US, due to gender and race/ethnicity vulnerability. Both begin describing their takes on the September 11th terrorist attacks and how the attacks have affected them, tremendously. They speak of fear, as foreigners to the country; Bushra is a Muslim from Pakistan, while Daisy is American born, yet her family originates from Columbia. Despite their different cultural upbringings, they share similarities in that they have long histories of oppression and resistance. Their individual takes on war on terrorism and the September 11th terrorist attacks are very memorable, as a reader. Gaining new prospectives on this event has opened my eyes and has allowed me to be more empethetic towards these foreign-desent women. Feminism in the US has been taught through white, middle-class prospectives and not by women of minority backgrouds and color.

It is clear that the narratives primarily target women of color who can relate to their situations. This book represents activism and the authors hope to continue conversations of women of color through their promotion of feminism and its meaning as it relates to other women to color. At the end of the introduction, the editors specify four themes that deal with feminism and are discussed in the book. These themes are family and community, mothers, cultural customs, and talking back. Continuting the conversation may include further dept into the backgrounds of the editors, as well as the introduction of other women of color, to broaden the perspective of feminism even further.