Uncommon Historian

  Mike, Pam, Penny, and Father In The Bluest Eye , Toni Morrison explores the dynamic between white standards of beauty, womanhood, home life, and family and the realities of her characters. She uses the classic Dick and Jane primers as a visual of those white standards: two heterosexual, middle-class parents and three very blonde children who are always clean and well-dressed. This family experiences only minor interpersonal conflicts, and the children have lives that are defined by safety and playtime. The mother stays at home and cares for the children, while the father works outside the home and returns at dinnertime and on weekends. These children do not know hunger, or cold, or pain, or fear. Morrison contrasts this with the lives of her characters, who view these storybooks as “how life is supposed to be” even though their experiences are nothing like those of Dick, Jane, and Baby. So many young children of color learned to read with Dick and Jane primers, but these books d...

This week we discussed women as cultural legends. Some of these cultural myths were based on real women, but all of the stories and images have been fictionalized to promote a patriarchal agenda and to satisfy the male gaze. In the modern era, feminists have been trying to rewrite these legends to turn these women into feminist heroes.  La Llorona by Angela Yarber One such feminist retelling can be found in Sandra Cisneros’ short story “ Woman Hollering Creek ” (1991). Set on the actual Woman Hollering Creek in Seguin, TX, this story reimagines the La Llorona myth. Where the traditional story casts La Llorona as a tragic character at best, and a monster at worst, Cisneros’ main character, Cleofilas, finds the strength to leave her abusive husband in search of a better life for herself and her child. She does not want to end her story as a victim, but instead accepts the help of another woman to take charge of her life and pursue a happier ending.  “When I look at la Virgen de ...

“Militant. Radical. Man-hating.” ( Bennet, 2014 ) Is this what feminism means in our culture? In Brancaccio, Mehta, and Menendez’s article, “ Most Millennials Believe in Gender Equity, but Avoid the ‘Feminist’ Label ” the authors discuss how many young people shy away from describing themselves as feminists. My classmates and I felt that this was partly due to negative connotations surrounding the word, and presented ideas for how to overcome this stigma and how to reframe the feminist label as a positive one. One of the suggestions was that we must use the media to begin to take control of the narrative surrounding feminism. As I read further about this issue, I realized that is already happening in U.S. culture. Jason LaVeris—FilmMagic/Getty Images Beyonce is an example of how feminism is being redefined for the younger generations. She was the focus of another article that we read in this module (LaVoulle and Ellison’s “The Bad Bitch Barbie Craze and Beyonce” in Taboo , Fall 2017), ...

Dominichino,  The Rebuke of Adam and Eve , 1626 While scholars such as Phyllis Trible (1973) have attempted to depatriarchalize Biblical interpretations to somehow reconcile faith and feminism, most feminist scholars who write about Christianity or the Bible consider the religion to be irrevocably tied to patriarchal values. For them, the story of Eve is the story of the beginning of the patriarchy. According to the Genesis account of the creation of humanity, God created Adam out of dust, in the image of God, and gave him dominion over all living things. However, God decided that Adam needed a helper, and created Eve from Adam's rib. While the creation from a rib -- from Adam's own flesh, and from his side -- may seem to imply that the two would be equals, standing side by side, Eve was not given dominion over living things as Adam was. While she was alone in the Garden, she listened to the advice of a serpent, who told her that if she ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of...