I always feel like I got my money's worth when I leave a class hopelessly confused, so shout out to Dr. Tapley who always leaves me hopelessly confused.
That was a hell of a class. Not only did I out myself as a misogynist-music lover, I think I might have implied rape makes me feel powerful. So not my intention! But, I have to admit, after a long day of Women's Studies classes full of analyses of oppression and detailing my own subjugation, nothing hits the spot like locking myself in my den, blasting 50 on my computer and singing along at the top of my lungs! What can I say; sometimes a girl needs to feel powerful. That music is powerful. And so I have been thinking about power and empowerment. 50 Cent uses powerful language. He talks about what he does, who he is and, often, what he is going to do to other people. So is power always about who gets to sit in the subject seat and who they get to place in the object seat? Does power necessarily imply that you have power over someone, or are at the least more powerful than someone else? Even as feminists, we feel empowered by our enlightened state of being to the extent that we can recognize others who are not as enlightened as we, and thereby feel more powerful than they. Can I feel powerful without the knowledge that there are other people who are less powerful than I? Basically, what I am wondering is this: if, tomorrow, the world magically became a totally egalitarian place where we were all equals, would we all be equally powerful or would power simply cease to exist as a concept? Is power dependent on the notion that some people have more than others?
An analogous example to better illustrate my point: Dove thinks we should fight for real beauty. Dove thinks we should recognize that everyone is beautiful in their own way. But beauty doesn't work like that. If we were all considered equally beautiful, beauty would no longer exist as a meaningful concept. Nobody would say "wow, you're really beautiful", if all that meant were “wow, you look just like everyone else”. Beauty is a comparative concept. We can only be and feel beautiful by recognizing others who are less or more beautiful. If the above is also true of power - if we can only be empowered by feeling more powerful than others - is empowerment a good thing? Should we really be proud that we feel empowered? Should we really be working so hard to empower ourselves? My head hurts.
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2 comments:
I think that for sure, if someone is powerful, someone else must be less powerful. This idea stems from the idea that everything is defined against what it is not. For example, the concept of heterosexual is only possible through the concept of homosexual. Likewise, in order to have a subject, it must be defined according to what it is not – an object. With this thought one can argue that empowerment is not a good thing as it brings with it disempowerment; however, on the flip side, one can say that disempowerment may be a good thing because it creates empowerment. I believe this all ties into what I have been agonizing over for the last little while that for one group to rise up in the social order, another group must fall. I love identity politics, for example I fully embrace the identity of lesbian/butch/dyke; but at the same time perhaps they are our downfall, because if everyone were to be equal, we would have no groups as they would have no one to define themselves against.
(this isn't my post/response of the week, however I wanted to respond)
I agree with the moneys worth - AND that you're brave enough to actually 'out' yourself because I also listen to rap music and I think regardless of the music the beat adds to something powerful. I think someone who is deaf and can only feel vibrations as a way of 'listening' to music would find Rap music wayyyy more powerful than anything higher pitched. The beat to rap music I think helps reinforce the ROAR, I am TRUELY here and I am going to TELL YOU about X,Y, and Z. So blast on sister blast on! or as 50 would say "Go Shorty."
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