Nancy Huston: + autonomie des femmes = + objets! « Plus les femmes sont autonomes, plus elles deviennent objets » À quelques jours de la Journée de la femme, le 8 mars, nous avons rencontré cette essayiste, romancière, féministe de la première heure. Nancy Huston nous parle de la féminité et dénonce la disparition d’un regard valorisant sur la maternité. Psychologies : Vous êtes née au Canada, vous avez grandi aux États-Unis, en Allemagne, et vous vivez en France depuis trente-huit ans. Vous écrivez et vous exprimez aussi bien en français qu’en anglais. Vous sentez-vous « étrangère » ? Nancy Huston : Je me sens en exil depuis toujours. Quelle petite fille étiez-vous ? N.H. : J’étais les quatre enfants de mon roman Lignes de faille : perverse et cruelle comme Sol, perplexe et nerveuse comme Randall, extrêmement triste et en colère comme Sadie, euphorique et joyeuse comme Kristina. À quel moment votre mère est-elle partie ? Vous lui devez tout, malgré son départ ? Vous a-t-elle expliqué pourquoi elle vous avait quittés ? N.H. : Oui.
Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil A brilliant young man, he was appointed professor at the University of Basel aged 24 having not even finished his degree. His evanescent philosophical life ended 20 years later when he went insane and died shortly afterwards. Nietzsche's argued that the Christian system of faith and worship was not only incorrect, but harmful to society because it allowed the weak to rule the strong - it suppressed the will to power which was the driving force of human character. Nietzsche wanted people to throw of the shackles of our misguided Christian morality and become supermen - free and titanic. However, without God he felt that the future of man might spiral into a society of nihilism, devoid of any meaning; his aim was for man to realise the lack of divine purpose and create his own values. The core of Nietzsche's work, including Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-92), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was to find a meaning and morality in the absence of God.
How objectification silences women - the male glance as a psychological muzzle : Not Exactly Rocket Science For something intangible, a glance can be a powerful thing. It can carry the weight of culture and history, it can cause psychological harm, and it can act as a muzzle. Consider the relatively simple act of a man staring at a woman’s body. This is such a common part of modern society that most of us rarely stop to think of its consequences, much less investigate it with a scientific lens. Tamar Saguy is different. Leading a team of Israeli and US psychologists, she has shown that women become more silent if they think that men are focusing on their bodies. Saguy’s study is one of the first to provide evidence of the social harms of sexual objectification – the act of treating people as “de-personalised objects of desire instead of as individuals with complex personalities”. She recruited 207 students, 114 of whom were women, on the pretence of studying how people communicate using expressions, gestures and vocal cues. Men had no such qualms. Reference: Saguy et al. 2010.
Corps en miettes C’est dans le cadre des discussions autour de la révision des lois bioéthiques, qui devrait intervenir au plus tard en 2011, que Sylviane Agacinski publie chez Flammarion "Corps en miettes", un essai sur la question des mères porteuses. Aux sénateurs qui proposent d’encadrer cette pratique et à ceux qui souhaitent sa légalisation, elle répond : La barbarie a toujours été moderne, toujours nouvelle, toujours actuelle. Nous progressons parfois vers elle sans le vouloir, aveuglés par les "progrès" de la puissance technologique et les ruses du marché. Sur 134 pages, la philosophe développe ses arguments. Avec conviction, Sylviane Agacinski dénonce l’extension absolue, sans reste, d’une mentalité capitaliste dans un monde où les plus faibles sont ainsi naturellement les premières proies de tous les marchés humiliants, comme le marché du sexe ou pire, celui des organes. L’auteur dénonce d’ailleurs l’hypocrisie du langage en la matière.
Sans de vrais hommes, point de vraies femmes The Misogyny of Perfection Spoiler alert: please read this commentary after watching the movie. I have a friend who is a professor of women's studies who steadfastly refuses to go to the opera or the ballet, maintaining that both are profoundly misogynistic. Her oft-repeated comment is that "the girl almost always dies at the end" (think Tosca, Carmen, Mimi, Thais, Cho-cho-san, Giselle, and of course the White Swan). She will not be going to the movies to see Black Swan any time soon. Well, I just finished watching Black Swan and it made me wish that I had followed her example. A fragile little thing crumbling in the face of pressure We all know by now that Natalie Portman plays Nina, a repressed, perfectionist dancer with the New York City Ballet, who is given the opportunity to play the Swan Queen in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and crumbles from the pressure of having to dance both the parts of the pure White Swan and the evil Black Swan. Black Swan only reflects the misogyny that already exists in society
the sexualisation of girls | Anonymous I was first scouted at the age of 14 by one of the world's most prestigious model agencies. I was told that my life had now changed and had to be perfect: bikini waxes, leg waxes, lots of water, perfect skin and having to stay slim were all on the agenda. I had just about started my period by then. I did my first topless shoot a year later for a well-known photographer, and they were photographs that oozed sex. As far as I'm concerned we drape paedophilic images from every billboard and expensive magazine. • This contributor prefers to remain anonymous Lili Owen Rowlands, posts as liliscarlet In the week in which the inventor of Spanx made this year's world's billionaires list, I flick back through my journal to when, four years ago and aged 15, I described hoisting my own thighs into a pair of the sausage-skin underwear for my school fashion show. But I am ashamed that I did not question the very notion of sexualisation, that I succumbed to the male gaze so young.
Understanding Why Pornography Addiction is a Brain Disease “One ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them. One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.” Until the general public becomes more informed about the reality of how pornography impacts the human brain it will continue to be looked upon as a moral weakness or a form of mere entertainment. Pornography addiction is the most difficult addiction to treat because it hits at the very core of our humanity. Throughout my professional carrier I have spent countless hours treating those with chemical dependency addictions such as with alcohol, heroin/opiates, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana etc. Our brains are made up of tiny chemicals called neurotransmitters. The physical/chemical brain has a tremendous capacity to gain control of the mind. In essence, the only difference between a heroin or cocaine addict is the way the drug enters the system. Just as Dopamine is the chemical of pleasure, Oxytocin is the chemical of bonding.