annaiswriting, 11/30

        During class on Tuesday, we discussed Judith Butler and feminist theory. Before taking this class, I had a strong interest in reading more feminist theory because of my previous experience in taking Intro to SWAG. I found reading theory as a way to educate myself on the struggles of feminists before me, and I also found it relatable to the struggles that I face as a woman today. Being able to discuss issues of feminism in a class without any men felt empowering because I could fully express myself and my experiences of misogyny without feeling judged or invalidated. In class, I discussed how when I would talk about feminism with men, despite knowing more about the topic because of my experience as a woman and because of the classes I have taken, the men would often believe that they somehow knew more about feminism than me. Throughout my college experience, I have dealt with the struggle of constantly feeling like no matter how intelligent and educated I am, my male colleagues would not view me as an equal. It has made dating extremely difficult because when I bring up these issues I feel like I am being “too much” even though I should never feel bad about standing up for what I believe in. I feel like I never really have a space to discuss how I constantly question my intellect and capability, and how that is likely to deal with my gender. When discussing being a feminist at college in this class, I heard another student talk about how men would react negatively when she told them that she was taking gender studies courses. I could completely relate to her because a lot of people, specifically male students, often do not understand the value of taking those types of courses. A statement that I hear often is that majoring or minoring in gender studies is easy, or that it should not be a real major. However, if any of those people were placed into a gender studies course, I truly believe that they would find the material challenging. Although, as a woman, I tend to fear being too much for other people, I tend to feel empowered to share my opinions and express who I am after engaging in empowering conversations with other feminists. I find that surrounding myself with other feminists encourages me to stand up for what I believe in.

mrt, Appadurai, 12/2

 "As for the fetishism of the consumer, I mean to indicate here that that consumer has been transformed through commodity flows (and the mediascapes, especially of advertising, that accompany them), into a sign, both in Baudrillard's sense of a simulacrum that only asymptomatically approaches the form of a real social agent, and in the sense of a mask for the real seat of agency, which is not the consumer but the producer and the many forces that constitute production" (p. 519).

        While Appadurai offers many interesting insights into globalization and the five dimensions of global cultural flows, this excerpt was what really stuck out to me throughout both of my readings of this piece. Appadurai uses Baudrillard to make a connection between these two theories, but my first thought was how much this reflected Marx and Engel's about the class that rules material production controls mental production. I think it's safe to say that in the current late-stage capitalism we experience in America, advertisers are indeed control of material production, meaning they control the intellectual force of consumers as well. I also noticed an interesting connection between this idea that the consumer does not hold any real agency and Adorno and Horkheimer's ideas surrounding the 'illusion of choice' and the rule of pseudo-individuality. Consumers believe that they hold agency in the sense that they are able to choose which product to buy (for example purchasing a Maybelline mascara instead of one by Covergirl), but either way they stand to serve the needs of the advertiser. Consumers become fetishized in this system because they feed the ever-growing production called for by capitalism, allowing the ruling force to stay in power because they control said production. Appadurai discusses this by saying "these images [global advertising] are increasingly distortions of a world of merchandising so subtle that the consumer is consistently helped to believe that he or she is an actor, where in fact he or she is at best a consumer" (519). We become passive participants in the system of production which has in every way become ideological. As Althusser says "the author and the reader... both live... 'naturally' in ideology"-- I would argue this could also be said about the consumer and the producer. I think there is also an interesting connection between Appadurai's ideas concerning globalism utilizing the tools of homogenization and Adorno and Horkheimer's idea that culture is infecting everything with sameness.