linguistic resistencia, a struggle of the sisterhood

She walked brusquely into the classroom, heels clicking, hair in perfect formation. She immediately was one of those teachers that students learned to recognize as early as elementary school as someone who meant business. Moments later Prof. Micheaux introduced Natasha Behl. Her dark eyes flashed excitedly over the class. If there was such a thing as rolling up ones sleeves within the brain, its effect was certainly making an impact upon all of us awaiting the start of our discussion for the day.

The topic? Writing as a tool of resistance, and what it means for women within the transnational feminist framework.

Our discussion was focused on Women Writing Resistance, a collection works composed by mujeres de color addressing the way in which women are subjugated to the power structures of the status quo...and how they are fighting such oppression. From Gloria Anzaldua, to Aurora Morales, Ruth Irupe Sanabria, and the Combahee River Collective Statement, women have found language - in all its forms and voices - to be the crux of not only resistance, but empowerment.

Language, and those who use it to construct various realities, is inherently tied to status. The divide between those who are educated and uneducated alienates voices from the "narrative" (or at least the narrative heard by privileged white women) of the sisterhood. Having learned how to express themselves within the confines of stuffy academia, writers like Gloria Anzaldua express incredible frustration about the consequential limitations. "I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing," (79) wrote Gloria Anzaldua in her piece, Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers. "We speak in tongues like the outcast and the insane. Because white eyes do not want to know us, they do not bother to learn our language, the language which reflects us, our culture, our spirit" (80). And so, in an act of rebellion, Anzaldua and the other female writers mentioned above begin to place their "wild,"  and "native" tongues into their writing; writing against white privilege and white systems, but also traditional forms of feminism that fail to take into account the diversity of stories untold. The result are short, sharp, shrewd, sassy essays of spanglish syntax. 

"i ain't denying nothing

i'm a contradiction

in its self

an' this 

is how I SPEAK so listen y escuchalo bien

cuz you know how I be feelin'

'bout repitiendome

tu ve, es que

this is what I have become..." (Sanabria 95)

But don't get too comfortable yet. 

Sanabria, in "Las aeious" relates a story where her professor refused to accept a paper, claiming that Sanabria must have plagiarized the assignment because her written "voice" didn't match her latina slang...apparently not sounding "barrio enough" (92) And so, a "defense against the racist silencing and shaming of our voices in American society," began and united the Black woman writing from a New York tenement, the Indian woman walking to work lamenting the lack of time, and the Chicana fanning away mosquitoes, the hot air, and the embers of her penciled words. 

And so we again begin to witness the intersectionality of race, class, and privilege in constructing gender identities. Interestingly enough however, the sisterhood is sustained by solidarity found through writing.

This new language, the language of "the borderlands," builds greater intimacy within the spectrum of experiences. An invitation to hear an unaltered voice, such language demonstrates a hybrid of identities, yet also places responsibility on those who listen or read, to act! Language is political. By meeting halfway, borderland language represents a desire to negotiate, to understand both sides of the border, and ultimately construct a new consciousness. 

The limits of language, limits one's world. These female resistance writers are reminding us to try navigating by other voices.

A Plea for Sisterhood

Get Inspired.

I do believe in a sisterhood. Despite the struggles, a movement for women, by women, respecting the diversity of struggles around the globe and refusing to find narratives mutually exclusive...a global sisterhood is not so hard to conceive... 

In fact it is harder to ignore...

Miss India Georgia Presents...

Watching "Miss India Georgia" took me back to my own pageant days.

Okay more like pageant six-months-of-my-life-that-I'll-never-get-back..

Six months of my life in which I lost nearly 15 pounds, drooled over the thought of eating half of a granola bar, and constantly compared my 17 year old undeveloped body to women 2-5 years older than me, competiting for the title of Miss Poulsbo/Miss Kitsap.

I went into it with my good friend Sarah, intending to make our story the sequel to Sandra Bullock's "Miss Congeniality." And there was money in it too, money that would help me pay for my first semester at Willamette. Talking before the pageant rehearsals began, Sarah and I laughed alot about the idea of parading around in a bikini and performing a synchronized dance in front of 500 people. We were fearless.

 The theme? Dreamgirls.

In retrospect, there's so much wrong with the "Dreamgirls" theme I don't even know where to start. If you listen to the lyrics of the "Dreamgirls" song its not about what it means to be a woman, its about what it means to be a woman serving the needs of a man, to be a man's "Dreamgirl," saying nothing of self respect and ambition.  Not only that, we were all pale white girls from a small county making the incredible struggle of a trio of black female soul artists during the 1960s our platform for feminine performance. I shudder just thinking about it.

Karina (me) and Sarah, hours before the show

Up until I began "training" for the pageant, I had never really cared what people thought about how I looked, what I wore, whether I was fat or skinny. I just was ME, an athletic, incredibly geeky, but confident young lady and I felt pretty comfortable in my own skin...most of the time. Then rehearsals started, and I had to start learning how to dance, squeeze into hand-me-down past pageant dresses encrusted in sequins that the morbidly obese director told me I would have to "work" to get into (despite my 125 lbs...oh the irony!), and learn how to cake makeup properly on my face so I could be beautiful. Then I had to learn how to walk in heels in a hot pink bikini. I remember practicing with the video camera in my living room one day when my parents weren't home, so I could learn to get my walk "right", with the hip swaying, the turns, the placement of my feet.  Even with the support female contestants I began to feel inferior. At that point, I didn't have cleavage or the hips, nor did my legs hit the floor like Barbie. I had a plain normal looking body, but I had to learn to act like the ultimate feminine object of beauty. I didn't think I fit the part.  While the air of solidarity and encouragement between the female contestants helped us get the most from the pageant experience, it also symbolized my loss of innocence about the incredible value placed upon those that fit the stereotype. We had to learn how to be "women". Carry ourselves like "women". In the end, the mastery of our sex divided us: only one woman could wear the glittering crown, leaving the others left behind wondering.

Lining up at the end in our evening gowns, waiting to hear the results

This performance - this act of perpetuating a caricature of female identity, of how women are supposed to look, act, and feel about themselves, their identities, their sexuality - was like opening up a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup: completely disappointing, predictable, yet so easy to mindlessly consume if one doesn't pay attention.

When I think about the Miss India Georgia pageant, I realize how much greater the struggles of Misty, Nisha, Anu, and Mini must have been. I would have been one of those "intimidating white American girls" that Misty said caused her to not want to actually participate in a "real" American pageant. Additionally, having to reconcile their own identities, as first generation Indian-Americans, rooted in two separate worlds and cultures, contributes to the challenges that they face in portraying themselves in a venue that emphasizes sexuality. What that means as an American woman, a traditional Hindi woman, and for a woman having to straddle the expectations and stereotypes of also race and class... truly harrowing. What frightens me however is how consumed by the pageant all the girls became, even though they originally entered into it playfully. Mini especially saw the pageant as her chance to prove herself, to prove that she had worth. "If only I won this, and all my friends saw me," I remember hearing Mini say in one of the interviews.

And this is one of the main reasons that I don't see pageants as an effective means of empowering women. Like the fashion industry, pageants are a business and don't necessarily revolve around the betterment of female solidarity. I do believe somewhat in a sisterhood; a sisterhood united in our common struggles. But I also refuse any development of a mutually exclusive paradigm in definining what a woman is and what she isn't.

That's up for her to decide. Not a panel of judges.

Iconizing a "sisterhood"

So, lets do a quick little informal media study.
Type in the following keywords into your google toolbar, pictures search engine:
- woman
- women
- sisterhood
- feminism
- feminist

What results come up?


Here's what showed up for each keyword, sticking only to the first page of results:




["Woman"]

"Woman" = enforcer of justice and spandex unitards...yet also defined by her interactions with men

["Women"]

Marilyn Monroe and various other beautiful, iconic "women"

Dove's "Campaign for Beauty" Models - everyday "women"

Afghani Muslim "women" protesting together

Now we're finally starting to see some "women" of color...FINALLY

"Women" toting guns. Just don't hands those things to a feminist...

["Sisterhood"]

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - A Movie

"Sisterhood" in Art

A global sisterhood? United by similar or universal struggles? We shall see.

The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, a sisterhood of wealthy southern women - I wonder if a woman in Indonesia or Iran could relate to this lovely joy ride

A boundless "sisterhood"?

["Feminism/Feminist"]

Having to prove a woman's strength in WWII - identified as a feminist development...

 

Are the struggles of a white house-wife the same as a woman of color? Hardly. Yet still, there exists an idea that feminism, rather than promoting the rights of the privileged few, meets the needs of all women...

A personal favorite. ATTA GIRL!