The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar


I have a habit of picking up a book without knowing anything about it. The Bell Jar is no exception. I'm not really sure how I made it this far in life without reading Sylvia Plath, but I do know who she is. At least, I know she's a writer, a poet, and that she killed herself by sticking her head in the oven. (apparently shortly after the publication of this book)

But I digress. We're discussing The Bell Jar.

And I really enjoyed reading it. Esther, the main character, is very real, very well written.  I really felt as though I knew her. Which makes sense, because it is loosely autobiographical.  Plath suffered from terrible depression, which is very clear in the reading. I can't imagine anyone having written so well about depression unless they have experienced it themselves. Having experienced depression myself, I know how Esther and Plath feel, and I wish someone had been able to help them. Depression isn't always something you can just snap out of. It's not always something terrible; sometimes it's just the blahs. People don't always understand and then aren't able to help. Plath does a great job at illustrating that.

 I recommend this book for anyone who would like more insight into depression.

Happy Reading!

A Feminist and a Lady

Yeah, Yeah, it sounds like an opening for a joke . . . 

But really.  With all this feminism going around, I feel like the whole concept of being a lady is lost.  I can still be an independent woman, equal to men, and allow him to buy me dinner or open my door.  And is it not more gracious to allow men to help me? To be chivalrous? I feel like in striving for equality, women are trying to make men redundant or worthless, trying to completely replace them. I think we're forgetting that we want EQUAL, not better than, or else we're just reversing the prior roles and becoming hypocrites. It's also important to remember that we are equal in potential but if we don't take full advantage of this, then NO, we are NOT equal.  Yes, both you and your husband can go to law school and be lawyers.  But if he is an ECON major and you decided to get pregnant instead . . . yeah, he's smarter than you.  Sorry dude. But on the flip side, it's entirely your choice, and you have to own it. And you can't get upset if he get's a scholarship or better grades because he worked harder. but you can do that too!! We, as women, are just as capable as men, we just have to work for it, too! 

I also have this problem with the lack-of-personal-hygiene generally associated with Feminism. If there can be lipstick lesbians, can there not also be lipstick feminists? Can I not be attractive and independent? 

So this was kind of ramble-y but anyway, I think you can be a feminist and a lady!

Cultural Safari

This semester I am in a mandatory class of which I am not super fond. (I know it's awkward. But I just couldn't end my sentence with a preposition). This class is meant to "explore various traditional and indigenous cultures from around the world."  I think this is great.  I'm all about learning about other cultures. Until it starts to feel like you only have culture if you're brown. . . like white is regular and good and normal, brown is the other, bad, lesser, study-able. (Note: This is not the teacher's intention. I hope.) They say ethnic like it's a bad thing. It's not.  Everyone is ethnic.  Ethnic is defined as: pertaining to or characteristic of a people, especially a group (ethnic group)  sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.

Ergo, everyone is ethnic.  And interesting article along these same lines, which we read in class, is "An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance" by Joann Kealiinohomoku. I found it to be a rather interesting article.  And from her logic, all dance is ethnic dance, same as all people are ethnic people. ie Ballet isn't better because it originated in rich, white Europe. It rose out of the people and reflects the time in which it originated. And honestly, contemporary ballet is still fairly reflective of our culture. 

And yet, as we discussed this article in class, people were still having a problem with it. As far as I understood, they couldn't exactly say  what they had a problem with, either because they couldn't acknowledge it within themselves or couldn't bring themselves to admit it.  But I just felt like some of the girls legitimately thought -- and probably still think -- that Ballet is High Art and other dance, African, Polynesian, Folk, all the other forms we have studied in this class, are low art.  I thought we were over that. 

But that wasn't supposed to be the point of this post. The point was supposed to be about our Final Project: the Cultural Safari. In the syllabus the assignment is stated: "Students will venture into the local, regional, national, or international community to experience a cultural event which includes dance and music."  Great.  Okay. Except, yet again, this community or cultural event should be something different from us. Read: Brown. And we were assigned groups. It really was a good assignment in theory.  The Professor's intentions really were great. But I am seriously worried about presentations next week. This class has not shown itself to be very open minded. Some of the girls are great; they make the class bearable. And others are so ignorant that they don't even know that they're racist.