So is is the first post in the attempt to begin to write a post a day from now on. Today I attended a seminar on ‘Feminist Theory, Research and Activism During a Time of Austerity’ Seminar held at Coventry university sponsored by the BSA (The British Sociological Association http://bsas.esithosting.co.uk/public/login/login.aspx)which for me was a first for Coventry, I usually have to travel to such events so it was really encouraging to see something happening on my own turf, so to speak.
I found it extremely interesting to discover the range of people across a variety of disciplines coming together to discuss feminist methodologies within today’s contemporary society. The speakers discussed a variety of approaches to research from feminist standpoints, covering further the implications of race and class.
Although I found the seminar interesting and it was great to find a network of individuals moving in the same territory, I still felt a slight disconnection. For me the problem and the research issue always comes back round to the issue of gender and the discomfort I feel in being defined by my biology, what is important for me is subjectivity. I am grappling with the word feminism even now, and perhaps believe I always will be. For me, I am not an activist, I’m not sure what this means in the definition of where I stand within feminism. I am not sure I would label myself as feminist, and I am not sure I would not. Why do we feel the need to put labels on things? Why do I need to define myself as something? My worry is in using the word ‘feminist’ to define myself, my practice,my research/ where my interests lie, it becomes negative by association, due to the negative connotations that the ‘F’ word finds itself defined by within society, not just by men but also by women.
So then where do we go? What do we do with the ‘F’ word, where to we move to?
What I do know, is that I would define myself as an artist who is a woman. Rather than a woman who is an artist, perhaps this is because I feel the latter is not how I perceive myself and it is not how I experience the world. I am not artist second and woman first, I am an artist this defines who i am and how i exist in the world. It is through a creative eye, means of thinking and process/action of making that i respond to, interpret and formulate who i am and how i exist in the world. I do not define people by their gender but by their subjectivity. I think we have a long way to go in understanding the complexities of gender in relation to race, sexuality, race and class. What I do believe is that if we look to individual subjectivity and how this is negotiated, formed, how it is reflexive, ever changing and ever becoming through movement, through existence, interpretation, interaction and response with reality, we might begin to move forward in our thinking towards how subjectivity might begin to break down the existing boundaries of gender and begin to offer new knowledge about how gender is experienced.
The paper I found most interesting today was delivered by Professor
Gayle Letherby, who spoke of ‘theorised subjectivity’ which she offered;
“In Feminist Research in Theory and Practice I noted that given the association of objectivity with masculinity and ‘masculine knowledge’, many feminists reject the pursuit of objectivity and instead argue that ‘bias’ is inevitable and ‘. . .it is better to understand the complexities within research rather than to pretend that they can be controlled, and biased sources can themselves result in useful data’ (Letherby 2003: 71). However, as I go on to argue, ‘Ironically, this acknowledgement of subjectivity by feminists and the associated ‘super-sensitivity’ to the relevance of the personhood of the researcher could feasibly lead to the conclusion that our work is more objective, in that our work, if not value-free, is value-explicit’ (p71). This is what I refer to as ‘theorized subjectivity’, which I do not believe is predicated upon an objectivity/subjectivity binary opposition. Rather it relies on a recognition that, while there is a ‘reality’ ‘out there’, the political complexities of subjectivities, and their inevitable involvement in the research/theorising processes, make a definitive/final statement at best wishful thinking, in practice impossible. In other words, we need to accept that objectivity in social research is never possible, but what is possible, desirable and necessary is the theorisation of the subjective (including the researcher’s motivation and practice and the respondent’s expectations and behaviour). This approach, I believe, highlights the dynamic relationship between the process and the product of research and the links between feminist research in theory and practice.”
In a sense this is linked to what I am examining in my own research, in that I don’t believe a direct approach to the Phd structure is suitable to my own research. I am not looking to define an objective outcome, the same way my practice is not seeking to become a finalised product. It is the process within creativity that is important, which is instigated by the individual subjective response from myself to my existence, interpretation, experience and understanding of being an individual who is artist, who is woman. I am attempting to discuss how subjective interpretation is relevant to what Gayle Letherby suggests as the dynamic relationship between the process and the product, but in my case in relation to arts practice. I am advocating a practice that is multifaceted, that does not see theory and practice as separate elements.
Another point that Letherby made was that we need to find ways of bringing men back in, this is something that has always occurred to me. Whenever I attend conferences and seminars about feminism or feminist discussions, it always strikes me how little the number of males there are in attendance. Today was no different, there was one male attendee. And the last conference I went to there was probably 3 out out around 100 attendees. I find this shocking, and I have to ask myself why this is? Being the ‘bra-burning, male bashers’ we all obviously are. There is a stigma and a negativity that still exists. We need to re-educate people about the methods of feminist research and how such methods have and do influence the approaches to research undertaken today. They need to understand the agenda is not to point fingers and place blame, but to re-evaluate the binary oppositional structure that defines the structures of knowledge which we are all informed by and experience. And that actually we are all affected by such structures, but we all Interpret and experience them differently through individual subjectivity.
Tags: art, feminism
