GNDR-G205: “Speaking Up and Speaking Out”
Summer Session I, 2010, T/Th 9:30am-12:30pm
Instructor: Emily Schusterbauer
Right now in the U.S., self-disclosure is a part of our everyday cultural landscape. On daytime talk shows and primetime reality shows, people tell everything about their childhood experiences, their relationships, their aspirations, and their sexual practices. Whether to television talk show hosts or untended “confessional booth” cameras, formerly unknown “average Joes” disclose everything from the banal to the bawdy. And, U.S. viewers lap up their confessions, making “tell all” television an exceedingly lucrative ratings bonanza.
In this class, we will analyze the relationship between U.S. feminist activism and such “tell all,” or confessional, speech practices. Breaking down the distinction between popular culture and political activism, we will examine the ways in which “speaking out” about personal experiences has shaped U.S. feminism since U.S. feminist Carol Hanisch’s 1969 declaration that “the personal is political.” We will begin our investigation by examining the relationship between “speaking out” and “consciousness raising,” both of which were advocated by U.S. Second Wave feminists determined to uncover the systemic roots of women’s oppression. Next, we will consider the continued presence of feminist “speak outs” on college campuses and in other communities, despite growing cultural distaste for the decidedly communal speaking practice of “consciousness raising.” Then, we will examine more closely how the feminist practice of “speaking out” has been co-opted by the mainstream media on shows like Oprah and The View. And, finally, we will examine some of the controversies that have surrounded the feminist impulse to “speak out,” paying particular attention to the Recovered Memory controversy that swirled around women’s disclosures of childhood sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s.
