Autocracy is a form of
government in which the
political power is the hands of
a single individual who has
self- appointed himself ruler.
The term comes from the Greek
autokrator (he rules by one’s
self).
Totalitarianism: it was a term
forged too name modern regimes
that appear in the 1920s and
that arose from dictatorships.
The state controls and regulates
every aspect of public and
private life. Totalitarian
regimes maintain their political
power by means of an official
all-embracing ideology or only
party, use propaganda
disseminated through the media
and the censorship of every
aspect of people’s lives. It is
not unusual the practice of
personality cults or the
creation of a heroic public
image of the ruler that is
unquestioned and unchallenged.
This practice comes from the
ancient monarchies where the
figure of the king was seen as a
divine figure, whose power
descended directly from God. The
state controls the economy,
education systems, applies mass
surveillance and practices
widespread terror among the
citizens.
A dictatorship: is a form of
government in which the
government is ruled by a
dictator (either a military or a
civilian). Roman dictators, for
example, declared themselves
with absolute power during times
of emergency or danger. Often
times, military dictatorships
are the result of a coup d’état
or proclamation of power. The
typical Latin America’s
dictatorship is ruled by a junta
militar (or a board composed of
several officers from the
military’s senior leadership.
The chairman of the junta is the
dictator or head of state, with
absolute power.
Definition of Gender:
A socially and culturally constructed
concept based on the knowledge that men
have created throughout the different
disciplines of knowledge (especially
philosophy, psychology, and the social
sciences in general, and throughout the
history of human kind). The concept of
gender is based on definitions of men
and women that have emerged from these
disciplines and that, for the most
part, reflected men’s perception of
reality and their experience. The
realities and perceptions of women (and
any other individual who does not fall
in the categories of feminine or
masculine gender) have been excluded
and silenced from that construction of
knowledge/gender. From Aristotle to the
modern political thinkers and
philosophers (think about Sigmund
Freud) these definitions of female and
male that constitute the concept of
gender are to a great extend faulty and
essentializing. That is, reductive
since they minimized humanity,
especially female’s humanity, to a
biological configuration). These
traditions of thinking have been,
however, challenged by postmodern,
postcolonial, and poststructuralist’s
thinkers who question the truth and
validity of many of traditional
thinking in all the disciplines of
knowledge including the ones mentioned
above. Women’s Liberation movement (and
any movement who challenges traditional
patriarchal discourses of knowledge and
thus of power) and feminism have
challenge, question, act, and change
the reality of women within this
traditional knowledge, and its effects
in the ways that traditional knowledge
has been acted in real life.
Participating in Imagery Construction:
How female artist can portray positive
and empowering imagery of women? Marcy
Percy’s novel and Julia Alvarez’s
novel, Frida Kahlo, Maureen Gorris: How
does their creativity (re)define
symbolic meanings associated with
gender?
One of the challenges of creative arts
is the construction on imagery in which
we can see reality expresses through
art. Women artists have an important
role in orienting women to their own
identities by creating imagery that
deconstructs the idea that women should
be subordinate members of a
relationship (wife of so and so, mother
or so and so, secretary of so and so,
nurse of dr. so and so) or reduced to a
part of their body (uterus, breasts,
legs, hips). Women should be
represented as whole beings. (Rosario
Ferré and her idea of a whole female
identity; one identity that is not
divided by the guilt associated with
leaving the private space and daring to
conquer the public).
Does nature have anything to do at all
with being a woman? In other words, do
women have nature? Does it come natural
to a woman to care, to like children,
to nourish? Are there social roles
prescribed by nature?
A simple answer: Nature DOES NOT
prescribe anything. Or, can men be
tender, caring, nourishing?
The idea of natural dispositions or
tendencies is as old as the
constructions of gender and much
intertwined with it.
Traditional theories (philosophical and
psychological in particular) have
traditionally prescribe notions and
definitions of women based on men’s
perceptions of reality. Women, as we
have studied, have had very little
saying in the constructions of
knowledge in the various disciplines
especially philosophy and the social
sciences.
We, as humans, use theory to understand
the world and our evolution, as
mentioned in the previous lectures,
knowledge (as well as categories or
symbols) help us to create meaning and
order.
Within that theoretical construction
(Western notions) definitions of the
nature of women have been faulted even
in the same language they use to define
women, since they imply hidden sexism.
These definitions of women have been
based on an ignorant way in which some
part of humanity (men) sees other part
of humanity (women).
Simmone de Beauvoir was a French
philosopher who wrote way before there
was a women’s liberation movement. In
her book The Second Sex she explains
the implications of defining woman as
the “other.” That is, men are agents in
the world and have created the
discourses of power and knowledge
excluding the experience of women
because as agents they create
conscious, they make history and they
rule. They are agents thus also
SUBJECTS and everything else is subject
to be dominated and subordinated upon
men. Everything else includes not only
nature but women. This construction
facilitates the binary opposition of
subject/object or subject and “the
other.” Men look up on women as other
than themselves. Men act and
think/Women exist. Men are active/
Women passive, Men reason/ Women feel,
Men are conscious, Women are emotional.
However, du Beauvoir suggests that
women are still sufficiently conscious
to recognize man’s humanity and
achievement. Women are then conscious
“other” thus able to affirm him in his
manhood in a way nature cannot (The
compulsory tendency to be woman).
In this way man is able to reassure
himself and his humanity.
What are the implications of this
reaffirmation given to men by women?
Now, to understand himself as a human
being man needs “the subject” needs
other human beings rather the women and
nature. Each man wants to be a
sovereign subject over other men as
well, this create an interminable
conflict.
Women’s response is neither a hostile
silence (like nature’s silence) nor
opposition. This encourages his desire
to be master. Thus women are defined
only in their relation to men (Concrete
example: Spain during Franco).
This view of women as the “other” has
created in Western societies endless
faulty theories and false assertions,
and has left very little room for men
and women to questions these
assumptions.
Michael Foucault: Power relations:
The Panopticon: a prison built by
Jeremy Bentham (England).
Foucault’s panopticism is the idea that
disciplinary power is exercised through
its invisibility and at the same time
it imposes on those whom it subjects a
principle of compulsory visibility.
Visibility is trap and creates a state
of consciousness and constant
visibility that assures the functioning
of power.
Mechanism of power: Techniques used by
the powerful to increase docility and
utility of all elements in the system.
Prisons resemble schools, factories,
hospital, barracks, orphanages,
asylums, etc.
A strict school, a dark workshop, have
a common goal: transform their inmates
in a part of the mechanism of power
relation schema. This schema is a model
of individual submission, individual
isolation, and allows the
“normalization” of the subject. (Learns
to be normal thus fitting into the
“norms” of society. E.g: gender roles).
Foucault: in religion for instance, the
panoptical idea of “God sees you.” The
technicians of behavior are the
prophets, priests, patriarchs, angels,
etc. Or those with the power to execute
God’s punishment.
In a school or a prison or a factory
the same schema exists.
“Power is a thin inescapable film that
covers all human interactions” M.
Foucault.
“Institutions are means that Power uses
to control and normalize individuals”