Quick Germaine Greer quotes...

She always manages to make me angry, yet at the same time, makes perfect sense!

"Maybe I couldn’t make it. Maybe I don’t have a pretty smile, good teeth, nice tits, long legs, a cheeky arse, a sexy voice. Maybe I don’t know how to handle men and increase my market value, so that the rewards due to the feminine will accrue to me. Then again, maybe I’m sick of the masquerade. I’m sick of pretending eternal youth. I’m sick of belying my own intelligence, my own will, my own sex. I’m sick of peering at the world through false eyelashes, so everything I see is mixed with a shadow of bought hairs; I’m sick of weighting my head with a dead mane, unable to move my neck freely, terrified of rain, of wind, of dancing too vigorously in case I sweat into my lacquered curls. I’m sick of the Powder Room. I’m sick of pretending that some fatuous male’s self-important pronouncements are the objects of my undivided attention, I’m sick of going to films and plays when someone else wants to, and sick of having no opinions of my own about either. I’m sick of being a transvestite. I refuse to be a female impersonator. I am a woman, not a castrate." 

"The most cursory examination of even the most progressive organs of information reveals a curious inability to recognize women as newsmakers, unless they are young or married to a head of state or naked or pregnant by some triumph of technology or perpetrators or victims of some hideous crime or any combiniation of the above. Women's issues are often disguised as people issues, unless they are relegated to the women's pages which amazingly still suvive. Senior figures are all male; even the few women who are deemed worthy of obituaries are shown in images from their youth, as if the last fourty years of their lives have been without achievement of any kind. If you analyse the by-lines in your morning paper, you will see that the senior editorial staff are all older men, supported by a rabble of junior females, the infinitely replacesable 'hackettes'."

 "The love object occupies the thoughts of the person diagnosed as 'in love' all the time despite the probability that very little is actually known about it. To it are ascribed all qualities considered by the obsessed as good, regardless of whether the object in question possesses those qualities in any degree. Expectations are set up which no human being could fulfill. Thus the object chosen plays a special role in relation to the go of the obsessed, who decided that he or she is the right or the only person for him. In the case of a male this notion may sanction a degree of directly aggressive behaviour either in pursuing the object or driving off competition." 

 "I didn't fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover." 

"Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It has no mother."

"Mother is the dead heart of the family, spending father's earnings on consumer goods to enhance the environment in which he eats, sleeps and watches the television."



"Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living."



"Oh, because falling in love turns you into an immediate bore. And it's dreadful."



"English culture is basically homosexual in the sense that the men only really care about other men."


"Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate."



"A full bosom is actually a millstone around a woman's neck. ... [Breasts] are not parts of a person but lures slung around her neck, to be kneaded and twisted like magic putty, or mumbled and mouthed like lolly ices."


"In our society, the pre-adolescent girl, the nubile virgin, the sexually active woman, the mother and the grandmother are all expected to look and behave in the same way. The correct body outline for them all is girlish; their voices should remain sweet and low, their manner accommodating. ... Kicking off leg-lengthening high-heeled shoes, wiping the colored grease off your lips, raising your voice, letting the grey come through your hair, ceasing the simper that lifts your cheeks and letting your jowls settle into disapproving shapes is seen as letting yourself go."

"What we ought to see in the agonies of puberty is the result of the conditioning that maims the female personality in creating the feminine."

"Love, love, love -- all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness."

 

Foucault You!

"Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society" (Michel Foucault)

"It doesn't matter whether it comes in by cable, telephone lines, computer or satellite. Everyone's going to have to deal with Disney" (Michael Eisner, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Disney)

I have long been an admirer of Michel Foucault and have taught classes on his theories recently in my own sociology/criminology class. What worries me about society however, is how much we are willing to legitimately buy into power and to actively become part of its own surveillance systems. Foucault argued that we are ALL part of power creation, it does not come from 'above' but from our own relationships with others, the way in which we interact and use language with each other. Power comes therefore, from a number of systems, not just the one.

The example I always think of is the excellent work of Shearing and Stenning (1987) whereupon they showed Foucault's notions of power structures through the use of 'Disney World' (However, this will apply to Disney Land, Euro Disney, etc) as it offers 'instrumental discipline' as the public are 'guided' through the 'magical' world of Disney. It borders on the creepy as the public are led through informal power structures in order to make sure they 'comply' with the rules and regulations of the site.

Indeed, Disney offer this control through clearly marked parking spaces (E.g. Donald Duck 1), 'ideal' photo opportunities to stand and take your photograph with the family, reminded at all points to hold children whilst on moving vehicles like that train that takes you from the car park to the main site, pathways around the area to control and guide those who walk around it. You are even reminded by grinning idiots to always 'have a nice day' when being served, who serve the purpose of reminding you to be happy and to enjoy the experience. Once rides have been on, food purchased and photo's taken, you can see carefully orchestrated parades by Disney 'characters' who wave, smile and beckon you to 'be part of the dream.' From the moment you enter the park, this Disney society controls your every movement and monitors through surveillance, your actions, whilst at the same time, taking away the undesirables.

I was reminded by one of my students that a mother recently took her two daughters to Euro Disney in Paris in order to dress as a princess whilst they were there. Having little money, the mother had bought princess dresses for her daughters from a fancy dress shop. She was told, on entrance to the park, that the daughters would have to take off their dresses as they conflict with the Disney image and may therefore confuse people! It is systems of informal control and surveillance that create this delicate balance for Disney, as it seeks to craft its own image within a miniature society so that 'undesirables' (In this case the daughters wearing non-Disney dresses) can be monitored and asked to conform to an acceptable standard.

What is amazing about all of this (and as Foucault stated), we WILLINGLY buy into this idea, we literally buy the tickets and then allow our own sense of control to be removed so that we can be monitored, can live and breathe Disney rubbish and be fed messages that tell us to 'watch your children', 'keep yourself following the path', 'make sure you are happy,' and 'you can be part of a dream for a few hours away from your own (perhaps miserable?) reality' (Because after all, who can live a reality more intoxicating than the Disney characters themselves?). Disneyland is a world that's safe and entertaining; a world where there are no unpleasant surprises and where everything is sanitized. But 'Disneyfication' takes away the life and variety of the real world. In the Disney world, everything, everywhere is the same.

Perhaps the most intelligent part of this power, is that it seem's invisible, we see it as beneficial as we walk through the theme park, yet we then actively begin to use self-surveillance on ourselves and children (telling children to be careful, beware of areas, etc). Theme parks are becoming a model for towns and commercial development. Everywhere, you can find chain restaurants, giant shopping malls, and modernized city centres that all follow the same pattern. They are all designed to make us feel as if we are getting away from life's problems and to make us spend money. We can apply this to other chains, such as McDonalds and Burger King, whereupon we are part of a process of self-surveillance, guided and controlled carefully so we know what to expect and how to expect it.

The Panopticon Prison

In fact, Foucault stated that society would move from being goverment led, controlled and with obvious power 'at the top', to a society that is about letting the people use surveillance and self-surveillance themselves so governments no longer need to (Meaning they save money, power and control can be led by the people so other people keep in line, etc). Disney World becomes just like the 'panopticon prison' which had the idea that prisoners would be in cells on the outside of the building and the guards would be in the tower and able to see directly into prisoners cells (See above image). Through doing this, prisoners would be aware that there was always 'somebody' watching them. In fact Foucault argued that this sense of being observed would be so strong that you could take the guards out the tower (as the prisoners cannot see inside the tower due its windows) and the prisoners would continue to use self-surveillance on their behaviour to make sure that they are not caught and are unsure about whether they are being watched or not. This really does work in practice as panopticons were built throughout the world!

Disney World works in a similar vein, it is about this use of self-surveillance and control/power relationships to ensure that you take the message in and look out for your own behaviour. Smile, have fun, enjoy the experience, take in the merchandise. You want fries with that?

Does anyone else find this disturbing?