INR Blog Post 2

 

    Since week 5 in my gender and International Relations course, or since my last blog post, me and my class have gotten more familiarized with the subtle gender orientated vocabulary of the English language. Aside from the movie G.I. Jane that we watched in class, the two articles discussed in class by Siobhan Byrne and Carol Cohn perfectly encapsulates nuances of vocabulary, as well as the disregard for female opinion. Although the two articles express slightly different examples, the disregard of female opinion and the negative connotations of certain ‘feminized’ words that hinder the credibility of women is worth investigating and learning about.

                Firstly, I would like to focus on the article by Siobhan Byrne. The article dives deep into religion and the disregard that male dominated societies have for the opinions of women. In this case specifically, the target research are Muslim women in Canada and how they were treated and represented after the attack of 9/11. The main argument of Siobhan Byrne is the general assumption that Canada in this article has towards Muslim men and women post 9/11. Muslim men are terrorists, and Muslim women are oppressed. I fully agree with this argument. Discrimination between these two genders is very apparent not only in Canada but also in the United States. It is both irrational and nonsensical to assume that because a woman is dressed differently and follows a particular religious way of life that she is oppressed.  However, on the different end of the spectrum, if oppression is taking place, shouldn’t it be investigated and not just assumed. This is another layer of Byrne’s research, which highlights that Muslim women are not even given the courtesy of being asked whether they feel oppressed or not. The Ontological approaches used by Byrne reflect her belief that instead of reaching baseless assumptions on the back of racist fallacies, more research and case studies should be done in order to arrive at accurate conclusions. Epistemologically, Byrne correctly identifies the medias influence in the claims and how they portray Muslim men and women in a defamatory and negligent way.

                In the article by Carol Cohn, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals”, Cohn seeks to prove the effects of masculine and feminine words in a patriarchy. The article aims at highlighting how words can directly affect credibility. Before this however, Cohn does well separating her argument into different stages, which she refers to as ‘States’. For example, in the first state titled ‘listening’, the ‘clean bombs and clean language’ section offers a fascinating point in regard to how cold-blooded language is revered in patriarchal societies and doesn’t accurately display the horrors of the millions of deaths that nuclear warfare has caused, in addition to seeing such actions as a sense of accomplishment. Later in the article, I found extremely important her illustration of essentially learning a new language in order to be taking seriously. The step-by-step process that she undertakes, describing it as learning a new language to increase credibility is very well put together and allows for easier access to her main points. An example given in the article is Cohn avoiding using words such as ‘peace’ because of its feminine and ‘weak’ connotation. Ontologically, vocabulary and gender connotations in the English language is apparent not only in gender politics, but also in international relations. Epistemologically, Cohn points out that her goal is to not, “discuss or judge the holding of “objectivity” (Cohn, 717), but to highlight that the claims of defense intellectuals fail their own goal of unattained rationality with the discourse they currently use. Carol Cohn’s concludes by calling for more inclusion of alterative voices in various fields of society through the acknowledgement of one-sided discourse. I fully enjoy and agree with her premise and argument that Carol Cohn proposes. The examples illustrated align directly with situations that I have encountered myself. In order to be taken seriously, certain methods of discourse need to be administered primarily by women. Acknowledging this claim, Cohn’s argument dives deep into an area that warrants more research to ensure inclusion.

                The central themes of both these articles are encapsulated in the movie G.I. Jane and ties the articles discussed in class to a visual representation. Aside from being a good movie, G.I. Jane describes and demonstrates real world cases of gender bias and language. The taunts that were administered toward the character Jordan O’Neil by her coworkers in the military. The movie also shows a common case that occurs in the world frequently, the politicization of hot topics. This is displayed when Senator Lillian DeHaven starts a program directed towards the integration of women into the armed forces. This happens constantly, the essential trivialization of politicians of certain social issues in order to receive votes. Lastly, preconceived notions of women are largely displayed in the armed forces scene, which essentially portrays women as not only less than men, but unfit to perform the majority of the tasks asked of them when it comes to the armed forces. With that said, I really liked how the articles and multimedia contents of this course ties together. It is always important to have visual aid in order to tie subjects together, and I feel like I am being receptive to that and learning more efficiently that way.