oranges and feminism

Women has a strong and central story line in most of the story. But are they truly an image of what a feminist would especially when Jeanette mother conforms to the serotypes her pastor states. For one who tries to embody Jane Ear and the ideals of strong independent women she doesn't even come close caving into men's desires and expectations of her. Jeanette is her own person. She is different. Carrying her self and what being unique truly embodies. Plus she's much more fantastic than her mother.

                   "Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical fields. It encompasses work in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, economics, women's studies, literary criticism,art history,psychoanalysis and philosophy.Feminist theory aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy."



^ that basic feminist theory is from Wikipedia (:

Orange Is The New Black Vs Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Throughout reading Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, I tried to make connections with things in my own life and things I know of. I pulled a connection between Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and the popular Netflix series "Orange Is The New Black" (which happens to be one of my favorite shows). I know they met not seem related, but both works have an end result of showing, thus normalizing, LGBTQ and female empowerment (passing the Bechdel Test with flying colors). While novels may have been a great way to do this in the 1980's when Orange Are Not The Only Fruit was released, television such as Netflix has now taken popularity and will also play a huge part in molding the modern minds of our people.

1. Both Orange Is The New Black and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit pass the "The Bechdel Test." As mentioned in class, passing The Bechdel Test requires females in a movie to discuss something with each other other than men. Being that it is set in an all female prison, Orange Is The New Black does this beautifully, and allows us to see the depth or the characters for more than just their relations with men. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit does have women talking about men, but it is not the main point of the book. I'm really glad that I learned about the Bechdel Rule in this class. I'm a filmmaker, and a feminist. I'm astonished they did not teach us this idea at my old college, New York Film Academy. What we show people as media/content creators is so important because it molds the minds of others. Any projects that I have wrote have tended to pass the Bechdel Test anyway, but being aware of this idea gives me the power to pass it onto others. Hopefully female characters will be created with more depth- as we can show much more interesting things about a women than just her aspirations/relations with the opposite sex.

2. Both of these books broke LGBTQ barriers. Orange Is The New Black, for example, has broken into the laptops of Ameirca (most popular series on Netflix, according to Netflix) and shown us LGBTQ characters with such depth. One of the most interesting examples of this is the transgender character played by Lavern Cox, a real life transgender women, and her struggle of "coming out," going through with the gender change, and fighting to keep her hormone pills while in the all female jail. This show is a dark comedy that appeals to mostly everyone, with tons of feminist conversations and LGBTQ conversations sprinkled in. As I've said before, showing characters like this with depth makes a huge impression on public opinion. In this case it is a positive one. I have developed a certain dislike for filmmakers who use their power to do the opposite though (I don't watch shows/media that show or perpetuate rape culture, which is hard because many things do. I do this with media that perpetuates other things I disagree with as well such as anti semitism). While I was not around in the 1980's I would imagine Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit also broke down barriers with this novel. My parents were teenagers back then and they said being openly gay was harder for people than it is now (especially with the AIDS stigma about gay males). I like the way the book showed that she just felt how she felt as a child/teenager, not knowing that it would be seen as as "wrong." There are so many people who think sexual orientation is a choice. The only choice is whether one chooses to hide it or not, but it is still there. I know I am making modern people sound dumb, but many people have been raised in a bubble. They need to see someone's story of not "choosing" to be gay, just being gay, to understand it.

3. On a third and not as strong point, the relationship that Jeanette has with her mom is somewhat interesting compared to what Piper from Orange Is The New Black has with her mom. Don't get me wrong, Piper is a spoiled upper middle class women, where as Jeanette was poor. But both of their mother's are controlling and stubborn. Both of their mother's disapprove of their daughters sexual orientation, and either are in somewhat denial or are more concerned with how they look in the community. Below is a clip of Piper's mom visiting her in jail, and you can see that she is, as per usual, in a denial of her daughter's situation. There is a strange tension there that I imagine would have been there when Jeanette visited her mother after going away. I have a theory that the more controlling the parent is- the more rebelious the kid will be.

Anyway, I recommend Orange Is The New Black to anyone from class. It is based off of a nonfiction novel about a women named Piper, a successful, straight, and waspy suburban lady who was sent to a Women's Prison for a 10 year old drug charge that she committed as a young adult with her then lesbian lover. If anyone else watches it, did you think of it when you were reading the book? Listening to the way Jeanette describes men, I think she see's them all as the George "Pornstache" Mendez character from Orange Is The New Black.

RUTH - The Lesbian in the Bible

a few years ago I'd heard the analysis of Ruth and Naomi's relationship to be of a homosexual nature.
When Winterson mentions this idea as a chapter title, it made me dig a little deeper. not surprisingly, there are quite a few who seem to think the same;
"Ruth's declaration of love for Naomi is not only one of the finest and most profound in the Bible, it is the only speech in scripture that approaches our wedding vows. Indeed it goes beyond them, exceeding the promise of "till death do us part". And it brings Naomi back to life. Naomi is sunk in bitter grief and despair, but as the story unfolds we witness her resurrection, until at the end the women of Bethlehem celebrate her and Ruth as a couple, and declare of the child born to Ruth and Boaz: "A son has been born to Naomi", as if Naomi is the father and the husband." (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/14/religion.gayrights )

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/03/truth-of-coming-out/

Sexuality, self, and the world around us

While reading Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, I found myself becoming more timid and less able to participate in class. I have been trying to figure out what has happened to me! I think this novel is unlike any I have read before and when I thought, "I get it" there turned out to be connections I missed and certain, very meaningful, things have gone unseen and unexplored. Before reading this novel I didn't eat oranges often but now I eat one just about every day. I look forward to my after-dinner Orange. I've also been trying to think of a way to connect my eating of oranges with Jeanette's but I've had no luck so far. I try to relate to Jeanette and there are not too many commonalities between us. I did find that I can relate to her thought processes. There are moments I read and think, "how could such a young kid think this way?" I can relate to chapter 5, Deuteronomy, because in English 101 class my professor taught us about history and how whether intentional or not it can be manipulative. My communications professor taught me about the importance of storytelling. I have learned what Jeanette is telling us in that chapter but I learned that in my third year of college. Something else that amazes me is that soon after she makes this great comparison between storytelling and history uses a great and simple metaphor: a sandwich. As Professor Estevez points out, this homely metaphor is actually just amazing because one must eat in order to live, and the point is made that ideas and stories are one's daily sustenance as well. 

This novel is all-encompassing. I've always imagined that when I write my first book I will include poems, photos, drawings, stories that seem to come out of the blue-- all things to express my life and my imagination. 

The Coming Out Story is usually the hallmark narrative for people of LGBTQ experience. These stories are usually straightforward and autobiographical but Winterson's is not. She places us in her world, how she sees it, allowing us to really see how she feels about her mother, Jesus, the community, and everything else. Winterson's story gives me an opportunity to reflect on my coming out experience. I come out all the time to new people I meet and I haven't thought much about my coming out to my family because it was a few years ago. Storytelling benefits all readers because it allows them to see more, to gain a different perspective, and to self-reflect. Winterson writes an indirect story and I think that it helps us stop, take a moment and really analyze the words and the situation. We can begin to make sense of sexuality, the self, and the world around us.

I find autobiographical writing to be an important way of discovering and demonstrating one's one gratitude, life-story, and vision of the world. 

In class Professor Estevez spoke about fact and fiction and how they are not desperate and opposite but they are intimately connected. There is no history beyond narrative. History is storytelling. Everything is a version of something and I think Winterson really had a great way of showing that: don't just read this like it's a history book- and also don't read history books as facts. There is no absolute way of knowing what really happened. This is why she wrote a metafiction novel that constantly showed us that it is indeed fictional. This is a look into a characters world, imagination, thoughts, perception. This is for others to gain a different perspective on someone's life and to perhaps look inward and discover new things about themselves. 

Hannah Duffin

Demons - orange? brown?

What was the demon concept meant to explore?
what about her mom's demon? the color differences?
what's brown or orange referenced to?
Is it the fantasy delusion she experienced with her loneliness? confusion of oppression? starvation or the fever hallucinations from her sickness?

oranges

what is the significance of oranges?
why is that the fruit used?