{"id":393,"date":"2009-03-16T22:01:08","date_gmt":"2009-03-17T03:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=393"},"modified":"2009-03-24T07:13:23","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T12:13:23","slug":"freud-sex-in-the-city-the-female-man-and-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=393","title":{"rendered":"Freud, Sex in the City, The Female Man, and Google"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am struck my the ever-shifting pronoun usage in this book. \u00a0I can’t keep up–I, me, us, we. \u00a0Who are these women? \u00a0Clearly they have separate identities, but often they appear as one. \u00a0 In part three, Joanna takes Janet to a party; this section appears to be laden with one of the first instances of \u00a0narrator disorientation. \u00a0Joanna introduces Janet to her friends (whose names unexplainably all end in -issa) at the party as her Swedish cousin. \u00a0Janet quickly enters into a discussion with the Ginger\u00a0Mustache. \u00a0From this point on in the chapter, the pronoun references are muttled. \u00a0“She<\/strong> showed him all her teeth. \u00a0He saw a simile. \u00a0[…] and he took us<\/strong> by the wrist.[…] ‘Let me go’ said Janet.[…] All this time he was nuzzling her<\/strong> ear and I<\/strong> was showing my distaste by shrinking terrified into a corner, one eye on the party.[…] enfolding us<\/strong> in his powerful arms (emphasis added 45). \u00a0How can Joanna be observing Janet talking and then refer to her as part of herself? \u00a0<\/p>\n

After this section, I was left wondering if they in fact are just one woman inhabited by many. \u00a0Come to think of it, Cal even acknowledges this morphing when he says to Jeannine on page four, “The vanishing woman [referring to Janet]. That’s you.” \u00a0She doesn’t deny it. \u00a0Just for the sake of experimentation, I can’t help but try out the theory that they are actually one woman. \u00a0I have heard it said that the four woman on Sex and the City<\/em> aren’t really four distinct women, but rather alter egos of Carrie: Miranda, the career-driven one, Charlotte, the uptight prude, and Samantha the over-sexualized woman. While the stereotypes don’t align perfectly with\u00a0Joanna, the fiercely independent 1970’s feminist,\u00a0we have Jeannine, the mild-mannered woman waiting to marry; Janet, the futuristic Whilawayean who challenges all gender stereotypes; and Jael the warrior. \u00a0So instead of Sex and the City<\/em>,\u00a0couldn’t these women in The Female Man<\/em> be parts of Freud’s theory of the id? If I had to label the id, the unconscious pleasure or need of instant gratification, it may be Janet in her sexual desires for other women, or her Jael in her animalist tendencies. \u00a0The ego, whose job is conscious and ready to mediate between the id and superego, may be Joanna as she tries to explain society to Janet. \u00a0 And the superego, who seeks to act in socially appropriate ways, may be Jeannine confined by her expectations to her family, to herself, to society to marry, to make something of her life. \u00a0Again, not a perfect fit, but it might prove to be useful in our discussions. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To the question about Women in Technology: \u00a0<\/p>\n

Here is a NYT piece on Marissa Mayer, 33 year-old first female engineer for Google and now VP of search product and user experience. \u00a0I thought the angle of this piece was fascinating. \u00a0It didn’t just report on her work, but dabbled into the personal, including what her apartment looks like, the talk shows on which she appears, her hobbies, her Yelp interviews, etc. \u00a0Mayer herself seems to be spearheading her own publicity, but I find it fascinating. \u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/03\/01\/business\/01marissa.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1<\/p>\n

Here is another article about her from a San Francisco paper:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.sanfranmag.com\/story\/adventures-marissa<\/p>\n

After these articles appeared, Gawker ruthlessly tore Mayer and the articles apart. \u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/gawker.com\/5162532\/marissa-mayer-googles-biggest-failure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am struck my the ever-shifting pronoun usage in this book. \u00a0I can’t keep up–I, me, us, we. \u00a0Who are these women? \u00a0Clearly they have separate identities, but often they appear as one. \u00a0 In part three, Joanna takes Janet to a party; this section appears to be laden with one of the first instances … Continue reading Freud, Sex in the City, The Female Man, and Google<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[49,13,51],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-9-female-man","tag-sex","tag-technology","tag-the-female-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}