DU Women & Gender Studies Program

Mark your calendars! 10/6, 6:30 pm

Abstract: This talk explores the FBI’s audio surveillance of Black freedom agitators through its production of s*x tapes involving prominent southern activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. It begins with a history of audio surveillance of Black intellectuals to understand racial listening and it’s relationship to racial liberalism. It proceeds with a discussion of the ways that the s*x tapes from the civil rights era marked a unique technological collision of race panic and s*x panic that amplified how racial desire built anti-Black repression. With a particular focus on discourses of emasculation and impotence, the paper charts how anti-Black voyeurism resists and promotes what Ghassan Hage has labeled “paranoid nationalism.” It concludes with an assessment about the relationship between white eavesdropping and state entrapment as modes of utilizing technology to bridge white s*xual repression, particularly during J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure at the FBI. Using FBI files, Johnson administration records and interviews, and memoir, I suggest that the civil rights s*x tapes provide a unique space to understand how racial intimacy flamed anti-Black animus in the FBI even as racial intimacy in the Department of Justice helped to inaugurate cooperation between white governmental officials and Black activists, particularly in the U.S. South.

We are creating a list of resources for LGBTQIA+ individuals. This is a resource to receive online therapy specific to these issues. Check it out!

Online Therapy Resources for the LGBTQ+ Community - Online Therapy How to find therapy resources for people in the LGBTQ community. Find the best resources, information, therapy, and support for LGTBQ+ people and issues

Springfield Followers! We wanted to let you know about an awesome book group that is happening in the Spring Semester. Though it is on Drury's campus, everyone is welcome!

A group of faculty will be facilitating discussion of Kate Manne's Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. We will run the discussion sessions in person, and also on ZOOM. Our discussions are informal, and will cover at maximum 20 pages of text each week. As a member of the larger public, you need not commit to attend each week -please feel free to attend as your schedule allows. Past sessions have included staff from across the university and staff from disciplines such as religion, physics, computer science, education, business, history, and languages. We also very regularly have attendees from the broader Springfield community. The conversations are truly rich, informative, and a lot of fun. No background in philosophy or religion is needed. Just bring your curiosity and an open mind.

If you are interested, send an email to Chris Panza ([email protected]) and you will be added to the email list.

Spring 2022 Meetings:

Who: Everyone (Faculty, Staff, Students, Community members) is Welcome

When: Every Monday, from 12 - 1pm

Where: In Person (location TBA) or by ZOOM (from your office, or your car, or your kitchen, or wherever!)

The Book: Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny can be viewed here - https://www.amazon.com/Down-Girl-Misogyny-Kate-Manne/dp/0190604980

Here’s a blurb to better understand Manne’s project:

Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with s*xism, and why is it prone to persist—or increase—even when s*xist gender roles are waning? Down Girl is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it's primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the "bad" women who challenge male dominance. And it's compatible with rewarding "the good ones," and singling out other women to serve as warnings to those who are out of order. It's also common for women to serve as scapegoats, be burned as witches, and treated as pariahs.

NY Times published pieces of a photo project on people who don’t fit the gender binary by Lola Flash. Flash wanted to show the subjects of the pictures “in the light of joy and beauty, with images that say “This is who we are and what we look like - can you give us some space?” Flash wanted to create pictures that people could see themselves in. Super cool project and story.

[PS - Drury students get a free subscription to The NY Times. So if you’re hitting a paywall, be sure to take advantage of those resources.]

Opinion | We Don’t Fit Your Gender Binary. Deal With It. It’s wonderful to be alive during this time. But it’s worth remembering what it was like before, how it still is in much of the world.

Superman comes out (!!) in the newest iteration of the classic superhero comic.

Jonathan Kent, son of Lois Lane and Clark Kent, is the new Superman and will have a same-s*x relationship in the comics.

Superman Comes Out, as DC Comics Ushers In a New Man of Steel The new Superman, the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, is concerned about the environment, does not shy away from politics and will soon begin a romantic relationship with a male friend.

This just made me laugh this morning. So I pass it on to all of you.
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-female-octopuses-males.html?fbclid=IwAR1XjDLJOn9MabWIQLd5Yn6xwxk6wC9xTz1YBzLH0W9Rv_xqPG2bLYuOHzU

Female octopuses observed throwing stuff at males harassing them A team of researchers from Australia, Canada and the U.S. has found that female octopuses sometimes throw silt at males who are attempting to mate with them. The group has written a paper describing their observations and has posted it on the bioRxiv preprint server.

Local business offers free menstrual products in the bathrooms! Aunt Flow is a company that works with businesses, schools, etc. to provide free menstrual care products to patrons and employees. So cool to see that there are so many using this company for such a necessary component of human life!

“Far and wide, in public and private, workers are choosing personal boundaries over professional ambitions. Rather than comply with mandates to return to the office, they are quitting the job altogether.”

This phenomenon COULD lead to a fundamental change in the system of work. Or it could impact future employability of these brave souls, who might be disproportionately women. Only time with tell.

It is slightly comforting to see the response of people to the recent case of Naomi Osaka making a stand for her mental health and humanness at the French Open.

Opinion | We’re Finally Starting to Revolt Against the Cult of Ambition Naomi Osaka has given a public face to a growing, and long overdue, rebellion.

"Creating Gender-Affirming Spaces Literally Saves LGBTQ Kids’ Lives"

Creating Gender-Affirming Spaces Literally Saves LGBTQ Kids’ Lives A Trevor Project survey found that LGBTQ youth who had at least one accepting adult were 40% less likely to report su***de attempts in the past year.