A friend whom I’ve known since college has launched a new blog with her husband, in which they offer their perspectives on gender and popular culture. They’ve only been at the blog, The Two Body Solution, for a short time, but they’re both English professors and have been writing about this sort of thing in other venues for a while. So far, the blog has covered topics such as The Bachelorette, Sarah Palin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Urban Dictionary, the running of the bulls, obesity, and the “he-cession.”
They explain:
This is a blog about gender and American popular culture, written by two English professors. We both see the world through the lens of cultural studies, which means that we think that things like advertising, television, mainstream films, popular music and the internet are worthy of serious academic study and commentary. Our goal here is to focus on the way gender is constructed in the mass media. . . .
Our two body “solution” is to offer two distinct yet coordinated narrative voices, sometimes individually, sometimes collectively. Professor Moss (a woman) may comment on masculinity and Professor Bean (a man) may comment on femininity. Our point is not to provide a woman’s opinion on femininity and a man’s on masculinity (or at least not always to do so) but rather to open up gender for discussion on any terms we think are appropriate. We may post together, and usually we will comment on each other’s posts, but we also want to create a space in which each of us is free to stake out her own territory. We see this as a joint venture, but one that still allows for individual commentary.
You will find that each of us has a distinct way of positing a problem, analyzing a text, etc., but you will also notice the ways in which we see our shared, and often perplexing, culture similarly.
We talk a lot about gender in the LGBT community, but we certainly don’t have an exclusive on such matters. I think, in fact, that our understanding of gender can only benefit by including all perspectives, LGBT and not. Profs. Bean and Moss are also among the strongest LGBT allies I’ve ever met, in any case. If you’re interested in issues of gender and culture, check them out.
Not exactly a ‘gender’ comment, but relevant regardless, since it concerns tradition, and the way we in so-called ‘straight’ society toss around terms, definitions and hetero-normative traditions so casually. I discuss this very myopic behavior in my blog post today,(7/18/09) about the potentially corrosive effects of clinging to traditions that are no longer wholesome or useful. BTW, if anyone’s mum still cuts off the ham end, I’d love to hear about it!
Thanks for reading.
BE