Alexander Response

Transgender Rhetorics (re) Competing Narratives of the Gendered Body by Jonathan Alexander

Summary: In the article Transgender Rhetorics (re) Competing Narratives of the Gendered Body, Jonathan Alexander discusses transgender, queer and feminist theories.  Alexander attempts to show how transgender theories can inspire and change different methods in which it can effect and/or complement feminist writings. Also to explore how gender can create and form social construction. He argues how these constructions can lead to growth and expansion in our analysis of stories we tell about and in relation to gender. He uses many examples from students and authors to show and support his theories. These examples bring a new perspective to writing and reading for example one piece explored how writing in a different voice(voice of a woman) can enable others and yourself as a writer to expand and explore writing in relation to gender in a safe, productive and discerning way. Alexander argues how queer text can lead to questioning writing and its fundamentals in regards to authorship, authority and new perspectives. He argues for the competence of knowing people are different and may voice in a different form based on their gender or mix. He uses his classroom and example to explore writing from different shoes and how this changes the way in which your message is conveyed and what message itself is delivered.  He argues writing from a different gender allows students to see the limitations of the group as well as be able to explore/discuss the embodiment of that group. Alexander wants us to not leave the rhetoric behind but think about the rhetoric of gender in a more relevant way of our society.

Synthesis: I think that this article relates a lot to Wardle’s article about joining a discourse community.  They both discuss topics and issues revolved around our society and the communities within it. The articles discuss the means in which you can join, understand and interpret essentially. They also talk about the engagement and alignment with others that are in the discourse community. I think they both do very well at discussing and focusing on how you work with and join a different discourse community. Alexander uses these ideas when he discusses his students writing from a different gender perspective. Also how writing in this way allows you to join their embodiment and the overall conversation of that community which happens to be different genders.

Questions for Journaling and Discussion:

6. These concepts are restricted because we ourselves restrict them from the day we are born. As we grow up from birth the role and ways you act through your gender are formed and guided by society. Society doesn’t mean to be controlling but it is how we are as people; we conform and believe in common ideas and beliefs. These ideas are then thrust down to the next generation and so forth but also just in the overall image society gives us based on gender or masculinity and it is opposite. There are millions of examples of this around us all over. Think about magazines and all the pictures in it, or maybe even more specifically the articles. Also another great example is the difference between men dolls and girl dolls how the men dolls are soldiers and the women dolls are princesses.

7. They help to reinforce these ideas because when the students write from a different perspective they themselves show and reveal stereotypes. These students unknowingly use and express stereotypes for genders because they didn’t even know it was a stereotype it was just what they have come to learn and know through their interaction and growth with society. They also reinforce stereotypes because many of them fail to know where to begin or express ideas and topics from a completely different perspective than their own.

Applying and Exploring:

3. He explains how this can allow students to explore different ways to write or express themselves. Also how this can allow the students to speak from a new voice. Students can gain a lot from this because it opens up and broadens their horizon in regards to writing and constructing arguments or ideas. Another notion is that it will enable students to write from a different perspective or gender when its needed or could maybe better benefit a piece. I think this holds true for exploring and writing from any different society or minority you know of. This is because all have their own culture, ideas, beliefs and ways of speaking or expressing themselves. When you can gain an understanding of this it allows you to write in a way that everyone can understand or maybe a way that can better suit a society you are not from. I think that learning new voices is important and essential to reaching your full potential in writing and rhetorics.

Opinion on Article: I thought that this article was extremely long and pretty confusing. The article used words and formed sentences in ways that sometimes left me confused or made me read back over. Also I thought that the article was a lot longer than it needed to be I felt at times he was repeating what he said before except in regards to a different gender. This article was not a favorite of mine and it bored me at times but I think I learned more about making and joining the conversation of different communities and especially in this case different genders. With all this being said I do think that he made some very strong points on expand and exploring our thinking and perspectives. I lastly will say the examples were very interesting to read and really helped confirm his work to me.