I found the readings for this week very thought provoking in terms of rebellion and gender roles. Upon reading the story of Catalina de Erauso, I was convinced that I had just read an amazing rebellion story. Girl, run away at 15, pretending to be a man, killing people including her own brother, and a classic womanizer, convinced me of her being a rebel. I then examined the story more closely, and came to realize that while part of her story was about a rebellious teenager, there’s the other part where she fights as a soldier to push colonialism. Her story is not as black and white as I initially thought, and this is a lesson that I’ve already learned a couple times in this class. While she spends her entire story lying and hiding her identity, she also spends that time serving the state, and perpetuating colonialism. She talks greatly about her battles against the “Indians”, and how she slaughtered many of them, bestowing such honour on her war stories. I’m curious about what she thought of her battles. Did she realize that she was rebelling by being an imposter, while genuinely serving, or did she not really care or notice the irony in her actions?
The introduction of casta paintings this week brought on a new insight for me about the racial, social hierarchy that was made up. The most interesting aspect of the paintings to me, was the assumptions that you see being depicted through the paintings. The assumptions made about different types of families based on their racial mix may include: relationships (how close the family is), wealth (what jobs they’re working, how nice their houses are etc.), how they like to express their culture (the clothes they’re wearing), and more. Today, this would be considered a backwards way of thinking for many reasons. First of all, we don’t judge how close a family is based on their race, we judge by how they would interact with each other. Wealth is also something not often judged by race these days, unless you’re looking at wealth from a socio-economic point of view. The casta paintings, so clearly organized in a highest to lowest type manner depict an old, outdated way of thinking about race and families. A question I have regarding this topic of categorization is what do we judge first about a person today? How do we categorize people?
Hi Jenniah in response to your first question I think sadly we first judge people on their appearance; the clothes they wear, if they have any tattoos, how they style their hair and in the case of some people their race. We make assumptions about a person based on very little information and this causes us to act in a certain way. For example if there is a large man that is heavily tattooed walking along the street we may choose to cross onto the other side of the road. If we hear a certain accent that may also result in us potentially changing our language to a more formal register or more slang depending on the impression we want to give of ourselves.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting question you pose about Catalina de Erauso. I think that she did realize that she was rebelling as an imposter, though she probably wouldn't consider herself one. In her eyes, she probably sees what she was doing as something to be proud of. As a soldier from Spain, her ruthless colonizing actions probably did not seem odd. Also taking in account how the king honoured her after reading her memoir, and how the Pope granted her permission to continue dressing as a man. As a result, she may have described her life as "successful."
ReplyDeleteHowever, this of course, is just speculation.
Thanks for your post!
Hey Jenniah!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your response to this week’s reading, and I found your question quite interesting. I agree with what Serena said about appearances and how that can change the way we behave, and maybe this was one of the long term effects that the Casta Paintings have on society today. Things like tattoos and messy/dirty attire can set off red flags for a lot of people, but why? As kids, we were constantly taught at home of things we should be wary of because of our safety which has now translated to the biases we carry around everyday.
Hi! I thought your question was very interesting. Looking at the Casta paintings, we can see that humans are always making assumptions and categorizing. Superficially, I think initial most assumptions are usually based on appearance. Alike the Casta paintings system, I definitely think were is systematic categorization still here today. Maybe less overt- there are still classifications in our society whether we like it or not and its present all around us. I feel like there are still remnants of the system today in different ways. - madeleine k.
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