Hammad shows love as resistance in many of her poems. She talks about lovemaking but intersperses images of violence and struggle throughout the poem. In my group in lecture last Wednesday, we all had different ideas of what feminism meant. Thus I'm not sure how I would define it, but I think of feminism as a conscious effort to resist patriarchy. This means fighting for gender equality, ensuring that women are not discriminated against, and empowering women to believe that they deserve the same things men do. However, the idea of feminism becomes harmful if it is something that holds a negative connotation. For example, if feminists are seen as ugly women without boyfriends or significant others, then certain women may be less inclined to define themselves as feminists and may actually try to go against what feminists are fighting for just so that they do not get associated with feminism.
I saw the theme of love as resistance throughout the entire book of poems, and especially in Hammad's "love poem." As Jennifer said, she mixes sexual imagery with the subject of her poem. She talks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and uses the gruesome image of "the israeli army shoots children in the head." Hammad says she wants to hide those children within her in "an act of desperate love."
I thought the the theme of feminism was a little more subtle to me throughout the book, but I felt it in the poem "rocks off" when Hammad describes a woman gets stones thrown at her and becomes stronger because of it.
Hammad shows love as resistance in many of her poems. She talks about lovemaking but intersperses images of violence and struggle throughout the poem. In my group in lecture last Wednesday, we all had different ideas of what feminism meant. Thus I'm not sure how I would define it, but I think of feminism as a conscious effort to resist patriarchy. This means fighting for gender equality, ensuring that women are not discriminated against, and empowering women to believe that they deserve the same things men do. However, the idea of feminism becomes harmful if it is something that holds a negative connotation. For example, if feminists are seen as ugly women without boyfriends or significant others, then certain women may be less inclined to define themselves as feminists and may actually try to go against what feminists are fighting for just so that they do not get associated with feminism.
ReplyDelete-Jennifer
I saw the theme of love as resistance throughout the entire book of poems, and especially in Hammad's "love poem." As Jennifer said, she mixes sexual imagery with the subject of her poem. She talks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and uses the gruesome image of "the israeli army shoots children in the head." Hammad says she wants to hide those children within her in "an act of desperate love."
ReplyDeleteI thought the the theme of feminism was a little more subtle to me throughout the book, but I felt it in the poem "rocks off" when Hammad describes a woman gets stones thrown at her and becomes stronger because of it.
-Patrick