In the Zone

In the Zone

The “Arts of the Contact Zone” by Mary Louise Pratt is a speech that she wrote and presented as an MLA member. In it she analyzed a letter written by an unknown but literate Andean to King Philip III. She defines “social space where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relation of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” (519) as contact zones. The letter was written in 1613 but was never read by anyone until 1908.

Jus as Mary Louise Pratt I read and analyzed a piece of text and I would like to introduce you to it. This is an essay named “Sex, beauty and beast” by Celia Kitzinger. In her essay, she makes it clear that a male perception of women is both unacceptable and degrading. The essay itself is divided into four parts. The first part is an introduction and lets us know that throughout history women have been looked down on and not thought of as equals but rather as one of the animals not good enough to be on the same level as men. Aristotle once compared women to animals and used that argument as an excuse not to include women in politics. She lists other ways women have been abused by making fun of and put down.

Her essay is pointing these things out not only to men but also to women who might think this is all true (and let us be honest, we all know there are women like that out there). She also included a poster that says, “It takes up to forty dumb animals to make a fur coat. But only one to wear it”. On the poster itself shown a woman with a bloody fur coat. Statements like that come from Animal Rights Activists, but they advocate “sexism”.

The other three parts are Complicity, Pornography, and