Oh yes and I am also going to add pics to my "killer" image, to kind of complete it. "Killer" "Mother" "Daughter" "Sister" "Aunt" "Friend" etc...

Ok, so I just want you to know that I have thrown away thinking and I am just going to shoot. Some of the pics that I emailed you were sketchy but I am just shooting what i like. I know that I was saying that I wanted to move on from war, but i was really thinking about what Katherine said, about she liked the war thing cause it was a focus. I just think that most of my photos were not intricate enough and not complete. I am not saying that I am not going to venture into just aggression, but really I am just doing what you said and working. But anyway, the photos of me behind the mounds of clothes is obviously a play on the whole war thing. I want to talk about women and identity and how they are looked at like house wives and what not. Then these "laundry women" are fierce and aggressive and protecting our country. Thinking i am going to use photoshop with these images.... put them in the forest, almost like a post-traumatic stress ting, the laundry room turns into the battlefield.

Anthony Goicolea

So I really enjoyed the lecture on Thursday! I really enjoyed his work. Plus, it was nice to hear from an artist that seemed closer to being a 'student,' plus he wasn't like a completely crazy artist.... Sometimes they scare me and make me wonder if i need to step up my craziness (haha). Anyway, I really liked how he explored identity and coming of age issues. Not only was the work visually appealing, but I really connected with his exploration of kind of a catholicism and rituals/institute type of world. Being catholic myself, and attending a catholic school I feel as though I have a personal insight into what he was talking about (even though I'm a girl) maybe even more than he meant, considering he didn't actually go to a catholic or boarding school. I also related to him when he said that he felt like "there wasn't much being said about boyhood and progression...," that is how i kinda feel about women and aggression.
Visually, the many points of views in his images really makes his images that much more interesting. His combinations of landscapes and people really creates a great tension in his work, forcing your eye to wonder and stay interested.
I also really liked how in his detention series he made everyone identical and therefore there was no difference between the victim and victimizer. This has really influenced how i think i want my work to be.

On the lash

By Megan Lane and Tomiko Newson BBC News

The days of women sipping a gin and bitter lemon in the pub while the men knocked back pints are long gone. Women are drinking more, and getting violent with it.

Kirsten Maile is bright, attractive and eloquent. She wants to study to be an underwater diving photographer. She is also on probation for ABH - actual bodily harm - after she rammed a bottle into a girl's face.

Nor is it the first time that she has lashed out while drunk. She has twice been charged with common assault, and claims to have "wrapped a girl's ponytail around my hand and smashed her face against a basin".

Kirsten has now sought help

"It doesn't seem that big a deal to me. You see it on the TV, on the streets, loads of fights. Every time I have ever hit someone, I've been drunk. It's easier to lash out, harder to hold on."

She knows that it may just be a matter of time before she loses her rag again. And if she gets caught, she'll go to prison.

Dr Jon Cole, of Liverpool University's School of Psychology, says that while alcohol doesn't make people more aggressive, it stops us making sensible choices: "You make the easiest choice, which is often aggression."

VIOLENT WOMEN SURVEY 9% physically attacked by woman who seems drunk 41% seen woman who seems drunk attack someone else 60% say number of women getting drunk and aggressive is higher than five years ago 31% say it's about the same ICM surveyed 1,129 people aged 18-34

In a survey for BBC Three's Bashing Booze Birds, almost one in 10 people aged 18 to 34 say they have been physically attacked by a drunk woman. And 41% say they have seen a woman who appears to be drunk attack someone else.

Kirsten knows alcohol triggers her short fuse, but believes there are other factors.

"I grew up watching people around me using alcohol as an escape route. There was aggression in the house; my father and his girlfriend physically fighting, constantly arguing. Me and my father, me and my mother arguing down the phone. One big argument."

Kirsten has now sought help for her problems with alcohol and aggression.

A new study and survey done by GameDaily.com says that 60% of parents ban their daughters from playing games at a hardcore level whereas only 37% ban their sons. The study suggests that the social norm is that women should not be associated with activities that are violent like hunting and sports. The idea is that video games are synonymously known as being violent. This is because the top games in America are games that are not marketed towards girls. They key demographic is still 18-24 year old males.

Funny Fact

More men than women were found to commit suicide after killing their spouses. (Wolfgang 1967)

It has been conjectured that perhaps when women kill their husbands they feel justified in doing so and therefore feel less guilty than their male counterparts.

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead,
And when she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid. By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This was quoted in a book I am reading (Women and Violence), the following paragraph says:
This rhyme which is found in many children's books, and which is recited to little children, reflects the expected behavior of females in our society. Little girls and also women need to be sweet, cherubic, and good. when they deviate from these role expectations, they are considered to be very, very bad, even horrid. It is true that females are highly under-represented in crime in the United States. Perhaps as a result of the fact that female criminals are in the minority or perhaps because women are not considered the important people in our society, there has been very little written about the female offender. In 1968 it was suggested that one chapter would be all that was needed to present the available information on the nature and origins of female criminality.

Hum...

Hum..... so many of the images that I find concerning women and aggression have sexual undertones..... Hum.....

someone else with opinion like mine

Aggressive Women

This has happened so many times:

I am in a meeting at which a woman scientist is discussed (for whatever reason), and she is criticized for being "aggressive".

I object.

My colleagues think I am biased and possibly irrational, and that my response is some knee-jerk reflex to Defend Scientific Womanhood no matter what.

My opinions about everything else are not taken very seriously because I have demonstrated that I am not objective.

Criticizing someone for being aggressive is a cheap way to undermine them. What does it even mean? Is being aggressive always bad? If someone is so aggressively competitive that they will step on everyone in their path, including students and puppies, and cast aside all consideration of ethics to achieve scientific glory, then OK, I think that is a bad thing. However, that is very far from the case in every example in my personal experience, including the most recent one.

This insidious phenomenon has been discussed before by me and many others: women who demonstrate self-confidence and comprehensive knowledge of their research/science are seen (by some) as aggressive. I should mention that it is not just men who criticize women for this; women also criticize other women for being aggressive, and no, I am not misinterpreting something that was meant as a compliment.

The recent example that has me so angry today involves a case in which an extremely smart, friendly, personable, and interesting woman was severely criticized for being aggressive. I was so surprised at this absurd statement that I laughed out loud. I asked for clarification, thinking at first that the comment wasn't meant to be as critical as it sounded or perhaps that I had missed some important information somewhere, but no such luck. I think my response was calm, reasoned, yet forceful -- perhaps even aggressive! -- but, whether I was effective or not (clearly I was not), why was I the only one objecting?

And another thing, since I am ranting:

In this meeting, a woman was described as glib, and this was again meant as a criticism. I said to the maker of the glib-comment: I would describe her as very articulate and well-spoken about a wide range of topics, showing great depth and breadth. Where do you draw the line between glib and articulate? My colleague said OK, you're right, she is very articulate. I said And that's a good thing, right? Yes, we all agreed that being articulate is a good thing. Maybe I won that point, but I didn't change whatever underlying reason made that colleague describe someone as glib rather than articulate in the first place.

I hate it when I underestimate the insanity of my colleagues. I am quite cynical, but I think I need to recalibrate my cynicism for some of this committee work.

This semester, I am on more committees than is good for my sanity. I still like to think that it is important that I am there to make people defend their stupid sexist statements, however ineffective I am at changing their opinions, but perhaps I just think that because the alternative is difficult to accept.

I just really think that most women are confused during our current time in society.

Response

So after reading and digesting this information, It started to make me think first artistically. The information about humans expressions and the overall clues as to how one can identify aggression or feelings of aggressions (like through looks, being flustered, etc.) made me think of how these could be portrayed on the camera. Not that I hadn't already had this in my mind, but this made me think more simply about the next photos I take. Much like how you (paul) were saying about catching the moment or the expression in a situation. Also I really like how they were talking about aggression in adults being a learned behavior. This, I feel is very true and then I applied this thought specifically to women. Times are changing now, but for many years women were told to be 'ladylike,' gentle, sensitive, caregivers, lovers, and its why even now I can hardly find any serious amount of information concerning women and aggression. So, no wonder girls or women's forms of aggression is so different than mens'. I mean men have always been told to 'let it out' or be violent, etc. It is no wonder that women tend to play more mind games than men, and even with men. It is a learned behavior. And now with women finally really lashing out and being 'like men,' people are still shocked. But I have always heard women talk about how they just don't understand or were jealous how men could be mad a each other and then slug it out, then it was over and they were buddies again. That's been foreign to us (women) for so long. But even though we are different, we are all still human. And I myself have wished that I beat the shit out of someone during different instances in my life and have urges today to have a violent burst, instead of holding it in. The stereotype is that women cry so much more than men because of our emotions, etc... Maybe its because we have been and are confused, angry, and have learned to let our feelings out with tears...instead of with our fists or violent acts. Because even now (during this time in society) when I am really fucking angry I don't lash out, but cry my anger and frustrations out, because I still feel like I need to keep composure and am supposed to be loving and gentle. Why? This is kinda pissing me off right now as I am writing about it.... hey maybe I'll go cry (haha).

Readings

So I was reading about aggression in general and found this paragraph segment of particular interest. " Emotional responses are characterized by heightened physiological arousal reflected in muscular tensions and a particular facial expression. In the case of human anger, one can typically observe a flushed face and either agitated motor movements or a stiffened, tense posture. Violent aggressive acts resulting in pain and destruction do not necessarily accompany anger. There is evidence that anger in adults is relatively infrequently accompanied by aggressive acts and that anger man or may not imply a desire to inflict injury.
It also states that Darwin recognized that the major function of emotions for animals and humans is one of communication....(like, approach me or stay the fuck away from me communication). To continue... It is being said that the connection between anger and inflicting harm is not automatic. Also, Most of the situations that make adult humans angry do so as a result of previous experience. While the biological patterning of anger can be observed in human infants, the capacity of particular stimuli and situations to evoke anger in humans is usually learned.
Konrad Lorenz, a pioneer in the study of ethology and a Nobel Prize winner, defined aggression as the fighting instinct in the beast and man. He conceived of aggression in terms of a biologically based, instinctual system that derives energy from organismic processes independently of external stimuli or provocation. The aggressive energy builds up, as it were, until discharged by an appropriate releaser. In the absence of an appropriate releaser, the aggressive energy will eventually be discharged spontaneously or in response to an inappropriate stimulus.